Let’s not mince words here: it’s been a really rough year for public health and science in the U.S. And much of the blame can be placed squarely on America’s scandal-ridden antivaxxer-in-chief Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Since taking over HHS in February, RFK Jr. and his allies have taken a sledgehammer to the country’s public health infrastructure, emboldened medical charlatans, and set government agencies on wild goose chases to support his pet theories, while downplaying actual threats to people’s health.
There’s a laundry list of ways that RFK Jr. has actually made America less, not more, healthy. But here are some of the most egregious failures he’s presided over in 2025 (at least there are only three more years left to go??).
Anti-vaccine flunkies
In June 2025, RFK Jr. unilaterally dismissed all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), the panel of relevant experts organized by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to help guide vaccine policy in the U.S. He then largely restocked the ACIP with his ideological allies, many of whom have a track record of misrepresenting vaccine safety or have directly profited from testifying against vaccine manufacturers.
The new ACIP has been a boon to the anti-vaccination movement ever since. Over the course of three meetings this year, their evidence-free recommendations have pushed for the removal or weakening of several vaccines. This month, in its biggest change yet, the ACIP voted to overturn a longstanding recommendation that all children in the U.S. be vaccinated against hepatitis B starting at birth—a safe, decades-old policy that has helped dramatically lower rates of the viral disease in the U.S., especially among children.
Though many doctors and health organizations will refuse to abide by these dictates, it’s likely more children will be exposed to nearly vanquished diseases like hepatitis B as a result. And the worst is yet to come. Some ACIP members, RFK Jr., and even President Donald Trump himself have made no secret about their desire to rip apart the childhood vaccination schedule as a whole.
The collapse of the CDC
Kennedy’s hijacking of ACIP also accelerated the collapse of the CDC.
In late August, RFK Jr. arranged for the firing of former CDC director Susan Monarez, just four weeks after she had taken the job. Monarez has since publicly testified that she was let go for refusing to sign off, without review, on the ACIP’s recommendations (the CDC has the final word on adopting any ACIP votes). Following her firing, several senior CDC officials resigned in protest, feeling as though they could no longer endorse, even implicitly, RFK Jr.’s agenda.
“Federal public health has now been compromised—it has been taken over by ideology, it’s been weaponized,” Demetre Daskalakis, one of these officials and former director of CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told Gizmodo in October.
The CDC is now a shadow of its former self, and its current handlers certainly seem willing to indulge RFK Jr.’s every whim. In October, acting CDC director Jim O’Neill indicated that he wanted to break up the combined measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, a longtime goal of the anti-vaccination movement.
Hollowing out government-funded science
The CDC might be the worst-off federal agency under the reign of RFK Jr., but it’s hardly been great for anyone.
Kennedy and the Trump administration have implemented sweeping job and funding cuts across the government’s science-related branches this year, particularly the National Institutes of Health. RFK Jr. has also signed off on terminating billions in federal grants to health departments and research scientists, though sometimes without even appearing to know about it.
Many of these cuts were carried out on the recommendations of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), purportedly as part of a streamlining of government priorities and resources. But Kennedy’s personal ideology is driving some cuts as well. In August, the HHS announced it would revoke almost $500 million in funding earmarked for mRNA vaccine research. Kennedy justified the move by falsely claiming that mRNA vaccines are not safe and effective compared to older vaccine technologies (never mind the fact that Kennedy has attacked many older, non-mRNA vaccines as unsafe, too).
These cuts have already had real-life impacts. Hundreds of clinical trials, collectively involving 74,000 patients, have been impacted by the loss of NIH funding this year, while many young scientists have lost the resources needed to move their promising careers forward.
Helping bring back measles
RFK Jr.’s disdain for vaccines already seems to be paying off—for the germs, that is.
This year, there have been nearly 2,000 reported cases of measles spread across 47 outbreaks, while three people have died so far. It’s the largest case count seen since the viral disease was locally eliminated in the U.S. a quarter century ago. Though it’s not a sure thing just yet, the country is on the cusp of losing its official measles-free status (it will depend on whether some outbreaks can be genetically linked to the earliest Texas cases that occurred in January). Other vaccine-preventable childhood diseases such as pertussis have also surged this year.
To be clear, Kennedy isn’t solely to blame for the return of measles. Many parts of the world have experienced a resurgence of the disease lately, thanks to flagging vaccination rates, including our upstairs neighbor, Canada. But his policies and rhetoric are strengthening the anti-vaccination movement and worsening people’s access to vaccines. And it’s certainly worth wondering if the current outbreaks could have been contained better by a CDC that hadn’t lost many of its employees and federal funding.
If 2025 is any judge, he’s unlikely to significantly change tack even in the face of measles officially returning to the U.S. as feared.
During the large-scale outbreaks in Texas earlier this year, Kennedy begrudgingly endorsed the MMR vaccine. At the same time, he touted scientifically unsupported treatments for measles, including cod liver oil pills rich in vitamin A. Unsurprisingly, his advice probably put more kids in harm’s way, since local doctors reported treating several cases of measles-infected children who overdosed on vitamin A.
Blaming Tylenol for autism
In September, Trump and RFK Jr. made a bombshell announcement: They claimed there was a potential association between acetaminophen (better known by the brand name Tylenol) use during pregnancy and autism. While the federal government was more cautious in its wording, Trump wasn’t. During the press conference, Trump repeatedly yelled at pregnant women to stop taking the drug and proclaimed: “Taking Tylenol is not good—I’ll say it, it’s not good.”
The trouble is, the evidence for any causative link between acetaminophen and autism is weak at best, while the most rigorous studies have failed to support such a connection. Medical experts, health agencies, and nations around the globe soundly rejected the Trump administration’s scapegoating and have continued to endorse the drug as a safe painkiller and fever reducer for pregnant women (like any drug, though, it should be taken only as needed).
That isn’t stopping the Trump regime from moving forward with its plans to blame acetaminophen (and possibly vaccines, of course) for autism, even if they are scrambling for more data to back up their claim. In early October, during a White House cabinet meeting discussing the link, RFK Jr. stated, “It is not proof. We’re doing the studies to make the proof.”
False leads
The autism/acetaminophen debacle illustrates one of the more frustrating aspects of RFK Jr.’s approach to public health.
Kennedy often spouts strange ideas that have little connection to reality, such as the supposed dangers of chemtrails or an epidemic of children with bad mitochondria. Other times, however, he points to real issues but offers completely worthless solutions that waste everyone’s time. While the federal government has trumpeted Tylenol as a cause for autism, for instance, HHS has actively cut funding toward research examining more concrete drivers, such as our genetics or environmental toxins.
And just last month, RFK Jr. stated that he would fund a study examining the potential link between mass shootings and antidepressant drugs like SSRIs. Mass shootings are a growing public health threat that merit a serious response, but the research collected so far has found little evidence that SSRIs are playing even a minor role in causing these acts. The money and time spent conducting this SSRI study almost certainly could have been spent better elsewhere studying actual risk factors.
Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again Initiative has also celebrated hollow victories like pushing Coca-Cola to sell more of its cane sugar version in the U.S., as if high amounts of cane sugar are magically less unhealthy to consume than high-fructose corn syrup. Since the company isn’t even replacing the original version, it’s possible MAHA’s free advertising will actually convince people to drink more soda than ever!
There are many real and complex public health problems facing the country today. But nothing about Kennedy’s track record suggests that he will meaningfully confront these problems. And we will all be worse off for it.
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