{"id":11129,"date":"2025-12-30T18:27:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T00:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=11129"},"modified":"2026-01-23T08:35:04","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T14:35:04","slug":"how-rfk-jr-upended-the-public-health-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2025\/12\/30\/how-rfk-jr-upended-the-public-health-system\/","title":{"rendered":"How RFK Jr. upended the public health system"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/health\/2025\/12\/30\/rfk-jr-hhs-secretary-vaccines\/\">Washington Post<\/a> Interviews with almost 100 people reveal how Kennedy, as health secretary, has reshaped the vaccine and broader public health infrastructure in less than a year. On his way to being confirmed as the nation\u2019s top health official, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.finance.senate.gov\/imo\/media\/doc\/responses_to_questions_for_the_record_to_robert_f_kennedy_jrpart2.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"promised lawmakers, opens in a new window\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">promised lawmakers<\/a>&nbsp;he would do nothing that \u201cmakes it difficult or discourages people from taking vaccines.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Almost 100 days into the job, amid rising measles outbreaks and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/health\/2025\/05\/14\/rfk-jr-congress-testimony\/\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"congressional scrutin, opens in a new window\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">congressional scrutin<\/a>y of his messaging on vaccines, Kennedy made clear behind the scenes that hewanted to reshapethe nation\u2019s immunization system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kennedy, the founder of a prominent&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/nation\/2024\/02\/21\/covid-misinformation-earnings\/\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"anti-vaccine group, opens in a new window\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">anti-vaccine group<\/a>, presented several top federal health officials witha new vision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cBobby has asked for the following changes,\u201d Kennedy\u2019s deputy chief of staff for policy at the time, Hannah Anderson, wrote to the officials in a May 19 email later reviewed by The Washington Post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Among his requestswas to replace the entire membership of an influential independent committee of experts that makes recommendations for how and when to vaccinate Americans. Kennedy alsoasked the panel to reconsider a long-standing recommendation that all newborns get a hepatitis B vaccine and revisit the use of multidose flu shotvials, which contain a mercury-based preservative.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Washington Post Interviews with almost 100 people reveal how Kennedy, as health secretary, has reshaped the vaccine and broader public health infrastructure in less than a year. On his way to being confirmed as the nation\u2019s top health official, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.&nbsp;promised lawmakers&nbsp;he would do nothing that \u201cmakes it difficult or discourages people from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-policy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11129"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11298,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11129\/revisions\/11298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}