Kennedy's "Make America Healthy Again" agenda has in the past year upended long-held vaccine policies, left a clear mark on national dietary guidelines and led to a public fallout with organizations who were once deep collaborators with federal health guidance.
Before coming into the position, Kennedy vowed to not "take anyone's vaccines away from them." Yet under his rule, childhood vaccine schedules have shrunk and recommendations for certain shots have come to include fewer people.
Kennedy's supporters say his actions on vaccine policy have been gentle, if anything.
"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," Mark Gorton, president of the MAHA Institute, told The Hill, adding that the past year has been "transformative."
"I personally would like to see every vaccine pulled from the market until it can be shown to be both safe and effective using randomized control trials," added Gorton.
His critics argue Kennedy's actions in office have not been motivated by a mission to make America healthier, but to prove himself as having been right all along.
"The sort of crazy stuff that's happened with vaccines is all geared for him to be able to say, 'I'm not kooky. I told you so," said Demetre Daskalakis, senior public health advisor at Wellness Equity Alliance and former director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
Daskalakis was among a group of leaders at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who resigned last year in protest of what they said was overt political interference in their work.
"A lot of this has been surface work that actually has no impact on America's health," Daskalakis said when asked if Kennedy neared his goal of making the country healthier. The former CDC scientist opined the past year under Kennedy has been defined by "narcissism and chaos."
Read the full report at The Hill.
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