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In April 2025, Kennedy promised to phase out all petroleum-based synthetic dyes from the nation’s food supply in order to restore “gold-standard science” and “earn back the public’s trust.” Since then he has made little headway and has walked back tough talk about bans on dyes in favor of voluntary commitments from the food industry while deregulating food labeling to broaden the products that can claim to contain “no artificial colors.” Faced with industry opposition, Kennedy is proving weak.

RFK Jr is hyping peptides and promising changes to FDA rules that would make some unapproved peptides legally available from compounding pharmacies, despite concerns about their safety. His claims that the FDA “illegally” changed regulations for compounding pharmacies are not true. Kennedy is pushing the FDA to adopt an evidence free and potentially dangerous peptide policy.

For National Public Health Week, we look at Secretary Kennedy’s claims to be “restoring trust” in public health. Unfortunately, he is doing the opposite and weakening America’s scientific, medical, and public health systems. Under his watch, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has terminated at least 75 scientific advisory committees and elevated the voices of unqualified, conspiratorial, and conflicted individuals. Kennedy is destroying technical knowledge and expertise at HHS and using "public trust" as his excuse for doing so.

When Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to encourage the domestic production of the controversial weedkiller glyphosate, Kennedy’s MAHA supporters were angry. Kennedy has waffled in his messaging about glyphosates and whether they should be regulated. Glyphosates are a rare example where the Trump administration has blocked Kennedy from pursuing MAHA goals.

RFK Jr said in January that it may be a "better thing" if fewer children are vaccinated against influenza. In fact, multiple studies have shown that influenza vaccination protects children against severe illness, hospitalization and death, including the CDC's own data and studies. A March 16 judicial ruling has put the CDC's new flu vaccine guidelines on hold. But Kennedy continues to sow doubt in order to restrict access to life saving flu vaccines.

Kennedy said he was ending the “war on women” by removing box warnings about the risks associated with menopausal hormone therapy. He wildly exaggerates MHT benefits and stokes conspiracy theories by blaming doctors for historical caution.

Secretary Kennedy frequently says that Americans were healthier and had fewer chronic diseases in the1960s but the data are mixed and in some ways Americans are healthier than their grandparents. The goal of the Secretary of Health should be to make America one of the healthiest countries in the modern world, not to revert to a mythical past.

Kennedy visited Samoa in 2019 when the Samoan government was restarting its childhood MMR immunization program. At his confirmation hearing in 2025, Secretary Kennedy assured Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) that his trip to Samoa "had nothing to do with vaccines," but recently discovered emails prove Kennedy lied. Kennedy wanted data for a ‘natural experiment’ in Samoa to see how children would fare against the disease without vaccines.

Secretary Kennedy has repeatedly challenged the safety of mifepristone, one of two drugs used in most abortions. Hundreds of studies using decades of data have conclusively shown that mifepristone is safe, but Kennedy is following the anti-abortion playbook by raising unfounded concerns to decrease abortion access.

Kennedy wants to ban gender affirming care for children. He says transgender care “fails to meet professionally recognized standards.” He called gender-affirming care “malpractice.” The reality is that gender-affirming care is a legitimate, well-established, multi-disciplinary branch of medical practice supported by decades of research.

The 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans resurrected the defunct USDA food pyramid from the 1995-2000 guidelines and turned it upside down in order to highlight animal proteins and fats and de-emphase grains. The White House tweeted an ominous picture of RFK with the caption “We are ending the war on protein.” There was no war. Americans eat more than enough protein. It is a Whopper to claim, like Secretary Kennedy does, that we need to consume more meat or fat.

RFK has claimed for years that vaccines are not tested for safety, which is nonsense. Childhood vaccines are held to very high standards by the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control. For the Secretary of Health to badmouth his agencies’ work on safety is a dereliction of duty.