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Tag: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

  • RFK Jr. broke vaccines promises made in Senate confirmation

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    One year after taking charge of the nation’s health department, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hasn’t held true to many of the promises he made while appealing to U.S. senators concerned about the longtime anti-vaccine activist’s plans for the nation’s care.

    Kennedy squeaked through a narrow Senate vote to be confirmed as head of the Department of Health and Human Services, only after making a number of public and private guarantees about how he would handle vaccine funding and recommendations as secretary.

    Here’s a look at some of the promises Kennedy made during his confirmation process.

    The childhood vaccine schedule

    In two hearings in January 2025, Kennedy repeatedly assured senators that he supported childhood vaccines, noting that all his children were vaccinated.

    Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) grilled Kennedy about the money he’s made in the private sector from lawsuits against vaccine makers and accused him of planning to profit from potential future policies making it easier to sue.

    “Kennedy can kill off access to vaccines and make millions of dollars while he does it,” Warren said during the Senate Finance Committee hearing. “Kids might die, but Robert Kennedy can keep cashing in.”

    Warren’s statement prompted an assurance by Kennedy.

    “Senator, I support vaccines,” he said. “I support the childhood schedule. I will do that.”

    Days later, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, declared Kennedy had pledged to maintain existing vaccine recommendations if confirmed. Cassidy, a physician specializing in liver diseases and a vocal supporter of vaccination, had questioned Kennedy sharply in a hearing about his views on shots.

    “If confirmed, he will maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ recommendations without changes,” Cassidy said during a speech on the Senate floor explaining his vote for Kennedy.

    A few months after he was confirmed, Kennedy fired all the incumbent members of the vaccine advisory panel, known as ACIP, and appointed new members, including several who, like him, oppose some vaccines. The panel’s recommendations soon changed drastically.

    Last month, the CDC removed its universal recommendations for children to receive seven immunizations, those protecting against respiratory syncytial virus, meningococcal disease, flu, COVID, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, and rotavirus. The move followed a memorandum from the White House calling on the CDC to cull the schedule.

    Now, those vaccines, which researchers estimate have prevented thousands of deaths and millions of illnesses, are recommended by the CDC only for children at high-risk of serious illness or after consultation between doctors and parents.

    In response to questions about Kennedy’s actions on vaccines over the past year, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said the secretary “continues to follow through on his commitments” to Cassidy.

    “As part of those commitments, HHS accepted Chairman Cassidy’s numerous recommendations for key roles at the agency, retained particular language on the CDC website, and adopted ACIP recommendations,” Nixon added. “Secretary Kennedy talks to the chairman at a regular clip.”

    Cassidy and his office have repeatedly rebuffed questions about whether Kennedy, since becoming secretary, has broken the commitments he made to the senator.

    Vaccine funding axed

    Weeks after Kennedy took over the federal health department, the CDC pulled back $11 billion in COVID-era grants that local health departments were using to fund vaccination programs, among other initiatives.

    That happened after Kennedy pledged during his confirmation hearings not to undermine vaccine funding.

    Kennedy replied “Yes” when Cassidy asked him directly: “Do you commit that you will not work to impound, divert, or otherwise reduce any funding appropriated by Congress for the purpose of vaccination programs?”

    A federal judge later ordered HHS to distribute the money.

    The National Institutes of Health, part of HHS, also yanked dozens of research grants supporting studies of vaccine hesitancy last year. Kennedy, meanwhile, ordered the cancellation of a half-billion dollars’ worth of mRNA vaccine research in August.

    A discredited theory about autism

    Cassidy said in his floor speech that he received a guarantee from Kennedy that the CDC’s website would not remove statements explaining that vaccines do not cause autism.

    Technically, Kennedy kept his promise not to remove the statements. The website still says that vaccines do not cause autism.

    But late last year, new statements sprung up on the same webpage, baselessly casting doubt on vaccine safety. “The claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism,” the page on autism now misleadingly reads.

    The webpage also states that the public has largely ignored studies showing vaccines do cause autism.

    That is false. Over decades of research, scientific studies have repeatedly concluded that there is no link between vaccines and autism.

    A controversial 1998 study that captured global attention did link the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine to autism. It was retracted for being fraudulent — though not until a decade after it was published, during which there were sharp declines in U.S. vaccination rates.

    This article first appeared on KFF Health News.

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  • Michael J. Fox and Harrison Ford on ‘Shrinking,’ Parkinson’s, and Donald Trump

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    Last January, Michael J. Fox received a presidential medal of freedom in recognition of his Parkinson’s advocacy work from outgoing president Joe Biden. In USA Today, he wrote about how the incoming Trump administration could help find a cure for the disease he was diagnosed with in 1991 at age 29. They’d be wise to take the actor turned advocate seriously: His Michael J. Fox Foundation has funded more than $2.5 billion in Parkinson’s research over the last 25 years, raising more than $100 million in research annually. “Our foundation directs more money towards Parkinson’s research than the federal government,” Fox tells Vanity Fair. When asked for an update on working with President Donald Trump a year later, Fox retorts, “He’s busy with Greenland. More pressing concerns, I guess.”

    If all goes to plan, Fox says he’ll soon meet with US Department of Health and Human Services head Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “I’m going to Washington next month and hopefully talk to Kennedy and find out what the government’s game plan is on addressing brain research in general and taking a more serious approach to some of these things that are soluble,” he says. “It’s just a weird disease. We always say genetics loads a gun and environment pulls the trigger. We’re trying to figure out what’s biological and what’s chemical.”

    In season three of Shrinking (which premieres on January 28), coping with a Parkinson’s diagnosis fuels Fox’s storyline opposite Harrison Ford, who plays a therapist living with the degenerative brain disease. At this point in the conversation, a stoic, but engaged, Ford interjects: “Michael raises more money for and has done more Parkinson’s research than almost anybody in the world.”

    Ford in season three of Shrinking.Kevin Estrada/Apple TV

    Image may contain Michael J. Fox Face Head Person Photography Portrait Adult Sitting Clothing Pants and Body Part

    Fox in season three of Shrinking.Courtesy of Apple

    “It’s a credit to our great people,” Fox replies. “It’s frustrating to know we’re putting everything we can into it, and it would be nice to have the government behind us, but it seems that they’re involved in other things that have less impact on peoples’ lives.”

    In 2004, Fox and Ford were photographed shaking hands at a charity event where Nancy Reagan advocated for stem cell research in finding a cure for illnesses like Alzheimer’s, which afflicted her husband, Ronald. “I’m sure I was very excited to see Harrison,” says Fox, glancing across the Zoom screen at a smiling Ford. “And Nancy Reagan—she was a force.” The former first lady was one of few conservatives at the time to publicly support embryonic stem cell research, which Republican lawmakers are still fighting to restrict at the federal level. Fox supports stem cell research in finding a cure for Parkinson’s disease. “For someone like Mrs. Reagan to step outside of political or ideological groupings and just speak to what she believes…is tremendously valuable,” he told reporters at the 2004 event.

    Image may contain Harrison Ford Accessories Formal Wear Tie Blazer Clothing Coat Jacket Suit and Person

    Fox poses alongside Ford and his wife Calista Flockhart at a 2004 charity event honoring former First Lady Nancy Reagan, who advocated for stem cell research in the study of diseases like Parkinson’s.Vince Bucci/Getty Images

    After playing the conservative son of former-hippie parents on Family Ties, then a know-it-all political strategist on Spin City, Fox returns to his TV roots in Shrinking, which last year earned Ford the first Emmy nomination of his career. Given Fox’s longtime friendship with series creator Bill Lawrence, whom he previously worked with on Spin City, the invite felt overdue. “It was a short and profane conversation,” Fox recalls. “I said, ‘You’re doing a fucking show about Parkinson’s with Harrison fucking Ford, and you don’t call me?’” Ford tilts his head back with a chuckle.

    “Well, I’m calling you now,” Lawrence said, to which Fox replied, “‘No, I’m calling you.” It was a fitting moment, as Lawrence has “a history of pulling me back out of retirement,” Fox says. “I did Scrubs [which Lawrence created] in the early ’00s after I’d retired from Spin City, and so I knew he’d make it happen. He always was a talented kid. Talented kid.” Fox shakes his head, “He’s what, 60 years old?” (Lawrence is 57; Fox is 64.)

    Although nearly two decades younger than a now 83-year-old Ford, both men, and their characters on Shrinking, grapple with their mortality. “We’re on the same shitty train to sucksville,” Fox’s character, Jerry, says to Ford’s character, Paul, as both men await Parkinson’s treatment. Later in the season, the curmudgeonly Paul finds renewed zest for his profession—and strategies for living with his diagnosis—when he provides therapy to other people with Parkinson’s disease, including Gerry. “The thing about therapy is it’s a talking cure, but there’s no talking cure for Parkinson’s, so those two worlds have always had an uneasy relationship,” Fox explains. “I couldn’t have gotten through Parkinson’s without therapy, but you find yourself educating the therapist as much as they’re educating you. You have to paint a picture of the ground you’re living on. And it’s very hard to explain to people.”

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    Savannah Walsh

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  • Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announces U.S. departure from the World Health Organisation and calls it ‘independence’ | The Mary Sue

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    On Jan. 23, 2026, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted a video on X announcing that the U.S. had formally completed its withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO). Weirdly enough, he framed the decision as a move to “reclaim our independence.”

    The Thursday move finalized a process initiated nearly a year earlier by President Donald Trump. Under WHO rules, a member state’s exit requires a one-year notice period, which the Trump administration triggered in early 2025. On Jan. 22, 2026, the U.S. government formally notified the WHO that the withdrawal process had concluded, ending U.S. funding, personnel participation, and governance involvement.

    But in his video statement, Kennedy framed the decision as a reclamation of sovereignty. He declared that the U.S. was leaving the WHO to “reclaim our independence” and free American public health policy from foreign bureaucracy and international power politics. Kennedy also argued that the organization no longer serves the American people and has drifted far from its original mission.

    The World Health Organization has lost its way. It’s drifted far from its founding mission, and it’s become mired in bureaucracy, in conflicts of interest, and in international power politics.

    Kennedy blames the WHO for COVID failures

    He placed much of the blame on the WHO’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, calling its failures “deadly.” He accused the organization of collapsing transparency and accountability during the crisis and claimed those systemic issues remain unresolved. The argument closely mirrors critiques Trump made during his first presidency, now revived as justification for a permanent break.

    Kennedy emphasized that Trump had “recognized the problems immediately,” pointing to the withdrawal order as one of the first executive actions of Trump’s second term. He described the move as a “decisive signal” that American health policy would answer only to Americans, not to “unelected foreign officials.”

    The HHS secretary insisted that leaving the WHO would not weaken U.S. health security. Instead, he claimed the administration has strengthened biosecurity, disease surveillance, outbreak preparedness, and rapid-response capabilities domestically. But only three months ago, the Trump administration fired dozens of employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Yet, Kennedy asserts that the United States “doesn’t need outside institutions” to protect its population.

    Director-General calls the reasons cited by the Trump administration for the exit ‘untrue.’

    As part of the withdrawal, Kennedy also confirmed that all U.S. funding to the WHO has ended and that all U.S. government personnel have ceased working with the organization. Future engagement, he said, would be limited solely to completing administrative withdrawal steps and protecting American citizens abroad. Predictably, the announcement was immediately controversial.

    Public health experts have repeatedly warned that the WHO functions as the world’s central hub for disease surveillance, data sharing, vaccine coordination, and outbreak alerts. The U.S. has historically relied on these systems, even while being critical of WHO leadership. The exit now risks isolating the U.S. during future global health emergencies.

    WHO leadership has rejected the Trump administration’s claims outright. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has publicly stated that the reasons given for withdrawal are “untrue” (via Arab News). He warned that the decision could make both the world and the United States less safe, not more. On top of it, unresolved legal and financial questions also loom over the decision. 

    WHO officials have noted that the U.S. still owes hundreds of millions of dollars, roughly $260-$280 million in outstanding dues (via WHO). This raises uncertainty over whether the withdrawal will be fully recognized until those obligations are settled. But Kennedy did not address these details in his video. Instead, he closed his message by reframing the move as moral vindication. 

    He dedicated the decision to Americans who died in nursing homes during the pandemic, families harmed by lockdowns, and businesses destroyed by public health mandates. The focus was on portraying WHO not as a flawed institution, but as an unaccountable force imposed on Americans from abroad.

    “America will never withdraw from its leadership in global health,” Kennedy declared, even as the U.S. walked away from the world’s largest global health body. Whether that leadership can exist without the institutions it helped build is a question the administration left unanswered.

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    Kopal

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    Kopal primarily covers politics for The Mary Sue. Off the clock, she switches to DND mode and escapes to the mountains.

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    Kopal

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  • What changed about the CDC’s childhood vaccine recommendations?

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    Parents looking to get their children vaccinated are navigating confusing times. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently announced new guidelines on the shots it recommends for kids. But the Minnesota Department of Health disagrees with the changes.

    For decades, the MDH was in line with the CDC’s childhood vaccination recommendations.

    That started to change last year. But this month, MDH is officially breaking away and siding with organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics.

    The federal versus state clash is creating mixed messaging for families. What changed about the CDC’s childhood vaccine recommendations? Good Question.

    Initially, all children were recommended to get vaccines for 17 diseases. Now, the CDC scaled it back to the following 11 diseases: measles, mumps and rubella; whooping cough, tetanus and diphtheria; the bacterial disease known as Hib; pneumonia; polio; chickenpox; and human papillomavirus, or HPV.

    The remaining diseases were split among two new categories. The first is “immunizations recommended for high-risk groups,” which now includes RSV, hepatitis B and hepatitis A, dengue and two vaccines for bacterial meningitis.

    The last category is “immunizations based on shared clinical decision making,” which means parents consulting with a doctor. That’s where the flu, rotavirus and COVID-19 vaccines are now listed, among others.

    The next question: why did the CDC make changes? According to U.S. Health and Human Services, it was after reviewing underlying science and trying to better line up with peer nations.

    “The president asked us to change, to look at what the European countries were doing, which have much less chronic disease than we do, and to find out what the best practices were there and to implement them,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy told CBS News.

    Medical professionals, like those at MDH, said there’s no new evidence warranting a change to the childhood vaccine schedule.

    “The vaccines that had been routinely recommended and are on the AAP schedule are safe, they’re effective,” said Dr. Ruth Lynfield, state epidemiologist and medical director at MDH. “The goal is not to have fewer vaccines, the goal is to have fewer deaths, to have fewer hospitalizations, to have fewer illnesses.”

    One last thing to clarify is the flu vaccine. It’s in the category under shared clinical decision-making, meaning parents would need to talk with a doctor first. Kennedy told CBS News that it may lead to fewer kids getting a flu shot. In Minnesota, there’s a way for parents to skip the extra step of talking with a doctor if their child is at least 3 years old.

    “A pharmacist is someone who can provide the shared clinical decision making, and a pharmacist in Minnesota can vaccinate down to age 3,” said Lynfield.

    Despite the CDC’s changes, federal and private insurance will still cover vaccines for diseases that the CDC no longer recommends, according to HHS.

    CBS News dug deeper into the diseases no longer on the CDC’s recommended vaccination list. To read it, click here.

    To see the American Academy of Pediatrics’ vaccine recommendation schedule, click here.

    To see the CDC’s vaccine recommendation schedule, click here.

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    Jeff Wagner

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  • Trump signs bill allowing whole milk to return to school lunches

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    Whole milk is heading back to school cafeterias across the country after President Trump signed a bill Wednesday overturning Obama-era limits on higher-fat milk options. 

    Nondairy drinks such as fortified soy milk may also be on the menu in the coming months following the adoption of the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act, which cleared Congress in the fall.

    The action allows schools participating in the National School Lunch Program to serve whole and 2% fat milk, along with the skim and low-fat products required since 2012.

    “Whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, whole milk is a great thing,” Mr. Trump said at a White House signing ceremony that featured lawmakers, dairy farmers and their children.

    The law also permits schools to serve nondairy milk that meets the nutritional standards of milk and requires schools to offer a nondairy milk alternative if kids provide a note from their parents, not just from doctors, saying they have a dietary restriction.

    President Trump touches a container of milk as he speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Washington.

    Alex Brandon / AP


    The signing comes days after the release of the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which emphasize consumption of full-fat dairy products as part of a healthy diet. Previous editions advised that consumers older than 2 should consume low-fat or fat-free dairy.

    Earlier this week, the Agriculture Department sent a social media post showing Mr. Trump with a glass of milk and a “milk mustache” that declared: “Drink Whole Milk.”

    The change could take effect as soon as this fall, though school nutrition and dairy industry officials said it may take longer for some schools to gauge demand for full-fat dairy and adjust supply chains.

    “The long wait is over! Whole milk is coming back to schools! This law is a win for our children, parents, and school nutrition leaders, giving schools the flexibility to offer the flavored and unflavored milk options, across all healthy fat levels, that meet students’ needs and preferences,” said Michael Dykes, president and CEO of the International Dairy Foods Association.

    Long sought by the dairy industry, the return of whole and 2% milk to school meals reverses provisions of the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act championed by former first lady Michelle Obama. Enacted more than a dozen years ago, the law aimed to slow obesity and boost health by cutting kids’ consumption of saturated fat and calories in higher-fat milk.

    Nutrition experts, lawmakers and the dairy industry have argued whole milk is a delicious, nutritious food that has been unfairly vilified, and that some studies suggest kids who drink it are less likely to develop obesity than those who drink lower-fat options. Critics have also said many children don’t like the taste of lower-fat milk and don’t drink it, leading to missed nutrition and food waste.

    The new rules will change meals served to about 30 million students enrolled in the National School Lunch Program.

    Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. described the new law as “a long-overdue correction to school nutrition policy.” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said it fixed Michelle Obama’s “short-sighted campaign to ditch whole milk.”

    Schools will be required to provide students with a range of fluid milk options, which can now include flavored and unflavored organic or conventional whole milk, 2%, 1% and lactose-free milk, as well as non-dairy options that meet nutrition standards.

    The new dietary guidelines call for “full-fat dairy with no added sugars,” which would preclude chocolate- and strawberry-flavored milks allowed under a recent update of school meal standards. Agriculture officials will have to translate that recommendation into specific requirements for schools to eliminate flavored milks.

    The new law exempts milk fat from being considered as part of federal requirements that average saturated fats make up less than 10% of calories in school meals.

    One top nutrition expert, Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian of Tufts University, has said there is “no meaningful benefit” in choosing low-fat over high-fat dairy. Saturated fatty acids in dairy have a different composition than other fat, such as beef fat, plus different beneficial compounds that could offset theoretical harms, he added.

    “Saturated fat in dairy has not been linked to any adverse health outcomes,” Mozaffarian said in an interview.

    Research has shown that changes in the federal nutrition program after the Obama-era law was enacted slowed the rise in obesity among U.S. kids, including teenagers. 

    But some nutrition experts point to newer research that suggests kids who drink whole milk could be less likely to be overweight or to develop obesity than children who drink lower-fat milk. One 2020 review of 28 studies suggests that the risk was 40% less for kids who drank whole milk, although the authors noted they couldn’t say whether milk consumption was the reason.

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  • RFK Jr.’s MAHA movement has picked up steam in statehouses. Here’s what to expect in 2026.

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    When one of Adam Burkhammer’s foster children struggled with hyperactivity, the West Virginia legislator and his wife decided to alter their diet and remove any foods that contained synthetic dyes.

    “We saw a turnaround in his behavior, and our other children,” said Burkhammer, who has adopted or fostered 10 kids with his wife. “There are real impacts on real kids.”

    The Republican turned his experience into legislation, sponsoring a bill to ban seven dyes from food sold in the state. It became law in March, making West Virginia the first state to institute such a ban from all food products.

    The bill was among a slew of state efforts to regulate synthetic dyes. In 2025, roughly 75 bills aimed at food dyes were introduced in 37 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

    Chemical dyes and nutrition are just part of the broader “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. Promoted by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., MAHA ideas have made their deepest inroads at the state level, with strong support from Republicans — and in some places, from Democrats. The $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program — created last year as part of the GOP’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act to expand health care access in rural areas — offers incentives to states that implement MAHA policies.

    Federal and state officials are seeking a broad swath of health policy changes, including rolling back routine vaccinations and expanding the use of drugs such as ivermectin for treatments beyond their approved use. State lawmakers have introduced dozens of bills targeting vaccines, fluoridated water, and PFAS, a group of compounds known as “forever chemicals” that have been linked to cancer and other health problems.

    In addition to West Virginia, six other states have targeted food dyes with new laws or executive orders, requiring warning labels on food with certain dyes or banning the sale of such products in schools. California has had a law regulating food dyes since 2023.

    Most synthetic dyes used to color food have been around for decades. Some clinical studies have found a link between their use and hyperactivity in children. And in early 2025, in the last days of President Joe Biden’s term, the Food and Drug Administration outlawed the use of a dye known as Red No. 3.

    Major food companies including Nestle, Hershey, and PepsiCo have gotten on board, pledging to eliminate at least some color additives from food products over the next year or two.

    “We anticipate that the momentum we saw in 2025 will continue into 2026, with a particular focus on ingredient safety and transparency,” said John Hewitt, the senior vice president of state affairs for the Consumer Brands Association, a trade group for food manufacturers.

    This past summer, the group called on its members to voluntarily eliminate federally certified artificial dyes from their products by the end of 2027.

    “The state laws are really what’s motivating companies to get rid of dyes,” said Jensen Jose, regulatory counsel for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit health advocacy group.

    Andy Baker-White, the senior director of state health policy for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, said the bipartisan support for bills targeting food dyes and ultraprocessed food struck him as unusual. Several red states have proposed legislation modeled on California’s 2023 law, which bans four food additives.

    “It’s not very often you see states like California and West Virginia at the forefront of an issue together,” Baker-White said.

    Although Democrats have joined Republicans in some of these efforts, Kennedy continues to drive the agenda. He appeared with Texas officials when the state enacted a package of food-related laws, including one that bars individuals who participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — SNAP, or food stamps — from using their benefits to buy candy or sugary drinks. In December, the U.S. Department of Agriculture approved similar waivers sought by six states. Eighteen states will block SNAP purchases of those items in 2026.

    There are bound to be more. The Rural Health Transformation Program also offers incentives to states that implemented restrictions on SNAP.

    “There are real and concrete effects where the rural health money gives points for changes in SNAP eligibility or the SNAP definitions,” Baker-White said.

    In October, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that sets a legal definition for ultraprocessed foods and will phase them out of schools. It’s a move that may be copied in other states in 2026, while also providing fodder for legal battles. In December, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu sued major food companies, accusing them of selling “harmful and addictive” products. The lawsuit names specific brands — including cereals, pizzas, sodas, and potato chips — linking them to serious health problems.

    Kennedy has also blamed ultraprocessed foods for chronic diseases. But even proponents of the efforts to tackle nutrition concerns don’t agree on which foods to target. MAHA adherents on the right haven’t focused on sugar and sodium as much as policymakers on the left. The parties have also butted heads over some Republicans’ championing of raw milk, which can spread harmful germs, and the consumption of saturated fat, which contributes to heart disease.

    Policymakers expect other flash points. Moves by the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that are making vaccine access more difficult have led blue states to find ways to set their own standards apart from federal recommendations, with 15 Democratic governors announcing a new public health alliance in October. Meanwhile, more red states may eliminate vaccine mandates for employees; Idaho made them illegal. And Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is pushing to eliminate school vaccine mandates.

    Even as Kennedy advocates eliminating artificial dyes, the Environmental Protection Agency has loosened restrictions on chemicals and pesticides, leading MAHA activists to circulate an online petition calling on President Donald Trump to fire EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin.

    Congress has yet to act on most MAHA proposals. But state lawmakers are poised to tackle many of them.

    “If we’re honest, the American people have lost faith in some of our federal institutions, whether FDA or CDC,” said Burkhammer, the West Virginia lawmaker. “We’re going to step up as states and do the right thing.”

    KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.

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  • 5 states sue Trump administration for freezing social services funding

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    Attorneys general in five Democratic-led states filed a lawsuit Thursday against the Trump administration after it said it would freeze money for several public benefit programs, citing concerns about fraud in the programs designed to help low-income families.

    The states — California, Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois and New York — called the move an unconstitutional abuse of power. The Trump administration announced earlier this week it was withholding their social safety net funding. The funding went toward three federal programs, two of which focus on lifting families with children out of poverty.

    New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is leading the lawsuit, said the Trump administration is overstepping its authority by freezing billions of dollars in funds that were already approved for the states by Congress.

    The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York asks the courts to order the administration to halt the freeze and release the funds.

    “Once again, the most vulnerable families in our communities are bearing the brunt of this administration’s campaign of chaos and retribution,” James said.

    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services this week told the five states it was freezing their money for the Child Care and Development Fund, which subsidizes childcare for children from low-income families; the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which provides cash assistance and job training; and the Social Services Block Grant.

    HHS officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

    In an interview with CBS News Wednesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. because they wouldn’t show the Trump administration plans for eliminating fraud. 

    “The best way to help poor families is to end the fraud,” he told CBS News. Kennedy said the five states were impacted, not because they’re run by Democrats, but because they “refuse to cooperate with developing plans that would end the fraud.”

    “We gave them a warning,” Kennedy said of the five states, claiming that the administration told them they wouldn’t cut funding if they presented a plan for handling fraud.

    “But if you won’t show us a plan, a workable plan, we’re gonna cut it off until you do,” he said.

    When asked how long the funding will be cut off, Kennedy replied, “That’s up to them.”

    About half of the $10 billion in funding targeted by the Trump administration supported California programs, said the state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta.

    In letters to the states, Alex J. Adams, assistant secretary for the Administration for Children and Families, wrote that HHS had “reason to believe” the states were providing benefits to people who were in the U.S. illegally, offering no further details about the allegations. They requested reams of data, including the names and Social Security numbers of everyone that had received some of the benefits.

    “The letters requested that California turn over essentially every document ever associated with the state’s implementation of these federal programs and do so within 14 days, by Jan. 20, including personally identifiable information about program participants,” Bonta said. “That is deeply concerning and also deeply frustrating.”

    The government intensified its focus on the childcare subsidy program after a conservative YouTuber released a video claiming day care centers in Minneapolis had committed up to $100 million in fraud. The childcare centers were run by members of the city’s Somali community, which has been frequently maligned by President Trump and targeted by immigration authorities.

    Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, has defended his state’s response and said his state is taking aggressive action to prevent further fraud.

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  • RFK Jr.’s new food pyramid emphasizes protein, healthy fats. Here’s what to know about the dietary guidelines.

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    The Trump administration has unveiled a new food pyramid and dietary guidelines for Americans that call for “prioritizing high-quality protein, healthy fats, fruits, vegetables and whole grains” while avoiding highly processed foods and refined carbohydrates. 

    “As secretary of Health and Human Services, my message is clear: Eat real food,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said at a White House briefing announcing the changes alongside Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and other health officials. Kennedy called it “the most significant reset of federal nutrition policy in history.”

    A White House official told CBS News the new guidelines are “science-driven.” In a fact sheet, the administration said the new guidelines would restore “science and common sense” and put “real food back at the center of health.” 

    Here’s what to know about the new dietary guidelines. 

    First recommended limits on highly processed foods

    For the first time, the recommendations are calling for Americans to avoid eating highly processed foods. 

    A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 55% of the U.S. population receives more than half of their daily calories from ultra-processed foods. The previous 2020-2025 dietary guidelines did not mention highly processed or ultra-processed foods.

    The new guidelines call for avoiding “highly processed packaged, prepared, ready-to-eat, or other foods that are salty or sweet,” as well as avoiding sweetened beverages including soda, fruit drinks and energy drinks. 

    Research has shown diets high in ultra-processed food are associated with an increased risk of 32 damaging health outcomes, according to a review published in The BMJ medical journal in 2024.

    Limits on sugars, artificial flavors and dyes

    The guidelines also say that “no amount of added sugars” are recommended for Americans, especially children. 

    At most, a meal should contain no more than 10 grams of added sugars, according to the new guidance. The former guidance said children under 2 should not consume added sugars and that Americans should aim to have less than 10% of their daily calories come from added sugars. 

    People should also limit foods and beverages that include artificial flavors, dyes, low-calorie non-nutritive sweeteners and artificial preservatives, the new guidelines said. 

    Naturally occurring sugars are not considered added sugars and can be part of a recommended diet under the new guidelines. 

    Fighting chronic disease and supporting gut health 

    Dietary guidelines are used as the baseline for federal food programs, including SNAP and school meal programs. The fact sheet for the new guidelines says public adherence to the new guidelines “will dramatically lower chronic disease — and healthcare costs — for Americans.” 

    The fact sheet said the U.S.’s high level of health-related spending and a life expectancy that is five years less than other developed countries is “predominantly due to chronic conditions tied to food.” It also said that lowering rates of obesity, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and Alzheimer’s disease would cut about $600 billion in annual healthcare costs. Previous studies have also shown a possible link between diet and Alzheimer’s. 

    “The most expensive thing we can do as a country is continue government incentives for food that sickens Americans and drives up healthcare costs,” the fact sheet said. 

    The new guidelines point out the importance of gut health and the microbiome inside a person’s intestines. The gut microbiome includes trillions of bacteria, viruses and fungi whose balance is important for good health. The new guidelines call for the consumption of vegetables, fruits, fermented foods and high-fiber foods to support a diverse gut microbiome. 

    “Ending the war on healthy fats”

    The fact sheet for the new guidance calls for “ending the war on healthy fats” and getting the bulk of dietary fats from whole food sources. That includes meat, poultry, eggs, seafood, nuts, full-fat dairy and avocados, the guidelines say. 

    People should aim for three servings of dairy a day, in line with the 2020-2025 guidelines. The new guidelines say people should prioritize full-fat options, while the previous guidelines recommended fat-free or low-fat products. 

    The new guidelines also recommend olive oil, butter or beef tallow for preparing meals. Kennedy has previously criticized seed oils and extolled tallow, at odds with long-standing recommendations. 

    “We are ending the war on saturated fats,” Kennedy said. 

    In total, saturated fat consumption should not exceed more than 10% of a person’s daily calories, according to the new guidelines. The 2020-2025 guidelines also had similar recommended limits on saturated fats, though they noted a “healthy dietary pattern” could include vegetable oils. 

    A focus on protein and “real” foods 

    The new guidelines recommend “high-quality, nutrient dense protein foods” including eggs, poultry, seafood, red meat, and plant-based proteins like beans, nuts and seeds in every meal. 

    Under the guidelines, Americans should aim to eat 1.2 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight every day. Proteins should be served with no or limited added sugars, chemical additives, refined carbohydrates or starches, the guidelines say. 

    “What we’re stressing is that people should be eating protein,” Kennedy said in an interview with CBS News chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes.

    FDA Commissioner Marty Makary noted at the briefing that the new guidelines increase the recommended amount of protein for children.

    “Kids need protein,” Makary said. “The old protein guidelines were to prevent starvation and withering away. These new protein guidelines are designed for American kids to thrive.”

    Fruits, vegetables and whole grains

    The new guidelines also recommend people eat at least three servings of vegetables and two servings of fruit per day, in line with the previous 2020-2025 dietary guidance. 

    People should eat a variety of fruits and vegetables, preferably in their original form. Frozen, dried or canned products with no or very limited added sugars “can also be good options,” according to the fact sheet. People should limit consumption of 100% fruit or vegetable juices. 

    Americans should also prioritize fiber-rich whole grains and reduce the consumption of highly processed, refined carbs, the guidelines say. People should aim for between two and four servings of whole grains per day.  

    A new food pyramid

    Officials released a new version of the food pyramid, with protein, dairy, healthy fats making up one of the top corners, fruits and vegetables in the other, and whole grains at the bottom.

    A new version of the food pyramid was released by the USDA and Department of Health and Human Services on Jan. 7, 2026.

    USDA/Department of Health and Human Services


    Consume less alcohol

    The guidelines recommend that Americans should “consume less alcohol for better overall health.”

    People in certain categories are urged to completely avoid alcohol, including pregnant women, people who are recovering from alcohol use disorder or are unable to control the amount they drink, and people taking medications or with medical conditions that can interact with alcohol. 

    Previous guidelines said that Americans should not drink or drink in moderation. The recommended limits were 2 drinks or less per day for men and 1 drink or less per day for women on days when alcohol is consumed. 

    Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the new guidelines are meant to encourage moderation but acknowledge the social benefits that some may experience. 

    “There is alcohol on these guidelines, but the implication is don’t have it for breakfast,” Oz said.  

    Reactions to new dietary guidance 

    The American Medical Association said in a statement that it “applauds” the Trump administration’s new dietary guidelines.

    “The guidelines affirm that food is medicine and offer clear direction patients and physicians can use to improve health,” Dr. Bobby Mukkamala, the president of the AMA, said in the statement. Kennedy thanked Mukkamala in his briefing. 

    The AMA said it will launch a collection of educational resources and hold a series of roundtable discussions with doctors and experts to “strengthen nutrition education and clinical competency.” It also pledged to work with Congress to incentivize the consumption of nutrient-dense foods, expand food labeling efforts, define ultra-processed foods and increase investment in nutrition research. 

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  • RFK Jr.’s barnyard ringtone interrupts White House MAHA briefing, sparks laughs

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    NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

    A White House press briefing focused on Make America Healthy Again policies briefly paused Wednesday when Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s phone went off, showcasing a duck quacking ringtone. 

    “I’m sorry,” Kennedy said as he paused his remarks at the White House press briefing’s podium as he silenced his phone. His ringtone blared ducks quacking, sparking jokes from Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and laughter from reporters. 

    Kennedy joined the press briefing flanked by other health leaders within the administration to unveil new dietary guidelines focused on Americans eating “real foods” and not ultra-processed meals in a move aimed at addressing chronic disease and childhood illnesses. 

    TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TO UNVEIL NEW DIETARY GUIDELINES AS FDA PLANS SWEEPING 2026 FOOD OVERHAUL

    Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s duck-quacking ringtone briefly interrupted the press briefing Jan. 7, 2025.  (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

    As Kennedy’s phone rang out with ducks quacking, Rollins quipped: “Duck is also high in protein. Duck is a good thing to eat everybody.”

    The press briefing broke out into chuckles before Kennedy got back to business and continued discussing his team’s MAHA efforts, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s overhaul of the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule, which reduces the number of routine immunizations recommended for children.

    RFK JR’S DYE-FREE FOOD VISION BLOCKED BY OBAMA-APPOINTED JUDGE

    Kennedy is an environmental lawyer and self-avowed lover of nature. Before his confirmation to serve in the federal government, Kennedy was well-known on social media for posting videos showing off wild critters he came across on hikes in Southern California or videos showing off his falconry skills. 

    RFK Jr. hiking

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hikes with one of his two Gordon Setter dogs, Ronan, in the Santa Monica Mountains, in Los Angeles, March 18, 2024.  (Mike Blake/Reuters)

    The press conference unveiled an updated, inverted food pyramid built on meat, fats, fruits and vegetables. While whole grains are now at the narrow bottom of the inverted pyramid. 

    “The new guidelines recognize that whole, nutrient-dense food is the most effective path to better health and lower health care costs,” Kennedy said. “Protein and healthy fats are essential, and were wrongly discouraged in prior dietary guidelines. We are ending the war on saturated fats.”

    RFK JR LAUNCHES INVESTIGATION INTO SCHOOL FOR ALLEGED VACCINATION OF CHILD WITHOUT PARENTAL CONSENT

    Karoline Leavitt and HHS officials

    White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks during a briefing with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins at the White House, Jan. 7, 2026, in Washington. (Jacquelyn Martin/The Associated Press)

    Kennedy added that if foreign adversaries wanted to throttle and weaken the U.S., they’d “addict us to ultra-processed foods.”

    CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP

    “If a foreign adversary sought to destroy the health of our children, cripple our economy, to weaken our national security, there would be no better strategy than to addict us to ultra-processed foods,” he said.

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  • New dietary guidelines: The 10-page document and its major changes

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    The 2025-2030 U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which updates recommendations for a healthy diet, was released by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Wednesday.

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  • US overhauls childhood vaccine schedule to recommend fewer shots

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    (CNN) — The US Department of Health and Human Services is recommending fewer vaccines for most American children, health officials said Monday.

    Health officials will continue to recommend the measles, mumps and rubella vaccines and immunizations against polio, chickenpox, HPV and others, but they are narrowing recommendations for vaccination against meningococcal disease, hepatitis B and hepatitis A to children who are broadly at higher risk for infections.

    They recommend that decisions on vaccinations against flu, Covid-19 and rotavirus be based on “shared clinical decision-making,” which means people who want one must consult with a health care provider.

    HHS said that its recommendations for immunizations against respiratory synctytial virus, or RSV, remain unchanged and that infants born to mothers who did not receive the vaccine should have one dose.

    The changes come amid a sharp increase in flu cases across the country. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported nine pediatric deaths from flu this season.

    HHS said that all insurers will still cover these vaccines without cost-sharing. However, the changes could present new hurdles for parents who need to consult with doctors about immunizations no longer recommended for healthy children.

    ‘Public health is not one size fits all’

    The new US schedule of childhood vaccines more closely resembles that of other developed nations such as Denmark, as CNN reported last month.

    Denmark does not currently recommend childhood vaccinations against rotavirus, hepatitis A, meningococcal, flu or chickenpox.

    US health officials initially planned to announce the changes in December, weeks after Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, newly named acting director of the US Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, gave a presentation on the Danish vaccine schedule to the CDC’s panel of vaccine advisers.

    The panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunizations Practices, was reconstituted last year with a new group of members after US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine skeptic, dismissed all previous appointees.

    The overhaul comes one month after President Donald Trump ordered the health department to review the childhood vaccine schedule.

    “It is ridiculous!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post in December, after his executive order. “That is why I have just signed a Presidential memorandum directing the Department of Health and Human Services to ‘FAST TRACK’ a comprehensive evaluation of Vaccine Schedules from other Countries around the World, and better align the U.S. Vaccine Schedule.”

    In a post on X, Kennedy responded: “Thank you, Mr. President. We’re on it.”

    The new vaccine schedule is a “far more reasonable” one that protects children against “11 of the most serious and dangerous diseases,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post Monday night. “Parents can still choose to give their children all of the Vaccinations, if they wish, and they will still be covered by insurance.”

    In a separate post, Trump signaled that he still wanted to see more changes: Namely, the separation of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine into three separate shots.

    Several public health experts warned that the changes announced Monday could fuel outbreaks of preventable diseases.

    “I think that a reduced schedule is going to endanger children and lay the groundwork for a resurgence in preventable disease,” said Dr. Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist and director of the Center for Outbreak Response Innovation at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

    Denmark is not a good blueprint for US vaccine policy, said Anders Hviid, who leads vaccine safety and effectiveness research at the Statens Serum Institut in Denmark.

    They’re “two very different countries. Public health is not one size fits all,” he told CNN in an email.

    In Denmark, “everyone has access to excellent prenatal and childhood care. As I understand it, that is not the case for everyone in the US. Vaccines prevent infections that may have poor outcomes for children who do not have access to good healthcare.”

    Faltering information

    HHS in a statement said that reducing the number of recommended vaccines would help restore public trust in health agencies — and possibly confidence in vaccines themselves. The agency reasoned that despite recommending more shots, the US does not have higher vaccination rates than peer countries that rely on “education rather than mandates.”

    The government’s vaccine outreach and messaging has been vastly reshaped under Kennedy, who has questioned vaccine safety for decades.

    It is a “confusing time” for doctors and parents, Dr. Sean O’Leary, chair of the American Association of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases, said Monday.

    “What was announced today is part of a decades-long effort on the part of the health secretary to spread fear and falsehoods about vaccines, and this is another step in the secretary’s effort to dismantle the US vaccination system,” O’Leary said.

    At the same time, public information about vaccination rates is faltering.

    Last week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services dropped requirements for states to report childhood vaccination status for beneficiaries, a move that experts say may raise unnecessary doubts about the importance of vaccines. CMS sent a letter to state health officials on December 30 stating that vaccination data no longer needs to be submitted to the agency that oversees Medicaid and Medicare.

    “This is another message that could create doubt in people’s minds about the need for vaccines, and that isn’t something that’s supported by current science,” said ​Dr. Michelle Fiscus, a pediatrician and chief medical officer of the Association of Immunization Managers.

    The CMS requirement for reporting childhood immunization status was relatively new — it was implemented in 2024 — and there are other federal systems to track immunization rates. But more than 40% of children in the US are covered by Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, and immunization surveillance offers important insights.

    CMS said it plans to “explore options to facilitate the development of new vaccine measures” after dropping this requirement. These new measures may include tracking how often parents are informed about vaccine safety and side effects and alternative vaccine schedules, as well as how to capture “preferences related to vaccines” and how religious exemptions may be accounted for.

    States may continue to voluntarily report childhood vaccination data to CMS, but Fiscus says that may depend on the political party of local leaders.

    “I think this is going to contribute to this schism between states based on their party of government,” she said. “We’ll see more of this patchwork of state policies around immunizations, and that’s unfortunate, because these diseases don’t really care about state borders so much.”

    Can’t ‘cowboy’ change

    The changes drew criticism from Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician who voted for Kennedy as health secretary only after assurances that he would “work within” the current vaccine approval and safety monitoring systems.

    “Changing the pediatric vaccine schedule based on no scientific input on safety risks and little transparency will cause unnecessary fear for patients and doctors, and will make America sicker,” Cassidy wrote in an X post that also pointed to ongoing measles and whooping cough outbreaks.

    Cassidy, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Pensions and Labor Committee, asked Kennedy months ago to testify before the committee. The request followed a September hearing with ousted CDC Director Dr. Susan Monarez, who alleged that Kennedy sought to override vaccine decisions.

    Health officials said Monday that they consulted with career staff at the CDC and the FDA about the changes to the vaccine schedule.

    Officials also insisted that these changes do not sideline ACIP, the panel of vaccine advisers that convenes for public meetings several times a year to discuss and vote on recommendations.

    A senior official said that ACIP will continue to meet several times a year and that the CDC will update the vaccine schedule based on their advice.

    But a sudden, broad change to the schedule without public debate won’t instill confidence, said public health experts including former ACIP member Dr. Noel Brewer, a professor of public health and health behavior at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

    “We can’t cowboy the nation to good health with a bunch of sudden and poorly considered health policy changes,” Brewer added.

    Correction: A previous version of this report incorrectly listed RSV among the vaccinations with new recommendations.

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  • Some states set to impose SNAP bans on soda, candy and other foods

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    Starting New Year’s Day, some food-stamp recipients around the U.S. will be banned from using the government nutrition assistance to buy candy, soda and other foods. 

    Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Utah and West Virginia are the first of at least 18 states to enact waivers prohibiting people enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, from purchasing certain foods. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins have urged states to strip foods regarded as unhealthy from the $100 billion federal program.

    “We cannot continue a system that forces taxpayers to fund programs that make people sick and then pay a second time to treat the illnesses those very programs help create,” Kennedy said in a statement in December.

    The efforts are aimed at reducing chronic diseases such as obesity and diabetes associated with sweetened drinks and other treats, a key goal of Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again effort.

    Confusion for SNAP recipients?

    But retail industry and health policy experts said state SNAP programs, already under pressure from steep budget cuts, are unprepared for the complex changes, with no complete lists of the foods affected and technical point-of-sale challenges that vary by state and store. And research remains mixed about whether restricting SNAP purchases improves diet quality and health.

    The National Retail Federation, a trade association, predicted longer checkout lines and more customer complaints as SNAP recipients learn which foods are affected by the new waivers.

    “It’s a disaster waiting to happen of people trying to buy food and being rejected,” said Kate Bauer, a nutrition science expert at the University of Michigan.

    The new restrictions are the latest source of concern for SNAP recipients. Food aid distributed under the program, which is used by 42 million Americans, was interrupted during the 43-day U.S. government shutdown. Reliance on food stamps typically surges during economic downturns, such as the sharp slump that followed the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020.

    Nearly 62% of SNAP participants are in families with children, while roughly 37% are in households with older adults or people with disabilities, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan think tank. 

    Roughly 14% of U.S. households reported food insecurity on average between January and October, up from 12.5% in 2024, according to Purdue’s Center for Food Demand Analysis and Sustainability.

    While the prevalence of food insecurity around the U.S. fluctuates month to month, the overall rate had been declining since 2022, when an average of 15.4% of households were food insecure as inflation hit 40-year highs following the pandemic. 

    Retailers fear impact

    A report by the National Grocers Association and other industry trade groups estimated that implementing SNAP restrictions would cost U.S. retailers $1.6 billion initially and $759 million each year going forward.

    “Punishing SNAP recipients means we all get to pay more at the grocery store,” said Gina Plata-Nino, SNAP director for the anti-hunger advocacy group Food Research & Action Center.

    The waivers are a departure from decades of federal policy first enacted in 1964 and later authorized by the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008, which said SNAP benefits can be used for “any food or food product intended for human consumption,” except alcohol and ready-to-eat hot foods. The law also says SNAP can’t pay for tobacco.

    In the past, lawmakers have proposed stopping SNAP from paying for expensive meats like steak or so-called junk foods, such as chips and ice cream.

    But previous waiver requests were denied based on USDA research concluding that restrictions would be costly and complicated to implement, and that they might not change recipients’ buying habits or reduce health problems such as obesity.

    Under the second Trump administration, however, states have been encouraged and even incentivized to seek waivers – and they responded.

    “This isn’t the usual top-down, one-size-fits-all public health agenda,” Indiana Gov. Mike Braun said when he announced his state’s request last spring. “We’re focused on root causes, transparent information and real results.”

    How many people are affected

    The five state waivers that take effect Jan. 1 affect about 1.4 million people. Utah and West Virginia will ban the use of SNAP to buy soda and soft drinks, while Nebraska will prohibit soda and energy drinks. Indiana will target soft drinks and candy. In Iowa, which has the most restrictive rules to date, the SNAP limits affect taxable foods, including soda and candy, but also certain prepared foods.

    “The items list does not provide enough specific information to prepare a SNAP participant to go to the grocery store,” Plata-Nino wrote in a blog post. “Many additional items — including certain prepared foods — will also be disallowed, even though they are not clearly identified in the notice to households.”

    Marc Craig, 47, of Des Moines, said he has been living in his car since October. He said the new waivers will make it more difficult to determine how to use the $298 in SNAP benefits he receives each month, while also increasing the stigma he feels at the cash register.

    “They treat people that get food stamps like we’re not people,” Craig said.

    SNAP waivers enacted now and in the coming months will run for two years, with the option to extend them for an additional three, according to the Agriculture Department. Each state is required to assess the impact of the changes.

    Health experts worry that the waivers ignore larger factors affecting the health of SNAP recipients, said Anand Parekh, a medical doctor who is the chief health policy officer at the University of Michigan School of Public Health.

    “This doesn’t solve the two fundamental problems, which is healthy food in this country is not affordable and unhealthy food is cheap and ubiquitous,” he said.

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  • Tatiana Schlossberg, Journalist and Granddaughter of JFK, Has Died

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    Tatiana Schlossberg has died at the age of 35, after a battle with acute myeloid leukemia. She is survived by her husband, George Moran, their son, Edwin, a daughter whose name has not been publicly revealed, her parents Edwin Schlossberg and Caroline Kennedy, and her siblings Rose and Jack.

    Schlossberg was a noted climate change and environmental journalist for The New York Times. Her work was also featured in outlets including The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, The Boston Globe, and Bloomberg. She also published a Substack, News from a Changing Planet, dedicated to climate-change reporting. Schlossberg publicly announced her terminal diagnosis in a moving essay, “A Battle with My Blood,” published in the November 22, 2025, issue of The New Yorker.

    Tatiana Celia Kennedy Schlossberg was born on May 5, 1990, in New York City, to designer and artist Edwin Schlossberg and philanthropist, writer and diplomat Caroline Kennedy, the only daughter of slain President John F. Kennedy and first lady Jacqueline Kennedy. She was named after the Russian-American printmaker and publisher Tatyana Grosman.

    Although she was born into the Kennedy dynasty, Schlossberg and her siblings enjoyed a private, carefully guarded childhood in Manhattan. She was only four when her grandmother, Jackie Kennedy, died of non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 1994. In 1996, she and her older sister, Rose, were flower girls at their uncle John F. Kennedy Jr.’s wedding to Carolyn Bessette. Her little brother, Jack, was ring bearer. In 1999, the couple, along with Bessette’s sister, Lauren, died in a plane crash off Martha’s Vineyard.

    Their deaths were yet another tragedy in the Kennedy family, leaving Caroline Kennedy the last remaining member of her immediate family. As a result, Schlossberg felt protective of her mother. “For my whole life, I have tried to be good, to be a good student and a good sister and a good daughter, and to protect my mother and never make her upset or angry,” she wrote in The New Yorker.

    Schlossberg found other ways to connect with her late family members. “My grandparents, both of them, from what I understand, because I didn’t really know them, loved history and reading about history,” she told Vanity Fair in 2019. “And that’s kind of how I’ve connected with them, by studying them and their time, but also the eras and patterns that fascinated them, and imagining where we would disagree. That’s an important way for me personally to connect with my family legacy.”

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  • A Former South Park Writer Gambled On Donald Trump’s Kennedy Center Renaming Plan—And Won

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    At trumpkennedycenter.org, for example, one will find a site that suggests visitors “Ring in the New Year with a performance by The Epstein Dancers,” presumably a reference to Trump’s history with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. An altered logo for the center appears below, blackened by redactions similar to those found in the recently released files from the Department of Justice investigation into Epstein’s crimes.

    “Welcome to TrumpKennedyCenter.org,” a note on the site reads. “A national cultural center dedicated to legacy, loyalty, and the careful presentation of history. Here, tradition is preserved, narratives are curated, and performances are elevated beyond mere art. What is remembered matters. What is omitted matters more. We invite you to experience culture as authority, pageantry as truth, and excellence as defined by those in power.”

    It’s unclear how long that URL will be useful, however. On Monday, Ohio Democratic Representative Joyce Beatty filed a lawsuit to force the removal of Trump’s name from the center, saying in her filing that the name change violates the Constitution. “Only Congress has the authority to rename the Kennedy Center. President Trump and his cronies must not be allowed to trample federal law and bypass Congress to feed his ego,” Beatty said in a statement. “This entire process has been a complete disgrace to this cherished institution and the people it serves. These unlawful actions must be blocked before any further damage is done.”

    Rose Kennedy, Edward M Kennedy Jr, Joan Bennett Kennedy, and Edward M ‘Ted’ Kennedy at the opening performance at the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington DC, September 8, 1971.

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  • 19 states and D.C. sue HHS over effort to ban transgender care for minors

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    A coalition of 19 states and the District of Columbia on Tuesday sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, its secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and its inspector general over a declaration that could complicate access to gender-affirming care for young people.

    The declaration issued last Thursday called treatments like puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries unsafe and ineffective for children and adolescents experiencing gender dysphoria, or the distress when someone’s gender expression doesn’t match their sex assigned at birth. It also warned doctors that they could be excluded from federal health programs like Medicare and Medicaid if they provide those types of care.

    The declaration came as HHS also announced proposed rules meant to further curtail gender-affirming care for young people, although the lawsuit doesn’t address those as they are not final.

    Tuesday’s lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Eugene, Oregon, alleges that the declaration is inaccurate and unlawful and asks the court to block its enforcement. It’s the latest in a series of clashes between an administration that’s cracking down on transgender health care for children, arguing it can be harmful to them, and advocates who say the care is medically necessary and shouldn’t be inhibited. After taking office in January, President Trump signed an executive order that seeks to cut federal support for certain types of gender-affirming care for people under the age of 19. 

    “Secretary Kennedy cannot unilaterally change medical standards by posting a document online, and no one should lose access to medically necessary health care because their federal government tried to interfere in decisions that belong in doctors’ offices,” New York Attorney General Letitia James, who led the lawsuit, said in a statement Tuesday.

    The lawsuit alleges that HHS’s declaration seeks to coerce providers to stop providing gender-affirming care and circumvent legal requirements for policy changes. It says federal law requires the public to be given notice and an opportunity to comment before substantively changing health policy — neither of which, the suit says, was done before the declaration was issued.

    A spokesperson for HHS declined to comment.

    HHS’s declaration based its conclusions on a peer-reviewed report that the department conducted earlier this year that urged greater reliance on behavioral therapy rather than broad gender-affirming care for youths with gender dysphoria.

    The report questioned standards for the treatment of transgender youth issued by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and raised concerns that adolescents may be too young to give consent to life-changing treatments that could result in future infertility.

    Major medical groups and those who treat transgender young people have sharply criticized the report as inaccurate, and most major U.S. medical organizations, including the American Medical Association, continue to oppose restrictions on transgender care and services for young people.

    The declaration was announced as part of a multifaceted effort to limit gender-affirming health care for children and teenagers — and built on other Trump administration efforts to target the rights of transgender people nationwide.

    HHS on Thursday also unveiled two proposed federal rules — one to cut off federal Medicaid and Medicare funding from hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to children, and another to prohibit federal Medicaid dollars from being used for such procedures.

    The proposals are not yet final or legally binding and must go through a lengthy rulemaking process and public comment before becoming permanent. But they will nonetheless likely further discourage health care providers from offering gender-affirming care to children.

    Several major medical providers already have pulled back on gender-affirming care for young patients since Mr. Trump returned to office — even in states where the care is legal and protected by state law.

    Medicaid programs in slightly less than half of states currently cover gender-affirming care. At least 27 states have adopted laws restricting or banning the care. The Supreme Court’s recent 6-3 decision upholding Tennessee’s ban means most other state laws are likely to remain in place. The case, U.S. v. Skrmetti, marked the first time the Supreme Court had waded into the issue of health care for transgender youth. 

    Tennessee’s law prohibits medical treatments like puberty blockers or hormone therapy for transgender adolescents under the age of 18.  

    The state had argued that it has a “compelling interest in encouraging minors to appreciate their sex, particularly as they undergo puberty,” and in barring treatments that “might encourage minors to become disdainful of their sex.”   

    “Our role is not ‘to judge the wisdom, fairness, or logic’ of the law before us, but only to ensure that it does not violate the equal protection guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment. Having concluded it does not, we leave questions regarding its policy to the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.  

    Joining James in Tuesday’s lawsuit were Democratic attorneys general from California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, Washington and the District of Columbia. Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor also joined.

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  • RFK Jr. says he’ll work with federal agencies to wind down animal testing

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    Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. said this weekend that he is working across the government to end all federally funded animal testing. 

    “All the major agency heads are committed to ending animal experimentation,” he said in an interview with Lara Trump on Fox News, referring to research being conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. 

    Kennedy focused specifically on monkey testing, or “non-human primate testing,” during his remarks. There are over 100,000 monkeys in primate testing labs around the country, with more than 20,000 more being imported every year, he said. 

    “We are trying to put an end to that,” Kennedy said.

    Earlier this year, a CBS News investigation with the South Carolina Post & Courier documented efforts to cancel nearly $28 million in federal grants for research that relied on animals. And it found that, as federal health agencies moved to phase out research on live primates, available alternatives were not yet ready for use.

    It was against this backdrop that scientists at the CDC were ordered last month to phase out all their monkey research, a directive first reported in the journal Science. 

    “Across the Trump Administration, there is a shift to prioritize animal welfare,” a health department spokesperson told CBS News in a statement. “At HHS, that includes moves to reduce unnecessary animal testing requirements and prioritizing human-based research.” 

    Primate testing has been an integral part of medical advancement for nearly a century, and federal regulations require that most pharmaceuticals be tested on primates before they enter human clinical studies. Experiments on monkeys are credited with major medical advancements leading to the creation of Tylenol, the COVID-19 vaccine and Ozempic, among other things.  

    Experiments on primates make up a small portion of biomedical research overall, but Deborah Fuller, director of the NIH-funded Washington National Primate Research Center, said they are essential for developing therapies that continue to save lives. 

    “The majority of the biomedical interventions that we have today went through a non-human primate at some point,” she said. “Shutting down a non-human primate research program, you’re actually shooting yourself in the foot.”

    A view of primates in cages in a research facility n Yemassee, South Carolina, on Nov. 8, 2024. 

    Peter Zay/Anadolu via Getty Images


    For example, 200 primates are part of CDC’s ongoing research into treatments for HIV and other infectious diseases. Non-human primates are the only animals that closely model HIV infection in humans, according to Fuller. 

    “It is a very small slice of all of the animal research that’s done. And it is only done because that is the only model that can effectively answer the question that’s being addressed,” she said.

    But animal rights groups, who have found allies in the Trump administration, say this type of testing is outdated. 

    “I think it’s baseless fear-mongering to suggest we need to torture animals to improve human health. All of the available evidence suggests otherwise,” said Justin Goodman, senior vice president of advocacy and public policy at White Coat Waste Project. The organization

    advocates to end all federally funded animal testing and works closely with the Trump administration to cut grant programs that rely on it. 

    Kennedy’s pledge was “unprecedented,” Goodman said.

    “As the head of the agency that funds more animal testing than anyone else in the world, RFK’s commitment to ending testing on primates and other animals is game-changing,” he said. “We are optimistic — but the devil is in the details.” 

    The details for how the federal government intends to actually end animal testing remain sparse. The fate of monkeys already in labs across the country is also unclear.

    Kennedy said his agency is exploring options to retire animals to sanctuaries. But there are limited facilities equipped to take in the thousands of primates that may need continued medical monitoring. The estimated cost of transporting the animals alone could cost millions of dollars, even if there were available space for the animals in question. 

    “We need to make sure we have space somewhere that can take care of these animals for the rest of their lives,” said Sally Thompson-Iritani, an associate professor at the University of Washington, who helps oversee the university’s animal care program. “And we currently don’t have an infrastructure that supports that.”

    “I think there’s legitimately logistical issues that have to be sorted out, which is why we are anxious to hear more details from HHS about what its plans are,” Goodman agreed, calling such an effort “a massive undertaking.”

    Moreover, some animals that have been infected with dangerous diseases like Ebola would not be able to move to a sanctuary and would likely need to be euthanized, Goodman said. 

    Kennedy has pushed for alternatives to animal testing, suggesting that AI and computer generated models are more accurate and efficient methods for predicting health outcomes in humans. The FDA and NiH put out updated guidelines advocating for the phasing out of live animal models in favor of alternative technologies this spring. 

    But researchers on the cutting edge of these alternatives don’t believe that the new technologies are ready to completely replace primate models. 

    “I want to see us get out of the business of using animals in research,” said Paul Locke in an interview with CBS News over the summer. Locke is an environmental health lawyer at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and serves on the board of the school’s Center for Alternatives to Animal Testing. 

    “The question is when. When can we do that and reach the double goal of having better science and virtually no animals? The answer is not tomorrow.”

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  • What are parents to do as doctors clash with Trump administration over vaccines?

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    It’s normal for parents, or anyone, to have questions about vaccinations — but what happens if your pediatrician urges a shot that’s under attack by the Trump administration?

    That’s getting more likely: The nation’s leading doctors groups are in an unprecedented standoff with federal health officials who have attacked long-used, lifesaving vaccines.

    The revolt by pediatricians, obstetricians, family physicians, infectious disease experts and internists came to a head when an advisory panel handpicked by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. urged an end to routine newborn vaccination against hepatitis B, a virus that can cause liver failure or liver cancer.

    That vaccine saves lives, helped child infections plummet and has been given safely to tens of millions of children in the U.S. alone, say the American Academy of Pediatrics and other doctors groups that vowed Tuesday to keep recommending it.

    But that’s not the only difference. That Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices now is examining possible changes to the entire childhood vaccination schedule, questioning certain ingredients and how many doses youngsters receive.

    Pushing back, the American Academy of Pediatrics has issued its own recommendations for youngsters. Other medical groups — plus some city and state public health departments that have banded together — also are issuing their own advice on certain vaccines, which largely mirrors pre-2025 federal guidance.

    This article is part of AP’s Be Well coverage, focusing on wellness, fitness, diet and mental health. Read more Be Well.

    “We owe our patients a consistent message informed by evidence and lived experience, not messages biased by political imperative,” Dr. Ronald Nahass, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, told reporters Tuesday.

    But Nahass acknowledged the inevitable consumer confusion, recounting a relative calling him last weekend for advice about hepatitis B vaccination for her new grandbaby.

    “Most Americans don’t have a Cousin Ronnie to call. They are left alone with fear and mistrust,” he said, urging parents to talk with their doctors about vaccines.

    New guidelines without new data concern doctors

    Hepatitis B isn’t the only vaccine challenge. Kennedy’s health department recently changed a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention webpage to contradict the longtime scientific conclusion that vaccines don’t cause autism. Federal agencies also moved to restrict COVID-19 vaccinations this fall, and are planning policy changes that could restrict future flu and coronavirus shots.

    But when it comes to vaccine advice, “for decades, ACIP was the gold standard,” said Dr. Jake Scott, an infectious disease physician and Stanford University researcher.

    The panel once routinely enlisted specialists in specific diseases for long deliberations of the latest science and safety data, resulting in recommendations typically adopted not only by the CDC but by the medical field at large, he said.

    Last week’s meeting of Kennedy’s panel, which includes vaccine skeptics, marked a radical departure. CDC specialists weren’t allowed to present data on hepatitis B, the childhood vaccine schedule or questions about vaccine ingredients. Few of the committee members have public health experience, and some expressed confusion about the panel’s proposals.

    At one point, a doctor called in to say the panel was misrepresenting her study’s findings. And the panel’s chairman wondered why one dose of yellow fever vaccine protected him during a trip to Africa when U.S. children get three doses of hepatitis B vaccine. The hepatitis B vaccine is designed to protect children for life from a virus they can encounter anywhere, not just on a trip abroad. And other scientists noted it was carefully studied for years to prove the three-dose course offers decades of immunity — evidence that a single dose simply doesn’t have.

    “If they’ve got new data, I’m all for it — let’s see it and have a conversation,” said Dr. Kelly Gebo, an infectious disease specialist and public health dean at George Washington University, who watched for that. “I did not see any new data,” so she’s not changing her vaccine advice.

    Committee members argued that most babies’ risk of hepatitis B infection is very low and that earlier research on infant shot safety was inadequate.

    Especially unusual was a presentation from a lawyer who voiced doubt about studies that proved benefits of multiple childhood vaccines and promoted discredited research pointing to harms.

    “I don’t think at any point in the committee’s history, there was a 90-minute uninterrupted presentation by someone who wasn’t a physician, a scientist, or a public health expert on the topic — let alone someone who, who makes his living in vaccine litigation,” said Jason Schwartz, a vaccine policy expert at Yale University.

    By abandoning data and the consensus of front-line doctors, the ACIP is “actively burning down the credibility that made its recommendations so powerful,” added Stanford’s Scott. “Most parents will still follow their pediatricians, and AAP is holding the line here. But the mixed messages are precisely what erode confidence over time.”

    Parents already have a choice — they need solid guidance

    Trump administration health officials say it’s important to restore choice to parents and to avoid mandates. That’s how the panel’s hepatitis B recommendation was framed — that parents who really want it could get their children vaccinated later.

    Parents already have a choice, said Dr. Aaron Milstone of the American Academy of Pediatrics. The government makes population-wide recommendations while families and their doctors tailor choices to each person’s health needs.

    But many doctors don’t — or can’t — do their own lengthy scientific review of vaccines and thus had relied on the ACIP and CDC information, Yale’s Schwartz noted.

    They “rely on trusted expert voices to help navigate what is, even in the best of times, a complicated landscape regarding the evidence for vaccines and how best to use them,” he said.

    That’s a role that the pediatricians and other doctors groups, plus those multistate collaborations, aim to fill with their own guidelines — while acknowledging it will be a huge task.

    For now, “ask your questions, bring your concerns and let us talk about them,” said Dr. Sarah Nosal, of the American Academy of Family Physicians, urging anyone with vaccine questions to have an open conversation with their doctor.

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Rep. Stevens moves to impeach RFK Jr. for ‘putting lives at risk,’ spreading conspiracies – Detroit Metro Times

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    U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens, who is running for an open Senate seat in Michigan, introduced articles of impeachment Tuesday against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., accusing him of endangering public health, dismantling scientific institutions, and slashing critical medical research.

    Stevens, a fourth-term moderate Democrat who represents portions of Oakland County, said Kennedy has “turned his back on science, on public health, and on the American people – spreading conspiracies and lies, driving up costs, and putting lives at risk.” 

    “Under his watch, families are less safe and less healthy, people are paying more for care, lifesaving research has been gutted, and vaccines have been restricted,” she said. “He has driven up health care costs while tearing down the scientific institutions that keep Michiganders and families across America safe. His actions are reckless, his leadership is harmful, and his tenure has become a direct threat to our nation’s health and security. Congress cannot and will not stand by while one man dismantles decades of medical progress.

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Credit: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

    The articles charge Kennedy with “abuse of authority and undermining public health,” pointing to deep cuts to cancer and childhood-cancer research, studies into sudden infant death syndrome and addiction, and the elimination of mRNA and vaccine-hesitancy studies. Stevens also accuses Kennedy of restricting access to vaccines, withdrawing federal recommendations for COVID shots for pregnant women and healthy children, and pushing “wild and unfounded claims” to limit access to Tylenol.

    But the impeachment effort is likely to fail because Republicans control the U.S. House. 

    Stand Up for Science, a group that supports stronger scientific standards in government, has backed Stevens and said it’s “ready ready to hold Secretary Kennedy accountable.”

    “RFK Jr.’s actions are negligent and will result in harm and loss of life. He must be impeached and removed,” Colette Delawalla, the organization’s founder and CEO, said. “As a scientist and a mother, I am not willing to go back to a time before robust public health interventions. For the first time in human history, we progressed from 30% of babies not making it to adulthood to over 98% surviving to adulthood because of modern medicine and vaccines. Eliminating effective public health interventions with proven track records and dismantling evidence-based science is not the way to promote health and reduce chronic illness.”

    The articles also accuse Kennedy of mismanaging the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by firing the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel, calling the FDA a “sock puppet” agency, and overseeing staffing shortages that slowed the agency’s work. Stevens says Kennedy ended public comment for federal rulemaking, which public health and transparency advocates widely oppose.

    Stevens previously called for Kennedy’s resignation and introduced legislation to reverse some of the research cuts. Her impeachment push comes as she campaigns for the seat currently held by U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, who is retiring.

    In June, Stevens introduced a bill to prevent President Donald Trump from unilaterally deploying active-duty military forces within the United States without approval from state or territorial leaders.

    Another member of Congress from Michigan, Shri Thanedar, D-Detroit, introduced articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, accusing the former Fox News host of Hegseth “murder and conspiracy to murder” for authorizing deadly strikes against boats allegedly carrying narcotics in international waters. 

    Thanedar also introduced articles of impeachment against President Trump, including allegations of corruption, freedom of speech violations, obstruction of justice, unlawfully gutting government agencies, and more.


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    Steve Neavling

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  • FDA official, without providing data, claims link between COVID-19 vaccines and pediatric deaths

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    Dr. Vinay Prasad, the director of the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine division, sent a memo to staff that linked children’s deaths to the COVID-19 vaccine, but did not provide data to back the claim. 

    The memo said that a review “found that at least 10 children have died after and because of receiving COVID-19 vaccination,” according to multiple sources familiar with the email. The memo was first reported by the New York Times.  

    Prasad suggested that the deaths were related to myocarditis, or the inflammation of the heart muscle. Prasad did not share any data used in the review, including the children’s ages, whether they had existing health conditions, or how the FDA determined there was a link between their death and the vaccine. The findings were not published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

    Myocarditis has been linked to the COVID-19 vaccine, but studies have largely confirmed that the risk of the condition is significantly higher after a coronavirus infection, pediatric cardiologists told CBS News in 2023. The prognosis following myocarditis due to the vaccine is also better than from infection, studies show. COVID-19 infection is also linked to other long-term complications.

    The risk of myocarditis appears to be higher when vaccine doses are given closer together, as was the case when the vaccines first hit the market. Now, most people receive each dose of the vaccine about a year apart. If someone receives the primary series before age 5, the risk virtually disappears. 

    Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines carry warnings about the risk of myocarditis or pericarditis, a condition where the membrane surrounding the heart becomes inflamed. The warnings were expanded in April 2025 to apply to males aged 16 to 25. The rate of myocarditis and pericarditis was around 8 cases per million doses for children and adults under 65 years old after use of that season’s vaccines, the FDA said at the time.

    COVID-19 vaccines, developed during the first Trump administration, have become a target of the second. Top FDA officials selected by the administration under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. overrode career staff to limit the approvals of COVID-19 shots from Novavax and Moderna, according to records released by the FDA. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official said in June that she was resigning from her role overseeing updates to the agency’s COVID-19 vaccine recommendations, following an order from Kennedy that forced an update to the agency’s guidance. 

    Changing COVID-19 vaccination guidance has caused confusion for many. The CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, voted in September to change recommendations for the shot. All members of the committee have been picked by Kennedy, himself a vaccine skeptic. Several of the panel members have criticized the COVID-19 vaccine. 

    The updated CDC guidance recommends people make individual, informed decisions about COVID-19 vaccination, but did not specifically recommend the shots. The American Academy of Pediatrics said it was “strongly recommending” shots for children between 6 months and 2 years old, while the Infectious Diseases Society of America recommended the vaccine for everyone six months and older. State governments have also banded together, forming the West Coast Health Alliance and the Northeast Public Health Collaborative, to issue recommendations that differ from the CDC guidance. 

    Dr. Céline Gounder, CBS News medical contributor and editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News, told CBS News in August that there’s “a lot of noise out there” when it comes to vaccines, but advises parents to “stick the course” and talk to your doctor about making sure children get all their necessary vaccinations, including the initial COVID vaccination series. 

    Edited by

    Paula Cohen

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  • RFK Jr. says he’s following ‘gold standard’ science. Here’s what to know

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    The message is hammered over and over, in news conferences, hearings and executive orders: President Donald Trump and his health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., say they want the government to follow “gold standard” science.

    Scientists say the problem is that they are often doing just the opposite by relying on preliminary studies, fringe science or just hunches to make claims, cast doubt on proven treatments or even set policy.

    This week, the nation’s top public health agency changed its website to contradict the scientific conclusion that vaccines do not cause autism. The move shocked health experts nationwide.

    Dr. Daniel Jernigan, who resigned from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in August, told reporters Wednesday that Kennedy seems to be “going from evidence-based decision making to decision-based evidence making.”

    It was the latest example of the Trump administration’s challenge to established science.

    U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during the Western Governors’ Association meeting Thursday, Nov. 20, 2025, in Scottsdale, Ariz. (AP Photo/Rebecca Noble)

    In September, the Republican president gave out medical advice based on weak or no evidence. Speaking directly to pregnant women and to parents, he told them not to take acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol. He repeatedly made the fraudulent and long-disproven link between autism and vaccines, saying his assessment was based on a hunch.

    “I have always had very strong feelings about autism and how it happened and where it came from,” he said.

    At a two-day meeting this fall, Kennedy’s handpicked vaccine advisers to the CDC raised questions about vaccinating babies against hepatitis B, an inoculation long shown to reduce disease and death drastically.

    “The discussion that has been brought up regarding safety is not based on evidence other than case reports and anecdotes,” said Dr. Flor Munoz, a pediatric infectious disease expert at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital.

    During the country’s worst year for measles in more than three decades, Kennedy cast doubt on the measles vaccine while championing unproven treatments and alleging that the unvaccinated children who died were “already sick.”

    Scientists say the process of getting medicines and vaccines to market and recommended in the United States has, until now, typically relied on gold standard science. The process is so rigorous and transparent that much of the rest of the world follows the lead of American regulators, giving the OK to treatments only after U.S. approval.

    This April 1, 2025 photo shows the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention building in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Ben Gray, file)

    This April 1, 2025 photo shows the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention building in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Ben Gray, file)

    Gold standard science

    The gold standard can differ because science and medicine is complicated and everything cannot be tested the same way. That term simply refers to the best possible evidence that can be gathered.

    “It completely depends on what question you’re trying to answer,” said Dr. Jake Scott, an infectious disease physician and Stanford University researcher.

    What produces the best possible evidence?

    There are many different types of studies. The most rigorous is the randomized clinical trial.

    It randomly creates two groups of subjects that are identical in every way except for the drug, treatment or other question being tested. Many are “blinded studies,” meaning neither the subjects nor the researchers know who is in which group. This helps eliminate bias.

    It is not always possible or ethical to conduct these tests. This is sometimes the case with vaccine trials, “because we have so much data showing how safe and effective they are, it would be unethical to withhold vaccines from a particular group,” said Jessica Steier, a public health scientist and founder of the Unbiased Science podcast.

    Studying the long-term effect of a behavior can be impossible. For example, scientists could not possibly study the long-term benefit of exercise by having one group not exercise for years.

    Instead, researchers must conduct observational studies, where they follow participants and track their health and behavior without manipulating any variables. Such studies helped scientists discover that fluoride reduces cavities, and later lab studies showed how fluoride strengthens tooth enamel.

    But the studies have limitations because they can often only prove correlation, not causation. For example, some observational studies have raised the possibility of a link between autism risk and using acetaminophen during pregnancy, but more have not found a connection. The big problem is that those kinds of studies cannot determine if the painkiller really made any difference or if it was the fever or other health problem that prompted the need for the pill.

    Real world evidence can be especially powerful

    Scientists can learn even more when they see how something affects a large number of people in their daily lives.

    That real-world evidence can be valuable to prove how well something works — and when there are rare side effects that could never be detected in trials.

    Such evidence on vaccines has proved useful in both ways. Scientists now know there can be rare side effects with some vaccines and can alert doctors to be on the lookout. The data has proved that vaccines provide extraordinary protection from disease. For example, measles was eliminated in the U.S. but it still pops up among unvaccinated groups.

    That same data proves vaccines are safe.

    “If vaccines caused a wave of chronic disease, our safety systems — which can detect 1-in-a-million events — would have seen it. They haven’t,” Scott told a U.S. Senate subcommittee in September.

    The best science is open and transparent

    Simply publishing a paper online is not enough to call it open and transparent. Specific things to look for include:

    — Researchers set their hypothesis before they start the study and do not change it.

    — The authors disclose their conflicts of interest and their funding sources.

    — The research has gone through peer review by subject-matter experts who have nothing to do with that particular study.

    — The authors show their work, publishing and explaining the data underlying their analyses.

    — They cite reliable sources.

    This transparency allows science to check itself. Dr. Steven Woloshin, a Dartmouth College professor, has spent much of his career challenging scientific conclusions underlying health policy.

    “I’m only able to do that because they’re transparent about what they did, what the underlying source resources were, so that you can come to your own conclusion,” he said. “That’s how science works.”

    Know the limits of anecdotes and single studies

    Anecdotes may be powerful. They are not data.

    Case studies might even be published in top journals, to help doctors or other professionals learn from a particular situation. But they are not used to making decisions about how to treat large numbers of patients because every situation is unique.

    Even single studies should be considered in the context of previous research. A new one-off blockbuster study that seems to answer every question definitively or reaches a conclusion that runs counter to other well-conducted studies needs a very careful look.

    Uncertainty is baked into science.

    “Science isn’t about reaching certainty,” Woloshin said. “It’s about trying to reduce uncertainty to the point where you can say, ‘I have good confidence that if we do X, we’ll see result Y.’ But there’s no guarantee.”

    Doing your own research? Questions to ask

    If you come across a research paper online, in a news story or cited by officials to change your mind about something, here are some questions to ask:

    — Who did the research? What is their expertise? Do they disclose conflicts of interest?

    — Who paid for this research? Who might benefit from it?

    — Is it published in a reputable journal? Did it go through peer review?

    — What question are the researchers asking? Who or what are they studying? Are they making even comparisons between groups?

    — Is there a “limitations” section where the authors point out what their research cannot prove, other factors that could influence their results, or other potential blind spots? What does it say?

    — Does it make bold, definitive claims? Does it fit into the scientific consensus or challenge it? Is it too good or bad to be true?

    ___

    AP Medical Writers Lauran Neergaard in Washington and Mike Stobbe in New York contributed to this report.

    ___

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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