The nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services comes at a pivotal moment for public health policy. Americans’ trust in public health institutions is at an all-time low, while the promise of rapidly advancing biotechnology is at an all-time high.
It is unfortunate that Kennedy seems a poor steward of both. His vaccine skepticism seems designed to relitigate public health battles of the past, while his distrust of the medical profession and pharmaceutical companies could imperil new drug discovery and approval. While the right has long questioned federal health initiatives, Kennedy’s nomination — alongside a slate of other science skeptics in key health roles — augurs a more consequential change than a reshuffling of political appointees: the Republican Party has rejected modern science. The Senate should reject this nomination due to the clear harm Kennedy would do to the nation’s health.
Rapid advancements in biotechnology promise exciting innovation in pharmaceuticals, alongside enormous potential risks. This is especially true with the development of artificial intelligence tools for drug discovery. This will be a pivotal time for the Food and Drug Administration, as the number of new drugs and novel therapeutics they have to approve dramatically increases. For example, the FDA made history in 2023 by approving the first CRISPR-based gene-edited drugs to treat sickle cell anemia. The agency will have to innovate and modernize to keep up with scientific developments.
It’s also an important moment for public health. In the wake of the COVID pandemic, trust in government health agencies has eroded. Partisanship has infected discussions of public health as climate change and dual-use technologies exacerbate the risk of future pandemics. Other than some modest internal reform at the Centers for Disease Control, the Biden administration did not give priority to fixing the structural issues that led to a shaky initial federal government response to COVID. Rebuilding public trust while balancing future pandemic risk would be a challenge for any incoming administration.
Unfortunately, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is ill-suited to fulfill his department’s critical dual mandate to advance biomedical innovation while protecting Americans from disease. Kennedy’s unfounded skepticism of vaccines leaves America in danger of missing out on breakthrough drugs and treatments while leaving us vulnerable to diseases of the past. His strong opposition to the weight loss drug Ozempic also betrays a reflexive anti-progress attitude poorly suited to the coming acceleration of drug development. Kennedy also seems uninterested in future pandemic prevention, reportedly saying, “We’re going to give infectious disease a break for about eight years.”
Kennedy’s anti-vaccine activism warrants particular attention, given its grave real-world consequences. During a 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa that left 83 people dead, Kennedy’s organization, Children’s Health Defense, helped spread misinformation that contributed to vaccination rates dropping from 60% to 31%. Though Kennedy later claimed he “had nothing to do with people not vaccinating in Samoa,” he had visited the country months before the outbreak, supporting local anti-vaccine activists and suggesting the vaccine itself might be responsible for the deaths. Children’s Health Defense also funded the viral conspiracy film “Plandemic,” which falsely claims that influenza vaccines can cause COVID, and that the virus was somehow “manipulated.” That’s in line with his musings that COVID may have been deliberately engineered to target “Caucasians and Black people” while sparing “Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”
Kennedy may have a public health crisis waiting for him if he is confirmed. The United States currently faces its largest-ever outbreak of H5N1 bird flu:57 people and 689 herds of cows have tested positive for the virus. The most troubling news from the ongoing outbreak is the two patients, a man in Missouri and a child in California, who tested positive without any known ties to infected animals. A bird flu pandemic could cause catastrophic harm, and the speed and transparency of the current response do not induce confidence. Kennedy is poorly suited to lead this response given his promotion of raw milk consumption, which is currently being recalled for contamination with extremely high levels of bird flu virus.
Some of Trump’s other health nominations have similar involvements with pseudoscience. Like Kennedy, Dr. David Weldon, Trump’s nominee for CDC director, believes the measles vaccine causes autism. Dr. Mehmet Oz, the president-elect’s nominee for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, has a well-documented history of promoting questionable medical treatments and products on his television show. A 2014 study in the British Medical Journal found that nearly half of his medical recommendations either lacked evidence or contradicted medical research.
Anti-vaccine paranoia on the right predates Trump. State legislatures, particularly in Republican-governed states, have already expanded vaccine exemptions and limited public health powers over the past decade, while Project 2025 proposed paying damages to all medical professionals who were dismissed due to the CMS vaccine mandate, effectively undermining established public health protocols and potentially setting a dangerous precedent for future health crises. It also calls for expanding federal religious exemptions for both taking and administering vaccines.
Trump has proved reluctant to tout the main health policy success of his first term: Operation Warp Speed. A Progressive Policy Institute report found that the COVID vaccines saved 2.9 million lives, avoided 12.5 million hospitalizations, and saved $500 billion in hospitalization costs. This was an enormous success of government collaboration with the private sector, and it is very telling that the former president is shying away from claiming this victory.
The nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. isn’t just a concerning personnel decision — it represents a dangerous turning point in American politics. While vaccine skepticism and distrust of medical institutions have long simmered on the fringes, their embrace by a major political party marks a stark departure from evidence-based public health policy. This rejection of scientific consensus comes at a particularly perilous moment: as we face evolving threats from bird flu, climate change, and emerging pathogens, while simultaneously standing on the cusp of revolutionary biotechnology breakthroughs. The Senate must reject this nomination to protect our public health institutions at this critical moment for America’s scientific future.
