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In his first year as the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has significantly altered longstanding public health practices. He proudly presents these changes as significant achievements under his “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) initiative. However, while his actions have been praised by some, others have described them as chaotic, with many supporters eagerly anticipating further reforms.
Kennedy’s appointment followed a contentious confirmation process that revealed divisions within the Republican Party regarding his controversial views. Nevertheless, the Senate confirmed him as HHS Secretary on February 13, 2025.
His leadership has sparked strong opposition from prominent medical organizations, members of Congress, and even some of his own relatives. Yet, at the same time, he has gained admiration from critics of conventional healthcare practices.
As a member of the storied Kennedy family, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took an unconventional journey to his current role. He was once one of the most prominent vaccine skeptics in the nation. After abandoning his 2024 presidential campaign, he aligned with President Trump during his reelection bid.
By joining Trump’s campaign, Kennedy brought with him a significant voter base that has long distrusted traditional medical institutions, including those opposed to vaccinations and critics of the corporate food industry.
Mark Gorton, founder of file-sharing platform LimeWire, was a major backer of Kennedy’s 2024 presidential campaign. He is now president of the MAHA Institute, an organization with no official ties to Kennedy, but which works to support the MAHA agenda.
Asked to describe Kennedy’s first year in one word, Gorton said it has been “transformative.”
Vaccines
Before he was confirmed as HHS secretary, Kennedy, who once claimed there is “no safe” vaccine, vowed he was “not going to take anyone’s vaccines away from them.”
Instead, he has made them harder to get.
In the year he’s been in office, the number of recommended childhood immunizations has shrunk, long-recommended vaccines have been delayed, and guidance for who can get certain shots has become limited.
Kennedy’s first major move on vaccine policy occurred when he unceremoniously fired all 17 sitting members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), claiming “a clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science.”
He went on to fill the empty seats with several known vaccine critics and skeptics. The remade committee voted in favor of limiting recommendations for the annual COVID-19 vaccine and delaying the infant dose for the hepatitis B vaccine.
In January, the CDC reduced the number of recommended childhood vaccines from 17 to 11. This week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) refused to file an application from Moderna for its mRNA influenza vaccine candidate. This came months after the HHS canceled millions in funding for mRNA research.
“I think they are an excellent first step. There’s still a lot of work to be done.” Gorton said of Kennedy’s actions on vaccine policy.
“For the most part, I think the actual change to people getting vaccines in this country is fairly limited. The vaccines are still available. People that still want them can get them,” he added.
During his confirmation process, Kennedy vowed he would usher in a transformative era of “radical transparency” at HHS.
“The one thing that he has been is transparent in terms of what his mission is with infectious diseases and with vaccines. And I think, you know, frankly, they’ve been harmful and capricious,” said Demetre Daskalakis, the senior public health adviser at Wellness Equity Alliance and former director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
But when asked to sum up Kennedy’s first year in office, Daskalakis said, “Narcissism and chaos.”
Autism
One of Kennedy’s core focuses for years has been finding the cause of autism. He has often given credence to the since-debunked theory that vaccines could be linked to autism, refusing to let it go when confronted by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) during one of his confirmation hearings.
He has publicly denounced the idea that autism could be linked to genetics, insisting there must be an environmental trigger. The current consensus among autism researchers is that the condition stems from a combination of genetic and environmental influences.
Soon after he was confirmed, Kennedy vowed to find the cause of autism by September. A definitive cause did not materialize by then, with him and Trump claiming from the Oval Office that the common over-the-counter pain reliever acetaminophen might be linked to the condition, despite no new evidence to support their claims.
Kennedy would go on to say the following month that there is not “sufficient” evidence to back up the claim that acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, causes autism.
The secretary’s crusade against autism has persisted.
Kennedy appointed 21 new members to the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) in January, several of whom have publicly questioned the consensus that vaccines do not cause autism.
“The newly constituted IACC represents a complete and unprecedented overhaul, with no continuity from prior committees and a striking absence of scientific expertise,” Autism Science Foundation President Alison Singer, who previously served on the IACC, said when the new appointments were announced.
The panel has historically been chaired by the director of the National Institute of Mental Health. But Boston psychiatrist Sylvia Fogel, one of the newly appointed members, was chosen instead. She later told The New York Times, “I don’t know how I was selected to be chair, to be perfectly honest.”
Kennedy’s rhetoric surrounding autism has triggered alarm among those in the autism community, particularly when he has referred to the condition as something that “destroys families” and said children with autism will never contribute to society, with the HHS later clarifying he was specifically referring to those with severe autism.
Gorton pushed back on these criticisms, saying, “There is nobody who has been a greater champion of the family of kids with autism.”
When asked about the recent IACC appointments, Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist and former member of the Biden transition team’s COVID-19 advisory board, said in a briefing, “They are advocates of scientific therapies and interventions that are not scientifically based.”
“And that’s been a major theme of the appointments to advisory committee members,” he added. “There are people who aren’t science-based and making recommendations of unproven treatments.”
Food
One aspect of the MAHA agenda that has drawn some support from both Kennedy’s critics and supporters is the push to reform food standards in the U.S.
He has long railed against additives and ultra-processed foods and promised to end what he has called “war on saturated fats.”
Along with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Kennedy led a push to restrict recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) from buying foods like soda and candy.
In April, he announced an initiative to phase out artificial, petroleum-based food dyes, though this hinged on voluntary commitments from food manufacturers.
While Kennedy’s actions on food may seem smaller when compared to his moves on vaccines, Gorton of the MAHA Institute said the messaging itself is significant.
“We finally have a government that’s saying, ‘Eat food that makes you healthy, not eat food that serves the interests of Big Ad and Big Ag and Big Food. I mean, that’s revolutionary,” he said.
Last month, Kennedy unveiled updated Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) for 2025-2030, an upside-down pyramid that placed an emphasis on whole foods. The federal government is required to update the DGA every five years.
Despite Kennedy’s aim to stop the demonization of saturated fats, the recommendation to limit saturated fat consumption remained consistent from the previous DGA. The new guidelines, however, encouraged full-fat dairy consumption, a common source of saturated fats, and loosened previous guidance on limiting alcohol consumption.
“It is … one of two bright spots under his regime; that is this emphasis on cutting back on ultra-processed food, cutting back on sugar, salt and eating more plant proteins,” Emanuel said of Kennedy’s food reforms.
“It’s not completely good, because he’s emphasizing more red meat, which we know causes heart disease and early deaths,” Emanuel added. “He’s emphasizing not eating seed oils, which is not a good thing, but in general, reducing ultra-processed foods is a positive for the American public.”
Split from mainstream medicine
During Kennedy’s tenure, the mainstream medical community has often diverged from the federal government, with major organizations publicly breaking away from newer guidance and recommendations.
The first cracks, which were rare under previous administrations, appeared when the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) boycotted an ACIP meeting, citing the removal of itself and other liaison organizations from committee work groups.
Both the AAP and the American Academy of Family Physicians later released vaccine guidance contradicting new federal recommendations.
Weeks after the CDC announced its new, reduced immunization schedule, which the AAP called “dangerous and unnecessary,” the organization released its own schedule, notably keeping the vaccines that were dropped by Kennedy.
When the Trump administration came out strongly against Tylenol, claiming that pregnant women should try not to take the medication, organizations like the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine forcefully spoke out against the assertion.
And just this month, the American Medical Association (AMA), which represents more than 270,000 members, said it was launching its own “evidence-based review process” of vaccine safety and efficacy for the next respiratory viral season.
When announcing its initiative, the AMA specifically cited the current state of the ACIP, saying, “That system has now effectively collapsed.”