In a tumultuous year, US health policy has been dramatically reshaped under RFK Jr.
Since taking office in February, the health secretary has overseen a dramatic reshaping of the institutions he oversees, including laying off thousands of people and freezing or canceling billions of dollars earmarked for scientific research. He redrawn the government’s stance on issues such as seed oils, fluoride and Tylenol as part of his campaign against chronic diseases. He has also repeatedly used his authority to promote discredited ideas about vaccines.
The department’s rapid transformation has drawn praise from MAHA supporters, who say they have long viewed HHS as corrupt and untrustworthy and have been waiting for such a cut. Both Democrats and Republicans have applauded some of the agency’s actions, including efforts to promote healthy eating and exercise and agreements to lower prices on expensive drugs.
But many of the sweeping changes Kennedy has made to the department are raising serious concerns among doctors and public health experts.
“For at least the near or intermediate future, the United States will be hobbled and hollow in its scientific leadership,” said Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown University public health law professor who was removed from the National Institutes of Health advisory board earlier this year in a letter saying he was no longer needed. “I think it would be extraordinarily difficult to reverse all the damage.”
HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon denied any threat to scientific expertise at the agency and praised their work.
“The Department confronted long-standing public health challenges in 2025 with transparency, courage, and gold-standard science,” Nixon said in a statement. he said. “HHS will carry this momentum into 2026 to strengthen accountability, put patients first, and protect public health.” The overhaul comes amid broader uncertainties in the nation’s healthcare system, including the Medicaid cuts passed by Congress this year and the end of Affordable Care Act subsidies that have jeopardized insurance coverage for millions of Americans.
Here’s a closer look at Kennedy’s first year leading the nation’s healthcare agency:
Kennedy’s vaccine views ripple through ministry After years of publicly attacking vaccines, Kennedy sought to reassure senators during the confirmation process that he would not undermine vaccine science. But less than a year later, the health department has repeatedly pushed the limits of those commitments.
In May, Kennedy announced that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would no longer recommend COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children and pregnant women; this was immediately questioned by public health experts who saw no new data to justify the change.
In June, Kennedy dismissed the entire 17-member CDC vaccine advisory committee and later replaced him with several others, including vaccine skeptics.
This group has made decisions that have shocked medical professionals, including refusing to recommend a Covid-19 vaccine to everyone, adding new restrictions on combined vaccines against chickenpox, measles, mumps and rubella, and reversing a long-standing recommendation that all babies be vaccinated against hepatitis B at birth.
In November, Kennedy also personally directed the CDC to reverse its stance that vaccines do not cause autism, without providing any new evidence to support this change. While he left the old language on the site to keep his promise to Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, he added a disclaimer stating that it remained because of the agreement.
Public health researchers and advocates strongly reject the updated website, noting that scientists have thoroughly investigated the issue over decades of rigorous studies and all point to the conclusion that vaccines do not cause autism.
Kennedy has promised a wide-ranging effort to study environmental factors that potentially contribute to autism, and at an Oval Office event with Trump in September he promoted unproven and, in some cases, discredited links between Tylenol, vaccines and the complex brain disorder.
Kennedy restructures HHS with major staffing and research cuts Within two months of taking office, Kennedy announced a massive restructuring of HHS; this would close all institutions, merge others into a new institution focused on chronic diseases, and lay off approximately 10,000 employees, in addition to the 10,000 previously acquired.
While some of the efforts are still playing out in court, thousands of mass layoffs have been allowed to continue. Those and the voluntary departures have significantly weakened the sprawling $1.7 trillion department that oversees food and hospital inspections, health insurance for about half the country and vaccine recommendations.
Kennedy also fired or dismissed several leaders at HHS, including four administrators from the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration’s former vaccine chief and a director of the CDC he hired less than a month ago.
In addition to staff cuts, he also oversaw significant cuts in scientific research. This includes the NIH cutting billions of dollars from research projects and terminating $500 million in contracts to develop vaccines using mRNA technology.
Amid the cuts, Kennedy proposed or funded some new research on topics related to MAHA targets, including autism, Lyme disease, and food additives.
MAHA gains momentum despite some stumbles Kennedy began using the phrase “MAHA” on the campaign trail last year to describe her fight against toxic exposures and childhood chronic diseases, but 2025 is the year it became ingrained in the national lexicon.
The health secretary has made this central to his work so far in his tenure, using the MAHA brand to wage war on ultra-processed foods, pressuring companies to phase out artificial food dyes, criticizing fluoride in drinking water and pushing to ban junk food from the program that subsidizes grocery sales for low-income Americans.
The idea spread beyond Kennedy’s agency, even into the federal government.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared with Kennedy to encourage compliance with pull-up demonstrations. Transport Minister Sean Duffy worked with Kennedy in early December to announce $1 billion in funding at airports to install resources such as play areas and breastfeeding booths for mothers and babies. And Environmental Protection Agency administrator Lee Zeldin recently announced that he is working to unveil a MAHA agenda for his department that includes health-related goals.
Although MAHA suffered some administrative weaknesses, it gained widespread popularity among the American public. In May, for example, HHS faced scrutiny for publishing a MAHA report that included many citations to nonexistent studies.
But critics say it could be dangerous if the initiative includes calls to action that are not based on science, such as encouraging distrust of vaccines or promoting raw milk, which is much more likely to cause disease than pasteurized milk.
