The former environmental lawyer was propelled to the nation’s highest health office largely by the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement, a play on Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan. As health secretary, Kennedy wants to solve the chronic disease epidemic in the US, which plenty of doctors can get behind. The issue is that he aims to do it at the expense of infectious disease research. Therein lies the problem. Most people can agree when he says things like, “I’m supportive of vaccines” and “I want good science.” The trouble is that his definition of “good” is, well — let’s call it historically shaky. In March, he appointed a well-known vaccine skeptic to head a study on the long-debunked potential link between vaccines and autism.
So what’s next? Can RFK Jr. take away vaccines that are already on the market? It’s unlikely, but he doesn’t need to. Kennedy sits at the helm of the very department he’s been undermining for years. In that position, the power he has over vaccine policy isn’t limitless, but the changes he can make could ripple for decades.
