Health
Kennedy’s Views Mix Mistrust of Business With Unfounded Health Claims
Seven years after Americans celebrated the licensing of Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine, President John F. Kennedy called on Congress to finance a nationwide vaccination program to stamp out what he called the “ancient enemies of our children”: infectious disease.
Now Kennedy’s nephew, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is the nation’s chief critic of vaccines — a public health intervention that has saved millions of lives — and President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick to become the next secretary of health and human services. Mr. Kennedy calls himself a vaccine safety activist. The press calls him a vaccine skeptic. His detractors call him an anti-vaxxer and a conspiracy theorist.
Whatever one calls him, Mr. Kennedy is a polarizing choice whose views on certain public health matters beyond vaccination are far outside the mainstream. He opposes fluoride in water. He favors raw milk, which the Food and Drug Administration deems risky. And he has promoted unproven therapies like hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19. His own relatives called his presidential bid “dangerous for our country.”
If there is a through line to Mr. Kennedy’s thinking, it appears to be a deep mistrust of corporate influence on health and medicine. In some cases, that has led him to support positions that are also embraced by public health professionals, including his push to get ultra-processed foods, which have been linked to obesity, off grocery store shelves. His disdain for profit-seeking pharmaceutical manufacturers and food companies drew applause on the campaign trail.
People close to him say his commitment to “make America healthy again” is heartfelt.
“This is his life’s mission,” said Brian Festa, a founder of We the Patriots U.S.A., a “medical freedom” group that has pushed back on vaccine mandates, who said he has known Mr. Kennedy for years.
But like Mr. Trump, Mr. Kennedy also has a tendency to float wild theories based on scanty evidence. And he has hinted at taking actions, like prosecuting leading medical journals, that have unnerved the medical community. On Friday, many leading public health experts reacted to his nomination with alarm.
“This is the first time we’ve ever had someone that walking in the door whose public views, you just can’t trust,” said Dr. Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association, which represents 25,000 public health professionals.
He called Mr. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer, “totally unprepared, by skill and by training,” for the job of secretary, which involves managing a department with more than 80,000 employees and 13 operating divisions, overseeing everything from Medicare to biomedical research.
Mike Pence, the former vice president under Mr. Trump, publicly opposed Mr. Kennedy’s nomination on Friday, citing his support for abortion rights.
The pharmaceutical industry’s trade group issued a statement neither praising nor criticizing Mr. Kennedy’s nomination. Calling itself “a crown jewel of the American economy,” the group vowed to “work with the Trump administration to further strengthen our innovation ecosystem and improve health care for patients.” Shares of stock in vaccine makers fell after Mr. Trump announced his selection of Mr. Kennedy on Thursday.
Mr. Kennedy did not respond to a request for an interview, and he has not publicly outlined his priorities. But if he is confirmed by the Senate, he would have wide latitude as health secretary, and has forecast his plans to shake things up.
In an interview in January 2024 with Dr. Mark Hyman, before he suspended his own independent presidential campaign and endorsed Mr. Trump, he spoke about what he would do if elected, outlining some of his lesser-known goals.
He said he would steer the nearly $48 billion annual budget of the National Institutes of Health away from drug development and toward studies that would explain high rates of chronic disease. He also said he would seek to prosecute medical journals like The Lancet and The New England Journal of Medicine under the federal anti-corruption statute.
“I’m going to litigate against you under the racketeering laws, under the general tort laws,” he said during the interview. “I’m going to find a way to sue you unless you come up with a plan right now to show how you’re going to start publishing real science and stop retracting the real science and publishing the fake pharmaceutical science by these phony industry mercenaries, scientists.”
More recently, Mr. Kennedy has said Mr. Trump would advise communities to stop fluoridating their water, contradicting the advice of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which cites fluoridation to reduce tooth decay as on of the ten great public health achievements of the 20th century. He has said he would slash 600 jobs at the N.I.H. and has instructed Food and Drug Administration officials to “preserve your records” and “pack your bags.”
Mr. Kennedy has argued that the F.D.A. is a victim of “corporate capture.” Under a three-decade-old “user fee” program, drug, device and biotech companies make payments to the agency partly to seek product approvals. The fees now account for nearly half the F.D.A.’s budget.
“The F.D.A. is just a sock puppet to the industries it is supposed to regulate,” Mr. Kennedy said in the interview with Dr. Hyman. “All of this is easily changed. I’m not saying I’m going to be able to accomplish it all on Day 1, but I’m going to accomplish it very quickly.”
Public health experts typically focus on Mr. Kennedy’s views on vaccination. Mr. Kennedy has cast doubt on Covid vaccines and has promoted the long-debunked theory that vaccines cause autism. His detractors say that his critiques of vaccine safety have cost lives, pointing in particular to a visit Mr. Kennedy made to Samoa in 2019.
That year, the island nation put its measles vaccination program on hold after the death of two infants who had received measles shots. Mr. Kennedy visited and, according to news reports, met with a prominent vaccine opponent, giving a boost to the anti-vaccination movement there.
The deaths were subsequently attributed to a mistake by the nurses who administered the vaccine, not to the vaccine itself. But the dip in vaccination rates led to a measles outbreak and 83 deaths.
Dr. Jonathan E. Howard, an associate professor of neurology and psychiatry at New York University who has been tracking the anti-vaccine movement for the past 15 years, said Mr. Kennedy would be “a disaster” as health secretary, adding, “He is an anti-vaccine paranoid crank who has a trail of dead children in Samoa.”
Often, Mr. Kennedy uses a “we don’t know” construction to spin out unproven theories, such as his suggestion that the coronavirus might have been engineered to attack specific races.
“Covid-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people,” Mr. Kennedy said at a fund-raiser, according to The New York Post. “The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”
“We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not, but there are papers out there that show the racial or ethnic differential and impact,” he added.
Mr. Kennedy was apparently referring to a 2020 study looking at genetic differences in Covid-19 patients, but numerous studies examining racial disparities attribute them to socioeconomic factors, including poverty and lack of access to health care.
Mr. Kennedy also has repeatedly suggested that chemicals in the water might be responsible for “sexual dysphoria” in children. In a clip aired by CNN, he noted that atrazine, a herbicide sometimes found in well water in agricultural areas, will “concentrate and forcibly feminize” frogs. He went on, “What this does to sexual development in children, nobody knows.”
There is no evidence that the chemical, typically used on farms to kill weeds, causes the same effects in children, although studies show it has been linked to birth defects in babies whose mothers are exposed to it. But according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, an arm of the C.D.C., “Most people are not exposed to atrazine on a regular basis.”
Mr. Kennedy came to health advocacy through his work as an environmental lawyer. In 1999, he was named a hero of the planet by Time magazine for his work with the Riverkeeper organization, among the groups credited with cleaning up New York’s polluted Hudson River. One of his aims was to get mercury out of waterways.
In a speech last year at Hillsdale College, he said that in 2005, when he was giving speeches around the country, mothers of children with autism approached him to ask him to take a look at vaccines, some of which had in the past contained a mercury-based preservative, thimerosal. The preservative was removed by manufacturers in 2001 at the request of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and subsequent studies showed no link between the preservative and autism.
In the years since, Mr. Kennedy has made millions of dollars railing against vaccines. The windfall has come through books, including one denigrating Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the former government scientist both celebrated and despised for his work on Covid, and through Children’s Health Defense, the nonprofit he has used as a platform to sow doubts about vaccination.
Allies of Mr. Kennedy say he has earned the right to make policy, given the support he generated while campaigning alongside Mr. Trump. Calley Means, a health care entrepreneur who has been an adviser to Mr. Kennedy and who was instrumental in connecting him to Mr. Trump, said in an interview last week that Mr. Kennedy had “a true mandate to take on broken health care institutions, and to deliver the change.”
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Talk show host Kelly Ripa recently revealed she receives a niche procedure to enhance the appearance of her behind.
During a recent episode of her podcast, “Let’s Talk Off Camera,” the 55-year-old opened up about getting microneedling done “on my a– cheeks,” after her guest, actor Lukas Gage, shared that he had also undergone the treatment.
“I’m going to tell you something … just as old as before,” she said after Gage asked her whether she saw an improvement. “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
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Dermatologist Dara Spearman, M.D., of Radiant Dermatology Associates in Indiana, described the cosmetic dermatologic procedure to Fox News Digital.
“Butt microneedling is where a device with very fine, sterile needles is used to create controlled micro-injuries in the skin of the buttocks,” she said.
Kelly Ripa, 55, admitted to microneedling her butt during a recent podcast episode. (Kelly Ripa/Instagram; iStock)
“This process stimulates the body’s natural wound healing response, which boosts collagen and elastin production over time.”
Microneedling is often used to improve skin texture concerns like acne scarring, stretch marks or uneven tone, especially in the rear end area, according to Spearman.
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The treatment can be performed in an office by a trained professional and is sometimes paired with topical serums to enhance results.
“While the concept may sound trendy, the underlying technology is the same as traditional microneedling used on the face and body,” Spearman said.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” said Ripa about the procedure she undergoes. (Lorenzo Bevilaqua/Disney via Getty Images)
Microneedling the buttocks can lead to smoother, firmer and more even-looking skin after a series of treatments.
An increase in collagen production over time can “subtly improve skin laxity,” Spearman said, with results building gradually over multiple sessions.
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“Consistency and realistic expectations are key,” the dermatologist said.
As with any procedure that disrupts the skin barrier, there are potential risks, according to Spearman, especially if it’s performed improperly or in a non-sterile environment.
Traditional microneedling is typically done on the face, experts say. (iStock)
These potential side effects include irritation, infection and prolonged redness. In some cases, post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation can occur in patients with deeper skin tones.
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“There is also a risk of worsening acne or folliculitis if the area is not properly assessed beforehand,” Spearman said. “Overly aggressive treatments can lead to scarring rather than improvement, which is why technique and needle depth matter significantly.”
“It is not a quick fix, and multiple sessions are typically needed to achieve meaningful results,” the expert said. (iStock)
“It’s important that patients seek care from a qualified medical professional to minimize these risks.”
Although this treatment is gaining viral popularity on social media, it should still be regarded as a medical procedure requiring proper training and safety standards, Spearman emphasized.
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“It is not a quick fix, and multiple sessions are typically needed to achieve meaningful results,” the dermatologist told Fox News Digital. “Patients should also be cautious about at-home devices for this area, as improper use can increase the risk of infection or skin damage.”
“A thorough consultation is essential to determine whether someone is a good candidate, especially if they have active skin conditions or a history of keloid (raised) scarring.”
Fox News Digital’s Lori A. Bashian contributed to this report.
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The Trump administration’s recent pullback on health insurance has left fewer Americans with coverage.
For the uninsured, being treated for certain conditions may be out of the question due to high costs.
This has led some Americans to wait multiple days, some even sleeping overnight in their cars, to seek free free healthcare from volunteer clinics like Remote Area Medical (RAM).
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The Tennessee-based nonprofit organization, founded in 1985, employs volunteer healthcare professionals to treat Americans without insurance at no cost.
In a recent episode of CBS News’ 60 Minutes, host Scott Pelley spoke with people waiting to be brought into the clinic.
Medical professionals from all around the U.S. volunteer their time at Remote Area Medical (RAM) clinics. (Remote Area Medical)
In February, Sandra Tallent drove 200 miles from Huntsville, Alabama, to RAM’s pop-up clinic in Knoxville, Tennessee, to have her teeth examined.
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She arrived at the clinic site at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday and spoke to Pelley from her car at 5 a.m. Friday, after sleeping for two nights in the parking lot.
Pelley asked, “If you didn’t have RAM, how would you get your teeth taken care of?” Tallent responded, “I wouldn’t.”
Some Americans have been waiting hours and even sleeping overnight in their cars to be seen by a doctor. (iStock)
Tallent was later seen by a dental expert and had dentures created in RAM’s 3D denture-printing lab.
Connor Gibson, a 22-year-old engineer, uses computer design to get the job done in just about an hour, according to the report. This is a process that can typically take weeks.
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“We see grown men cry sitting in the chair,” Gibson told 60 Minutes, describing what it’s like for patients to see themselves with a new set of teeth for the first time.
This includes Tallent, who looked in the mirror and smiled with tears in her eyes, expressing her gratitude.
Remote Area Medical clinic volunteers and patients are pictured at the center in Tennessee. RAM has recently expanded its services to include women’s health exams, general wellness check-ups and sports physicals. (Remote Area Medical)
In an interview with Fox News Digital, RAM CEO Chris Hall shared how their clinics pop up and move across the country to expand access for more Americans.
“All of our services are provided free of cost to patients on a first come, first serve basis,” he said. “And we do that through our team of dedicated volunteers and professionals that come from all around the county.”
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RAM provides cleanings, fillings and extractions, as well as comprehensive eye exams and access to an eyeglass lab that can manufacture eyewear and dentures, according to Hall.
About 60% of patients seek dental care, he said, and about 30% to 35% seek vision care.
RAM provides cleanings, fillings and extractions, as well as comprehensive eye exams and access to an eyeglass lab that can manufacture eyewear and dentures. (iStock)
RAM has recently expanded its services to include women’s health exams, general wellness check-ups and sports physicals.
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In 2008, RAM held about 10 to 12 events per year. Today, it has grown to 90 full-scale operations, with events happening nearly every weekend, Hall shared.
Hall said the demand for medical care has been consistent for the last 20 years. Even for some patients who have insurance, the out-of-pocket premiums and deductibles can be “out of reach.”
Chris Hall, CEO of Remote Area Medical, describes the operation as “inspiring, yet heartbreaking.” (Remote Area Medical)
“The communities that we go into, the patients who are coming through our door, these are working-class people,” Hall said.
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“Whether we’re doing events in rural Appalachia or downtown Los Angeles, the patients who are coming … they’re just isolated and do not get the care that they need,” he added.
Hall said he’s heard “heartbreaking” stories from patients who have put off medical care to keep the lights on in their homes and provide food for their families.
Marriage linked to lower cancer risk, study finds
Dr. Namrata Vijayvergia, a medical oncologist, shares insights into recent studies on health and lifestyle, explaining why marriage correlates with lower cancer risk due to better social support and healthy behaviors.
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Adults who never married are significantly more likely to develop cancer, according to new research from the University of Miami.
A large study of more than 4 million Americans across 12 states found that this increased risk spans nearly every major cancer type. It is especially true for preventable cancers, such as types caused by smoking and infection.
Men who never married were found to have a 70% higher likelihood of cancer than their married counterparts. For women, that gap was even wider, with never-married individuals facing an 85% higher risk.
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Previous research has linked marriage to better survival rates after a diagnosis, but this is one of the first studies to show that marital status could be a major indicator of whether a person will develop cancer in the first place.
“These findings suggest that social factors such as marital status may serve as important markers of cancer risk at the population level,” study co-author Paulo Pinheiro, a research professor of epidemiology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, said in a press release.
Adults who never married are significantly more likely to develop cancer, according to new research from the University of Miami. (Getty Images)
Between 2015 and 2022, the team examined cancer cases diagnosed at age 30 or older and compared the rates of various cancers to the marital status of participants. They then broke down the data by sex and race and adjusted for age.
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Adult men who were never married had approximately five times the rate of anal cancer compared to married men, the study found.
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Adult women who were never married had nearly three times the rate of cervical cancer compared to women who were or had been married.
“It’s a clear and powerful signal that some individuals are at a greater risk,” Frank Penedo, director of the Sylvester Survivorship and Supportive Care Institute at the University of Miami, said in the release.
For women, being married (and often, by extension, having children) was associated with lower risks of ovarian and endometrial cancers. (iStock)
For women, being married (and often, by extension, having children) was associated with lower risks of ovarian and endometrial cancers, likely due to hormonal and biological factors associated with pregnancy, according to the researchers.
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Experts stressed that these findings do not mean marriage alone can protect against cancer.
“It means that if you’re not married, you should be paying extra attention to cancer risk factors, getting any screenings you may need, and staying up to date on healthcare,” Penedo said.
Experts stressed that these findings do not mean marriage alone can protect against cancer. (iStock)
The researchers also hypothesized that people who smoke less, drink less and take better care of themselves may be more likely to get married, meaning other factors could influence the findings.
More research is needed to confirm the outcome, they noted.
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The study was published in the journal Cancer Research Communications.
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