Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told a room at the Heritage Foundation that he enjoys a level of freedom inside the Trump White House few cabinet members have seen before.
“It’s a joy to work for him because he lets me do stuff that I don’t think anybody else would ever let me do,” Kennedy said Monday.
Kennedy went on to praise the president as friendly to business and blunt about power. “I think he’s probably the most business-friendly president we’ve had,” he said. “He admires business people more than anybody. He loves them. But he will not tolerate overreach and he doesn’t care about vested interest and he doesn’t care about, you know, offending powerful people.”
The words were delivered with a grin and a hint of swagger. They also landed in a tense corner of public health policy. Kennedy was one of the most controversial nominees to lead health policy. He has made a name as a leader of the Make America Healthy Again movement and as a vocal vaccine skeptic. That history has made some public health officials uneasy.
Critics point to a trail of claims that run against mainstream science. Kennedy has suggested links between vaccines and autism that large studies have not found. He has also said a strict low carbohydrate diet can cure certain psychiatric conditions. Those statements have drawn sharp push back from medical experts.
The timing of Kennedy’s comments matters to more than politics. South Carolina is in the midst of a large measles outbreak that has tested public health systems and put a spotlight on vaccination rates. State health officials and federal agencies say the best protection is the measles vaccine.
The outbreak in South Carolina has grown quickly. Health reports show the number of confirmed cases rose into the high hundreds this winter. Officials worry the virus will spread where vaccination rates are low and people travel for holidays or work. The disease is highly contagious and can spread before symptoms begin.
Kennedy dismissed some of the past messaging from the Biden era. “We were told by the (Biden) administration to ‘trust the experts.’ That’s not a thing,” he said Monday. “Trusting the experts is not a feature of democracy, and it’s not a feature of science. It’s a feature of religion and totalitarianism, but not of democracy.”
To those who work in disease control the point is simple. Science builds on evidence. Experts collect data and test ideas. That is how vaccines were shown to prevent measles and how public health leaders track outbreaks. The current rise in cases is a reminder that those methods matter to real people and to public safety.
Kennedy’s style and ideas have not only stirred debate. They have also led to policy moves inside the health agency that reshape how research and guidance are handled. Supporters say he is breaking up old ways that favored large companies. Critics say the changes risk sidelining career scientists and weakening the agencies that protect the public.
The White House has defended its picks and its goals. The administration says it wants fresh thinking and new priorities for children and families. That can sound sensible. It can also sound like a lot of power for one voice in a field where consensus has normally mattered. The difference is not just style. It is how the country responds when a virus appears at the school or in a clinic.
Featured image via YouTube screengrab
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