RFK, Jr: the First Year
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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy has distinguished his first year as cabinet secretary with policies guaranteed to grant great physical and mental anguish. Certain of his disinformation, in just one year, Kennedy has proudly positioned the Health and Human Services department to be a generation behind in innovative research. Unfortunately for the American public, Kennedy’s most notable trademark is his penchant for replacing established science with junk science. Kennedy has distinguished himself as the person least capable of managing and directing the Health and Human Services Department.
Kennedy is the coarse politician who kept his runaway arrogance in check during his Senate confirmation. Kennedy knew he had to promise trust and transparency to be confirmed, and thus promised the Senate Confirmation committee that he would steer the Health and Human Services department toward being one of gold-standard science, compassion and competency, under his watch.
Kennedy finds the best way to operate Health and Human Services is to go on “vibes.” Forget the medical expertise found in the medical professional community. Kennedy pays attention to the “vibes” he receives from those he encounters to be a more reliable harbinger for his HHS staff. Kennedy ignores the reality that his “vibes” process completely shuts out the knowledge and proficiency in the medical community. But Kennedy knows better.
Another revelatory moment regarding Kennedy’s mindset came when the Heritage Foundation was celebrating Kennedy’s first year this past January, 2026. When asked what role Artificial intelligence might play in dispensing medical advice, Kennedy replied, “Trusting the experts is not a feature off democracy, and it’s not a feature of science. It’s a feature of totalitarianism, not of democracy.”
Ten days after he was confirmed, Kennedy decided that the road away from trust and transparency was the road to take. Kennedy directed the Health and Human Services department to rescind a fifty-four year old policy of public comments and participation from health service professionals whenever new rules and regulations were to be enacted: eliminating the knowledge and expertise of health professionals who may have hampered his vision of Make America Healthy Again. (There was also a firing rampage Kennedy executed within the Health and Human Services department; for those not terminated, they resigned).
As the summer of 2025 approached, Kennedy sent a pre-recorded interview to the officials of the Global Alliance Vaccine Initiative (GAVI) informing them that the $1.6 billion pledged to GAVI through the Biden administration would not be forthcoming. Kennedy stated that there were safety concerns. “In its zeal to universal vaccination, it has neglected the key to issue of vaccine safety,” Kennedy affirmed.
As justification for his decision, Kennedy referenced a methodologically distorted study that showed an increase in female mortality after receiving the diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) vaccine.
Additional research was completed by other companies, including another study by done by the same researchers, and all failed to replicate the findings, rendering the study useless.
Since the exemplary work accomplished by GAVI did not suit Kennedy’s vision, Kennedy dismissed GAVI. Since GAVI began in 2000, 1.2 billion children worldwide have been vaccinated; saving an estimated 20 million lives in the world’s poorest countries. GAVI’s work has halved the childhood mortality rate in 78 countries, representing about 50 percent of the world’s children.
It was a vicious and vindictive move by Kennedy: unearthing a discredited study to deny children vaccines that will save their lives. “Of all the global programs that have been cut,” said Dr. Atul Gawande, who has overseen global health for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), “ this will likely mean more deaths than any other.”
As Health and Human Services Secretary, Kennedy decided to close programs at the National Institute of Health (NIH) that study the effects of of air pollution. The HHS Secretary decided not to release a report establishing a link between alcohol consumption and cancer.
The Food and Drug Administration withdrew warnings of potential harm from consuming products that included raw milk and chlorine dioxide, which were falsely labeled as treatments for autism
By the end of 2025, twenty-six states found it necessary to reject the official guidance on vaccine safety that was newly revised by Kennedy. Kennedy’s revised vaccine schedule and recommendations were basically too flawed and far too harmful to be used.
The politicization of the National Institute of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration has kept the country’s well-being at risk. Kennedy threw away millions of dollars intended for mRNA research, dementia and diabetes.
Kennedy has decided to make Health and Human Services data – statistics that were made public to scientists and doctors for their work – unavailable. Priorities have shifted: needed data on food safety, maternal mortality and drug overdoses (to name just a few) are gone. Now, if scientific researchers would like to access the statistics on how many people have died after being denied the measles vaccine, the data is not there.
In 2000, measles had reached elimination status. Strong vaccination rates was the reason. The need to consider the community’s well-being, instead of the whine for personal choice and personal freedom–was the logical priority that prevailed and kept the country on a healthier track. We are now susceptible to contracting measles, not in small, insular communities as was once believed, but in every possible place people frequent during their everyday lives: schools, museums, fast food restaurants and upscale restaurants, and shopping malls throughout the country. Measles is back.
Perhaps the most egregious and most obscene action Kennedy has aggressively pursued is his pursuit of a $1.6 million grant being given to Danish scientists Christine Stabell Benn and Peter Aaby. (The same team whose DPT study was discredited, yet still held as valid by Kennedy.) This pair of researchers’ purpose is to find out the hidden adverse impacts of vaccines; essentially, conducting research that has previously been established.
What makes their proposed study grossly unethical is the research’s requirement that infants in Guinea-Bissau, Africa, where the research will be done, will be denied the hepatitis B vaccine at birth, leaving them susceptible to severe illnesses later in life. Kennedy is accepting of this fact: to vindicate his position on vaccines, he is willing to pay $1.6 million to scientists who have been scorned in the international health community, to prove he was right all along about vaccines. Kennedy is very willing to endanger 14,000 African children in one of the poorest countries in the world to complete research that no longer serves a need – except for Kennedy.
At the beginning of 2026, the Trump administration deemed it better if Kennedy concentrate on nutrition and leave the vaccines alone for a while – it’s for the good of the midterms. Thus, on Super Bowl Sunday, Kennedy asked for the help of Mike Tyson to kick off his EAT REAL FOOD campaign with a splashy commercial. Needless to state the commercial was devoid of facts and big on glamour to shine on the greatness of Kennedy’s work.
Kennedy inverted these very recognizable food triangle guidelines to nearly double the recommended amount of protein that has been previously recommended. For Kennedy, he is convinced that such increased amounts of protein are best found in red meat, which he feels is best found in the slabs of beef, pork and ground beef, that are pictured at the top of his triangle. There is a modest display of fruits and vegetables and some grains. But it’s the red meat protein that outweighs everything recommended.
What is alarming is Kennedy’s take on saturated fats. “Protein and healthy fats are essential and were wrongly discouraged in prior dietary guidelines,” stated Kennedy. We are ending the war on saturated fats.”
Saturated fats include fatty slabs of red meat, cheese, butter, lard, palm oil and coconut oil. Saturated fats are found in pizza, cookies and cakes. Cardiologists do not recommend a high usage of saturated fats; health guidelines generally recommend 10% or less. Simply out, saturated fats build up one’s cholesterol levels that will put one at risk for heart disease and a myriad of other diseases. Kennedy promotes saturated fats without limit.
However, there have been some very manly “meatfluencers” for the past few years on the social media network- including Kennedy himself. Representatives from the meat industry participated in the drafting of Kennedy’s revised guidelines and have found a welcome home in the Trump administration. Kennedy now pushes hard for the meat industry, dismissing and downgrading an independent scientific report that emphasized plant-based proteins instead of red meat.
Perhaps a spokesperson for the Health and Human Services Department said it best, “The Trump administration will no longer weaponize federal food policy to destroy the livelihoods of hardworking American ranchers and protein producers under the radical dogma of the Green New Scam.
There stands an irrefutable fact and reality challenging Kennedy’s plan: it would destroy the environment even further and faster. Increasing meat consumption entails destroying tremendous amount of land–including forests–thereby destroying ecosystems. More livestock for slaughter means a large increase in greenhouse gases to further pollute the air – thereby increasing the number of ill people.
EAT REAL FOOD is a frightening Kennedy push. Kennedy is touring around the country – making lots of photogenic television appearances with an apron on and talks to everyone he can about eating real food and if you do, you will never be sick again.
The reality of our days includes the near impossibility of feeding the world’s population while attempting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, along with saving the world’s forests. It is a matter of environmental survival; the meat industry does not have to increase profits.
Kennedy is excited about promoting his nutrition claims. His next step on his newest shakeup project is to have his dietary guidelines taught in medical schools. Possibly denying promised federal funds if the medical schools fail to comply.
