RFK Jr. delivers on food bans while dismantling the infrastructure that keeps Americans alive
We spent the weekend making fun of RFK Jr.‘s love letters to Olivia Nuzzi – “Thanks to Bobby, I am now aware of something called felching,” wrote her ex-fiancé Ryan Lizza, and no, I will not be elaborating – so I thought I would check in on how badly he’s destroying the CDC.
The answer: spectacularly.
Last Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quietly rewrote its website to contradict the scientific consensus that vaccines do not cause autism. The new language says “the statement ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.” Three former CDC officials described it as the day the CDC died. Dr. Atul Gawande called the agency “lobotomized.” Demetre Daskalakis, who ran the CDC’s immunization division before resigning in August, put it bluntly: “DO NOT TRUST THIS AGENCY.”
Here’s the thing. Senator Bill Cassidy, the Louisiana Republican who chairs the Senate Health Committee, cast the tie-breaking vote to confirm Kennedy after securing a promise – on the record, during confirmation hearings – that Kennedy would not remove language from the CDC website stating that vaccines do not cause autism. Kennedy kept the header. Then he added an asterisk. The asterisk leads to a footnote explaining that the header remains only “due to an agreement” with Cassidy. The rest of the page contradicts it entirely.
Kennedy admitted to the New York Times that he personally ordered the change. Health secretaries do not personally order changes to scientific guidance. That’s what career scientists do. Kennedy made an exception for his own pet conspiracy theory.
The pattern here is consistent. Cassidy asked for a promise. Kennedy gave him an asterisk. Every living former U.S. Surgeon General, across both parties, has called for Kennedy’s removal. Cassidy, when asked if he regrets his vote, said “life is lived forward.”
Meanwhile, measles is doing exactly what epidemiologists predicted. The CDC reports 1,753 confirmed cases in 2025, up from 285 total in 2024. Three children have died. The Americas just lost their measles elimination status after Canada had sustained transmission for 12 months. The U.S. is on track to follow by January if outbreaks in Arizona, Utah, and South Carolina aren’t contained before the holidays. If measles keeps spreading through January 20, that marks a full year of continuous transmission. We earned measles elimination status in 2000. We’re about to lose it because vaccination rates have dropped below herd immunity thresholds.
Kennedy’s response to this is to visit outbreak zones and talk about vitamin A supplements.
Anyway, you might have also heard about the food dye bans. The FDA announced it will phase out petroleum-based synthetic dyes – Red 3, Yellow 5, Blue 1 – by the end of 2026.
These chemicals have been in European crosshairs for years while American regulators shrugged. Kennedy is also going after the GRAS loophole, that cozy arrangement where food companies declare their own additives “generally recognized as safe” without FDA review. Health activists on the left have wanted this for decades.
The food dye stuff is popular. But also, 82% of Americans still support the MMR vaccine, even after months of Kennedy undermining confidence in it. The disconnect between what sounds healthy – banning Red 40 – and what actually keeps children alive – maintaining vaccination infrastructure – is exactly where Kennedy operates. He can announce natural alternatives to food colorings in the same month his handpicked vaccine advisory committee considers restricting COVID shots for everyone under 75.
The CDC has lost about a third of its workforce since Kennedy took over. Director Susan Monarez was fired for refusing to “rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives.” Her replacement is Jim O’Neill, the deputy HHS Secretary, who is not a scientist. When asked about the Arizona and Utah outbreaks threatening elimination status, the CDC directed reporters to O’Neill’s statement on X.
Former CDC chief medical officer Debra Houry put it simply: “I don’t know if CDC will survive, to be quite frank.”
Kennedy often describes his approach as “gold standard science” and “radical transparency.” But transparency is not amplifying fringe studies, and science is not an open invitation to relitigate settled questions because political leadership dislikes the answers. This is decision-based evidence-making.
He can point to states passing laws limiting additives in school lunches while measles spreads through unvaccinated communities in those same states. He calls it restoring trust in public health. The scientists fleeing HHS, the parents of dead children in Texas, and the epidemiologists watching elimination status slip away call it something else entirely.
SOURCES
How RFK Jr., America’s celebrity health secretary, is steamrolling science
Health secretary RFK Jr. abruptly fires CDC vaccine advisory panel
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/06/09/nx-s1-5428533/rfk-jr-vaccine-advisory-committee-acip
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rfk-jr-removes-members-cdc-immunization-advisory-committee-acip/
https://fortune.com/2025/04/06/measles-outbreak-deaths-rfk-jr-unvaccinated-west-texas-500-cases/
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-live-rfk-jr-to-announce-phasing-out-of-artificial-food-dyes
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/04/22/nx-s1-5372637/food-dyes-ban-fda-rfk-kennedy
https://www.commondreams.org/news/rfk-measles-elimination
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/measles/support-measles-vaccination-drops-amid-growing-confusion-about-disease-us-poll-shows
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy_Jr.