RFK Jr. Keeps Earning That Rock Bottom Public Trust Rating: Public Health Project Newsletter

Is it too much to ask that — just for one week — Trump health secretary RFK Jr. stop eroding our public health safeguards? This was not that week.

Here’s the CliffsNotes:

For a third time, RFK Jr. has postponed a meeting of the U.S. advisory panel that determines what cancer screenings and other preventive health measures insurers must cover. It used to meet 3 times a year but hasn’t since last March, worrying doctors that the “HHS plans to dismantle the longtime group altogether,” which could leave many patients without access to life-saving preventative services.
Late last Friday, RFK Jr. quietly announced yet another dangerous anti-vax member of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) – Angela “StopTheShots” Farella – in keeping with the Trump administration’s desperate effort to “[downplay] their push to overhaul vaccine policy” that is deeply unpopular.
In reality, nothing has changed.
- STAT echoed what Protect Our Care has been saying all along: ‘Trump can’t break free from vaccine politics.’ Trump’s grifting anti-vax Surgeon General nominee Casey Means isn’t exactly helping to keep a lid on it.

5 months after the measles outbreak in South Carolina began – now exceeding 1,000 cases mostly among the unvaccinated — RFK Jr.’s CDC finally bothered to deploy a handful of staffers on the ground to assist. Protect Our Care’s Kayla Hancock questioned what took so long
: “It’s about damn time for the CDC to lend a hand with this historic measles crisis, but in the meantime, so much damage has been done with months of inaction and continued anti-vax propaganda from the Trump administration.”
- While measles vaccine misinformer RFK Jr. has not uttered a word about the worsening spread of the disease in now 30 states, NBC reports the outbreaks “are costing the U.S. millions of dollars” while “true losses can’t be counted.”
Ignoring the consequences of the administration’s anti-vax agenda appears to be part of a larger plan. A Trump DOJ lawyer actually argued in court this week that RFK Jr. has the right to push measles herd immunity
(i.e. – let countless unvaccinated kids get super sick and send health costs to the moon).
- It’s not just measles. CNN reports “Mumps also may be making a comeback”, while survivors of meningitis are speaking out against the “incredibly ill-advised changes that Kennedy and his allies in government have made to vaccine recommendations, more children and families are now at greater risk of meningitis and other severe illness and disease.”
- Even Donald Trump’s former Surgeon General is raising alarm over the administration’s assault on safe and effective vaccines: “The result has been predictable: lower vaccine uptake, more illness and more avoidable suffering.”
RFK Jr. continues to dubiously claim “Good food is not expensive” on his self-promotional road show, and if families can’t afford beef prices that are 15% higher than a year ago, he has a novel solution: just eat liver. Mmm, liver.
On Joe Rogan’s podcast, RFK Jr. repeated his completely debunked Tylenol-pregnancy myth, but now adds “it’s better than taking Ibuprofen or aspirin because of Reye’s Syndrome.” Rogan queried: ‘What’s Reye’s Syndrome?’ “I’m not sure exactly what it does,” admitted Trump’s Health Secretary blankly. Now STAT reports: “Across ERs, Tylenol orders for pregnant people dropped after health officials linked drug to autism.” Reminder: After RFK’s previous Rogan show appearance, ‘Newborn vaccination against hepatitis B declined’. Health misinformation to a mass audience is so dangerous, but acting dangerously with other people’s lives is just how RFK Jr. rolls.
RFK Jr.’s move to pack a federal autism advisory committee with anti-vax quacks earlier this year has now spurred prominent scientists to launch an independent autism advisory panel to counter the disproven autism claims espoused by RFK Jr. and his handpicked cabal of science deniers.
Former NIH scientists “run out by Trump” and RFK Jr. are speaking out about the consequences of the department losing “more than 20% of its workforce”. KFF reports: “Scientists say the departures harm the U.S.’ ability to respond to disease outbreaks, develop treatments for chronic illnesses, and confront the nation’s most pressing public health problems.”

All in all, a truly horrific week for public health, even for the Trump-RFK Jr. HHS. Every day, their actions confirm the latest warning from the world-leading medical journal The Lancet that: “The destruction that Kennedy has wrought in 1 year might take generations to repair”.

Kennedy may feel free to keep going ‘wild’ under Donald Trump, with his aggressive anti-science schemes, but it’s only decimated public trust in our health institutions – with RFK Jr. at the very bottom, according to a major new survey. Only “9% of Americans say they are very confident in RFK Jr,” raising an important question: Why hasn’t he resigned yet?

In The News

RFK’s Disastrous Tenure At HHS

Infectious Disease Outbreaks and Public Health Threats

Measles