Under the Trump administration, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. became Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) in February 2025. RFK Jr. promised radical transparency and to end the chronic disease epidemic. HHS is the largest federal agency with 82,000 employees and a two-trillion-dollar budget. Supporters of “MAHA” or “Make America Healthy Again” have endorsed two of the three new department leader appointments. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya was confirmed as the Director of the NIH, and Dr. Marty Makery was confirmed as Director of the FDA. The CDC Director, Susan Monarez, was not endorsed by MAHA supporters. HHS influences the food supply, nutrition, water and air quality, drugs and vaccines, medical research, and healthcare.
Food and Nutrition
- HHS is designing a new food pyramid based on whole foods in the effort to reduce obesity.
- HHS has directed the FDA to remove harmful chemicals in foods. The US adopted a GRAS loophole or “generally recognized as safe” policy which allowed food companies to introduce over 10,000 chemicals in food products, while European nations have only 400 chemicals allowed in foods. This policy will eliminate food dyes in two years linked to behavioral problems in children. Kennedy met with leaders from Kraft Heinz, General Mills, Tyson, Kelloggs, Smuckers, and Pepsi.
- Kennedy, along with the Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, has visited schools and daycares to emphasize how healthy school lunches impact academic performance.
- Kennedy endorsed a West Virginia bill which eliminates sodas and sugary drinks from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in order to prevent diabetes in low-income families. Kennedy stated that diabetes is costing the US more than the military budget.
- Kennedy introduced “Operation Stork Speed” to remove heavy metals, corn syrups, and seed oils from infant formula.
- Kennedy advocated against vaccinating poultry for “avian flu” because of the disruption to the food supply caused by the similar poultry vaccine for Marek’s disease, which makes the virus more virulent.
Water & Air
- Kennedy instructed the CDC to stop recommending the addition of fluoride to drinking water due to its neurotoxic properties which lower IQ. Utah passed the first statewide ban on fluoride. The office of CDC’s Division of Oral Health, the main promoter of water fluoridation in the U.S. government, has been dissolved.
- Kennedy is working with EPA Administrator, Lee Zeldin, to discuss environmental health.
- Kennedy is working with Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Scott Turner, to address air quality in housing and indoor contaminates.
Drugs and Vaccines
- Kennedy testified in a Congressional Health Committee hearing against prescribing Ozempic to children for weight loss. He said that for the cost of a government Ozempic program, the US could provide three organic meals a day and a gym membership to individuals.
- Peter Marks, the top vaccine official at the FDA, resigned. He did not align with Kennedy’s call for transparency and high standards in research. Most vaccines are tested on a small number of children, for a short duration, without a true saline placebo in the control group. Kennedy aims to restore gold standards in research.
- Kennedy postponed the February meeting of Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). He directed the CDC to create a web tool which discloses the conflict of interests of ACIP members who work for the vaccine industry and also vote to recommend new vaccines for children.
- Kennedy canceled the March meeting of the Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) which would have selected the strains of the 2025-2026 influenza vaccine. The influenza vaccine program is in question after a Cleveland Clinic study of 53,000 adults in the 2024-2025 flu season reported that the influenza vaccine has negative efficacy. Vaccinated individuals had a 27% higher risk of contracting influenza than unvaccinated individuals. This study has created more controversy over vaccine mandates, especially for employment in healthcare jobs and the military.
- The CDC will create a new vaccine injury unit, with the stated goal of improving surveillance and treatment of adverse events.
- Kennedy has been very engaged in the measles outbreak (600 cases) in Texas and other states, and the first HHS Secretary to advocate for Vitamin A as a treatment. There have not been any school expulsions or revocations of religious exemptions like in prior measles outbreaks in New York. Measles is endemic, and there are measles cases every year with near zero fatalities.
- HHS declared that the opioid crisis will remain as a national emergency as the leading drug related cause of death and as a national security threat.
Special Populations: Military, Children with Disabilities, Indians
- Kennedy met with the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, on the health of the military force.
- Kennedy met with the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Doug Collins, on healthcare for veterans.
- Kennedy met with autism families and vowed to study the cause of the epidemic. Kennedy is the first HHS Secretary to acknowledge that the autism rate is growing dramatically and is a true epidemic by the data, while his predecessors held the claim of “better diagnosis” for the alarming increases. Kennedy selected respected researcher David Geier to conduct a study of vaccines and autism.
- Kennedy met with Down Syndrome families to discuss their unique health challenges.
- Kennedy met with Indian Health Services (IHS) and commented how detrimental processed foods are for Indian health. Kennedy met with tribal leaders at Native Health in Arizona to highlight a program with locally sourced, unprocessed foods.
For MAHA supporters, Kennedy’s leadership role is an exciting opportunity to correct health policy from decades of industry capture in food and medicine. For pharmaceutical companies, pesticide companies, and processed food companies, this is a panicked time to engage in overt and covert ways to influence the public to keep the status quo of a sick nation. In one example, influencers on social media have already been outed for their compensation from public relations firms for the American Beverage Association to oppose the removal of sugary drinks from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). But what stands to make the greatest impact in Kennedy’s first year is his vow to uncover the cause of the autism epidemic which now affects 1 in 31 children in America. Kennedy’s post on April 17, 2025, declares,
“The autism epidemic has now reached a scale unprecedented in human history because it affects the young. The risks and costs of this crisis are a thousand times more threatening to our country than COVID-19. Autism is preventable and it is unforgiveable that we have not yet identified the underlying causes. We should have had these answers 20 years ago.” Under Kennedy’s leadership at HHS, the public can expect the profitable agendas of “body diversity,” “gender diversity,” and “neurodiversity” to end in the next four years due to their lack of scientific evidence.
