Health
Behind R.F.K. Jr.’s Vow to ‘Follow the Science’ on Vaccines
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent the first day of his back-to-back confirmation hearings deftly avoiding questions about his views on vaccines. On the second day, when a prominent Republican senator insisted there was no link between vaccines and autism, Mr. Kennedy shot back that a new study “showed the opposite.”
“I just want to follow the science,” Mr. Kennedy declared.
Following the science has been a familiar refrain for Mr. Kennedy, whose confirmation as health secretary appears all but assured in a vote expected Thursday. But the exchange in the Senate raises questions about just what type of science Mr. Kennedy is consulting. It foreshadows how, if confirmed, Mr. Kennedy could continue to sow doubts about vaccines.
Academics have pounced on the study that Mr. Kennedy cited during the hearing, shredding it as methodologically faulty and biased. The study emanated from a network of vaccine skeptics who share some of Mr. Kennedy’s views — an ecosystem that includes the author of the study, the editor of the journal that published it and the advocacy group that financed it.
“We authors were delighted and honored that R.F.K. Jr. referred to our work in his confirmation hearing,” the study’s lead author, Anthony Mawson, said in an email. A spokeswoman for Mr. Kennedy did not respond to a request for comment.
Dr. Mawson, an epidemiologist, said he first met Mr. Kennedy at an autism conference in 2017. Mr. Kennedy cites Dr. Mawson’s research 33 times in his 2023 book, “Vax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak.”
His study was rejected “without explanation” by several mainstream medical journals, Dr. Mawson said. So he turned for advice to Andrew Wakefield, the author of the 1998 study, now retracted, that sparked the initial furor over vaccines and autism. Mr. Wakefield encouraged him to submit the study to a new journal called Science, Public Health Policy and the Law.
That publication is led by some notable vaccine critics, including three who headlined a Washington rally in 2022 with Mr. Kennedy to protest Covid vaccine mandates.
As the nation’s health secretary, Mr. Kennedy “would have wide powers to advance his favored research studies, publications, or scientific data,” according to Lawrence O. Gostin, a public health law expert at Georgetown University. Mr. Kennedy’s critics fear that the public will have neither the time nor the training to sort through a war that seems to pit one study against another, and that the result will be a rapid decline in confidence in vaccines.
“The Mawson paper epitomizes Kennedy’s consistent inability to distinguish junk science from reliable information,” said Dr. John P. Moore, professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College, who said that study and some of the others Mr. Kennedy has cited in the past are published by “fringe journals.”
Mr. Kennedy has said that he is not anti-vaccine, but rather in favor of vaccine safety.
“I support the measles vaccine. I support the polio vaccine,” Mr. Kennedy said on the first day of his confirmation hearings. “I will do nothing as H.H.S. secretary that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking it.”
Mr. Kennedy’s insistence that more research is necessary when it comes to vaccine safety has drawn support from some Republicans, who say they welcome his skepticism.
“I don’t understand why my colleagues all of sudden say we can’t question science,” Senator Markwayne Mullin, Republican of Oklahoma, said during one of Mr. Kennedy’s hearings. He added, “When you start looking at the rise of autism, why wouldn’t we be looking at everything?”
But Michael T. Osterholm, an epidemiologist at the University of Minnesota who has advised administrations of both parties, said Mr. Kennedy’s demands for additional data go too far when they concern vaccines and autism. Mainstream scientists say the issue is settled.
“That’s the equivalent of me saying until Newton comes back and shows me that apple falling from the tree, I do not believe gravity exists,” Dr. Osterholm said.
Doctors who have examined the way Mr. Kennedy uses scientific research say he also has a tendency to cherry-pick particular findings from prominent researchers, as he did during a podcast in 2022.
During that appearance, he cited a study published in the journal Pediatrics in 2000 to suggest that improvements in sanitation and hygiene — and not vaccines — fueled a drop in deaths from infectious diseases during the first half of the 20th century. That is true. But Mr. Kennedy failed to note that the study also reported that vaccines introduced in the second half of the 20th century had “virtually eliminated” deaths from diseases including polio and measles.
During one of his confirmation hearings, Mr. Kennedy cited work by a well-known vaccine scientist, Dr. Gregory Poland, to suggest Black people should follow a different vaccine schedule because they needed fewer antigens, the vaccine components that provoke an immune response.
Dr. Poland did not respond to requests for comment. But he told National Public Radio that his work did not support Mr. Kennedy’s assertion.
Mr. Kennedy and Dr. Mawson have long aired similar concerns about vaccines.
In an appearance before the Mississippi legislature in 2009, Dr. Mawson called for more vaccine safety research and “a more flexible approach to vaccination requirements for school attendance.” In a 2011 lawsuit, Dr. Mawson said the testimony had cost him his job as an epidemiologist at the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
In 2017, Dr. Mawson published a pilot study comparing vaccinated to unvaccinated children.
The study relied on a survey of parents who home-schooled their children and found higher rates of autism among vaccinated children, compared with those who had not been vaccinated. The study was funded in part by Generation Rescue, a nonprofit associated with Jenny McCarthy, a television personality who has promoted claims of a link between vaccines and autism.
Dr. Mawson by that time had established the Chalfont Research Institute, a charity that operates out of his home in Jackson, Miss. The institute reported revenue of just $57 in 2021, the most recent figures available.
In 2019, it received charitable contributions of $160,000, tax records show. The bulk of that money, $150,000, came from the National Vaccine Information Center, a group whose mission includes supporting research on “vaccine-associated deaths, injuries and chronic illness.”
Like Mr. Kennedy, the group’s president and co-founder, Barbara Loe Fisher, has long called for research comparing “total health outcomes” including the risk of autism, in vaccinated and unvaccinated children. When Dr. Mawson approached her group with a proposal, she said, the center reviewed his pilot study of 2017, approved his plan and provided $150,000 in funding.
That money paid for the paper Mr. Kennedy cited at the hearing, during an exchange with Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana and a doctor.
The journal that published the study, Science, Public Health Policy and the Law, advertises itself as peer-reviewed, meaning its research is evaluated by anonymous independent experts before publication. Dr. Mawson said his paper had undergone review by two such experts.
Some people associated with the journal are also associated with Mr. Kennedy.
James Lyons-Weiler, the journal’s editor in chief, described himself as a longtime ally of Mr. Kennedy’s in a yearslong “fight across 20 states” for vaccine exemptions.
“Honored to call him my friend,” he wrote on social media last year.
The journal’s editorial board includes the chief executive and the chief scientific officer of Children’s Health Defense, the nonprofit that Mr. Kennedy led until he began his presidential campaign in 2023.
The board also includes members who sell products or services for people who are concerned about vaccines. One of its editorial board members offers $2,350 telehealth appointments for “post-vaccine syndrome.” Another sells $90 “spike detox” supplements marketed for “vaccine injury syndrome” that is meant to get “you back to that pre-Covid feeling.”
The study by Dr. Mawson that Mr. Kennedy cited at the hearing focused on about 47,000 children enrolled in Florida Medicaid from 1999 to 2011 and looked at billing data to determine their vaccination status.
The study found very few billing records for unvaccinated children with autism — eight who were born prematurely and 54 overall. It concluded that vaccination was significantly associated with higher rates of neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism, particularly in infants who were born prematurely.
By contrast, large-scale studies in respected medical journals, including an analysis of five studies involving more than 1.2 million children, have found no association between vaccines and autism.
But even as Dr. Mawson’s research took shape, problems emerged. The paper notes that researchers lost access to the database they used to perform the study. Dr. Alex Morozov, an expert on clinical trial design who met with Dr. Mawson to discuss the study, said he viewed that as a red flag.
Dr. Morozov also said the study had a “fundamental flaw”: It failed to account for the possibility that vaccinated children might have more encounters with the medical system than unvaccinated children, whose illnesses would not be captured by billing data.
The study also failed to account for factors like family history of autism, the child’s gender (boys are diagnosed with higher rates of autism than girls) or the possibility that children might have been vaccinated outside the Florida Medicaid system, said Bertha Hidalgo, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Dr. Mawson strongly defended the work, noting that the study “carefully documents both its strengths and limitations,” but contending that critics focused only on the limitations. “Nevertheless,” he said, “further research is needed to replicate the findings and to unravel the mechanisms involved.”
At the Senate hearing, Mr. Cassidy pressed Mr. Kennedy to accept that the vaccines and autism debate was settled. He reminded Mr. Kennedy that he had been shown the study of 1.2 million children that found no link between the two.
“I’m a doc, trying to understand,” Mr. Cassidy said, adding, “Convince me that you will become the public health advocate, but not just churn old information so that there’s never a conclusion.”
To that, Mr. Kennedy replied, “I’m going to be an advocate for strong science. You show me those scientific studies, and you and I can meet about it. And there are other studies as well. I’d love to show those to you.”
The deadly hantavirus outbreak aboard the cruise ship MV Hondius has put the spotlight on a rare pathogen that typically attracts relatively little attention, even from scientists.
There are no targeted treatments for hantaviruses, which are typically carried by rodents, and no widely available vaccines. So when passengers began falling ill in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, doctors and public health experts were limited in what they could offer.
“It’s kind of a wake-up call,” said Dr. Vaithi Arumugaswami, an infectious disease researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Our tool kit is almost empty.”
That’s not for lack of trying. A handful of scientific teams around the world have been working — for decades, in some cases — to develop hantavirus treatments and vaccines. But it has not been easy to find funding or nurture commercial interest in medical interventions for a type of pathogen that does not infect humans often and does not spread easily between people.
“It’s not an airborne, highly contagious viral threat, so it hasn’t been as high a priority for groups trying to prevent pandemics,” said Jay Hooper, a virologist at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.
But there are promising vaccines and treatments in development. And some of them, experts said, could be moved through the pipeline rapidly if hantavirus interventions became a priority.
“I do think there are things that are sitting there on the bench that could be quickly developed,” said Dr. Ronald Nahass, the president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. “But nothing is ready.”
Vaccine development
There are two main types of hantaviruses: Old World viruses, which circulate primarily in Asia and Europe, and New World viruses, which are found in the Americas. The cruise ship outbreak has been linked to a New World virus known as the Andes virus, which is endemic to South America and is the only hantavirus known to spread between people.
There are vaccines that target some of the Old World viruses in Asia, but their efficacy is modest, experts said. And there are no licensed vaccines for the New World viruses, which include the Sin Nombre virus endemic to rodents in the western United States.
But there are some in development. Dr. Hooper and his colleagues have developed a DNA vaccine for the Andes virus, which proved promising in a small phase 1 trial. Under certain dosing regimens, the researchers found, more than 80 percent of participants produced neutralizing antibodies. “It’s pretty amazing,” said Dr. Hooper, who is an inventor on multiple hantavirus vaccine patents owned by the U.S. government. “Getting these kinds of neutralizing antibodies in humans is impressive.”
There were drawbacks, including that the vaccine seemed to require at least three doses. But the vaccine is ready for further development “if there’s a need,” Dr. Hooper said. “We’ve done the science. It’s just other forces that are required to move vaccines forward — markets, government demand.”
Other teams have potential vaccines in earlier stages of development. For instance, Bryce Warner, a hantavirus researcher at the University of Saskatchewan, and his colleagues are exploring a variety of approaches, including a nasal vaccine that they hope might spark a more robust immune response in the airway.
But the research, which is being conducted in hamsters, is still in early stages, and hantavirus vaccine candidates can be challenging to move forward. Scientists lack good large-animal models for hantaviruses, Dr. Warner said, and human cases are rare enough to make trials tricky. “It’s very difficult to conduct a clinical trial when you only have a limited number of cases annually,” he said. “You don’t have the numbers of people to really show a robust effect.”
Drug hunting
Currently, the primary treatment for hantavirus infection is supportive care, which may include supplemental oxygen or heart-lung bypass machines. Doctors also sometimes prescribe an existing antiviral drug, called ribavirin, but there is not strong evidence that it is effective for New World viruses, scientists said.
The hunt for new drugs is underway, though. At U.C.L.A., Dr. Arumugaswami and his colleagues found that favipiravir, an antiviral approved to treat influenza in Japan, inhibited the Andes virus in human cells. They also identified several compounds that had broad antiviral activity, blocking hantaviruses as well as other types of viruses, in human organoids, miniature clusters of tissue that mimic the function of organs.
Other teams have been working to develop therapeutic antibody treatments, often working from blood samples collected from hantavirus survivors. “We were able to isolate the natural antibodies that people are making and basically winnow them down and find one that was really good,” said Kartik Chandran, a virologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. “We actually found several.”
When Dr. Chandran and his colleagues tested these antibodies in hamsters, one produced especially encouraging results: It seemed to work against both Old and New World hantaviruses and was effective even when given relatively late in the course of infection, Dr. Chandran said.
(Dr. Chandran is listed as an inventor on patents for hantavirus antibodies.)
Several other teams have also produced antibodies that were broadly effective in small animals, but that is where a number of potential products have stalled, experts said.
“We have a lead drug, and now what we need is someone to pay the money, which would be something like $40 million, to go the next step,” said Dr. James Crowe, director of the Vanderbilt Center for Antibody Therapeutics. “We have neither government nor foundation nor company support to do that. So we’re just waiting to find a partner.”
(Vanderbilt University has applied for patents related to these antibodies; Dr. Crowe is listed as the inventor.)
Experts said that they hoped the current outbreak might help bring attention to a family of often-overlooked viruses.
“Certainly judging by just my inbox and text messages, there’s a renewed interest in these agents, and renewed interest in maybe at least revisiting where they are in the priority list,” Dr. Chandran said.
Whether that interest can be sustained after the virus fades from the headlines remains to be seen, experts acknowledged.
“Raising awareness never hurts,” Dr. Warner said. “We’ll see whether or not it leads to anything tangible, at least in terms of funding and resources for advancing some of these things that are lacking for hantavirus.”
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Gym membership in the U.S. hit a record high in 2025, according to the Health & Fitness Association, giving consumers more workout options — and more choices to sort through when picking the right fitness space.
Amid today’s wellness renaissance, many gyms and fitness clubs can cost hundreds of dollars per month, depending on the level of access and amenities offered.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Kenny Santucci — New York City fitness trainer, gym owner and host of the “Strong New York” podcast — revealed the attributes of a great gym.
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“A lot of people traditionally look at gyms [as if] they have to have all the bells and whistles,” he said. “Spa, bathrooms, all these things. For me, a gym is a gym. I go there for the equipment, I go for the culture, I go for the look and feel of the place.”
He added, “You can have an incredible gym [that’s] a garage gym, and you can have an incredible gym [that] somebody could have built for $10 million.”
Amid today’s wellness renaissance, many gyms and fitness clubs can cost hundreds of dollars per month, depending on the level of access and amenities offered. A New York City fitness trainer (not pictured) has a different view of what makes the best gyms.
Santucci, who visits new gyms across the country and posts his experiences on social media, said he looks for a balance between aesthetics and equipment quality, as well as “great people.”
“I think you could go and get in a sweat or a workout anywhere — but if the people are great, that’s what creates that great culture,” he said.
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“If you ask the average person who goes to most big-box gyms, the things they tell you they love about the gym are, ‘Oh, I love the showers. They have really nice towels.’ It’s nothing that actually pertains to the gym, and I believe that people should go to the gym to progress and get better,” he added.
With these goals in mind, Santucci revealed some of his top-rated gyms in the U.S.
Life Time Fitness
Life Time is a chain of luxury health clubs in the U.S., offering amenities like indoor courts, swimming pools, saunas and group fitness classes.
Santucci applauded the gym’s founder and CEO, Bahram Akradi, for being a “very hands-on owner and operator,” overseeing hundreds of gyms across the country.
The facade of an upscale Lifetime gym is shown in Walnut Creek, California, on April 8, 2025. (Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)
“[Bahran’s] mentality and belief system around the fitness space, I absolutely love,” he said.
“I give a lot of credit to the guys who are owners and operators,” Santucci added. “They’re in the space, they’re making sure things are going really well. I think if you’re going to be in the gym business, you should be one of those people.”
Anatomy Gyms (Florida)
Santucci also shouted out Marc Megna, co-founder and co-CEO of Florida-based Anatomy Fitness for building a must-visit space.
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“It’s an incredible culture there, and I think that’s what they really push at that gym,” he said.
“The way the gym’s set up, the cleanliness of it, the aesthetics – you walk in that place, and you want to train … and those are things you can’t just buy … You have to live it, love it and be involved in the day-to-day operations.”
Powerhouse (New York/New Jersey)
In a newer recommendation, Santucci said he’s enjoyed stopping into Powerhouse Gym in New York City.
The New York- and New Jersey-based gym focuses on weight training and bodybuilding, including a powerlifting room and boxing rig at its locations.
“I just started going there, once or twice a week,” he said. “I really love the people and the culture.”
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The Training Lab (NYC)
For more of a group fitness and Hyrox training experience, Santucci recommends The Training Lab in New York City. (Hyrox is a global fitness racing brand and training system with affiliated gyms and training clubs.)
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“The guys over at Training Lab are incredible,” he told Fox News Digital. “Another owner-operator who’s involved in the business, who partakes in everything. I think they’re another great gym.”
“If you’re looking for group training, Training Lab’s a great space.”
Participants compete in the burpee broad jumps event during the Hyrox fitness race at the Bangkok International Trade and Exhibition Centre in Bangkok on March 21, 2026. (Amaury Paul/AFP)
The price of wellness
While some premier gym memberships can cost upward of $300 a month, Santucci said it isn’t necessary to spend a lot to get results, although it may result in more of an “experience.”
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“We need to restructure the way we think about health and wellness,” he said. “People aren’t going out as much anymore. They’re not spending as much on alcohol.
“It’s all what you prioritize. I prioritize fitness,” he went on. “I belong to multiple gyms. I have a membership to TMPL Gym here in [New York City]. I have a membership to Renzo Gracie’s. That’s what I like to do with my money.”
While some premier gym memberships can cost upward of $300 a month, Santucci emphasized that it isn’t necessary to spend a lot to get results. (iStock)
Santucci said what he’s paying for goes beyond the equipment — pointing to the staff, community and overall atmosphere as part of the value.
“If you want that elevated experience, you’re going to pay for that just like you would at a hotel or a restaurant or anything else,” he said.
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The expert suggested that wellness has recently become a “third form of hygiene.”
“It’s like you take a shower, you brush your teeth and you go to the gym,” he said. “I think those are three non-negotiables for almost everybody on a daily basis when it comes to your hygiene.”
Ants can be a nuisance. Just ask officials at a hospital in Canada who are dealing with an “appearance of ants within the operating room” that has forced them to indefinitely suspend some surgeries there.
The ants appeared recently at Carman Memorial Hospital in Carman Manitoba, according to a statement from Southern Health-Santé Sud, the provincial authority that oversees the hospital.
It was not clear when the hospital would resume operations, but Southern Health said on Friday that a “limited number of elective surgeries” had been postponed and that the hospital was working with patients to reschedule them. Portage Online, a local news website, reported that 16 operations had been postponed, citing information from Southern Health.
It’s not the first time ants have disrupted operations at the hospital. The insects appeared there in August 2024, but “the issue resolved within a few weeks,” Southern Health said. They returned last summer. But with their reappearance this week, the hospital said it was taking more drastic measures. The hospital serves the area around Carman, a town with a population of around 3,000 residents about 47 miles southwest of Winnipeg.
“Any factor that could impact the safety or integrity of the operating room environment requires the suspension of surgical activity until the issue can be resolved,” Southern Health said. “The safety of patients, staff and physicians is paramount.”
The hospital is working with exterminators “to identify the source of the ants and implement additional measures and support a long-term resolution.” Southern Health told Portage Online that exterminators had “surveyed and cleaned drains, opened walls and sealed cracks.”
“Several methods have been used to bait the ants in an effort to find where they are originating from,” the authority said.
In a separate statement to the CBC, Southern Health said that it believed that an ant colony had made its home near the hospital and that they appeared to be “simply seeking food sources inside buildings as ants are known to do.”
The hospital also told the CBC that the ant problem at the hospital did not amount to an “infestation.”
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