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.”
A look back at the medical miracles of 2025
Fox News senior medical analyst Dr. Marc Siegel joins ‘Fox & Friends’ to highlight 2025 breakthroughs, from a pineapple-derived burn cream to a newly approved heart procedure.
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America has been at the forefront of medical innovation since the nation’s founding in 1776.
From groundbreaking surgeries to cancer breakthroughs, U.S. physicians have helped transform nearly every field of medicine.
As America marks its 250th anniversary, experts are highlighting some of the most influential medical innovations in the nation’s history.
No. 1: Orthopedic care
John Uribe, MD, orthopedic surgeon and system chief executive at Baptist Health Orthopedic Care in Florida, said he believes the greatest breakthrough in orthopedics is the evolution of joint replacement surgery, particularly of the hip and knee.
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“A generation ago, severe arthritis or joint damage often meant a lifetime of pain, limited mobility and loss of independence,” he told Fox News Digital.
“Today, orthopedic surgeons can replace a damaged joint with highly durable implants, use advanced imaging and navigation, and increasingly rely on robotic-assisted technology to personalize implant positioning and improve precision.”
“The future of orthopedics will be less one-size-fits-all and more focused on matching the right procedure, implant, recovery plan and technology to the individual patient,” a doctor said. (iStock)
Today, patients can walk the same day after joint replacement, return home sooner and recover with less disruption than in the past, according to Uribe.
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“Hip and knee replacements, arthroscopic procedures, advanced fracture care and spine treatments have allowed patients to stay active longer and maintain independence as they age,” the doctor said. “The biggest impact is that orthopedic care can give people back parts of their lives they thought they had lost.”
“For many patients, the goal is no longer just to relieve pain; it is to restore movement, independence and quality of life.”
No. 2: Mental health treatment
For most of America’s 250 years, mental illness was largely treated indirectly with medication, or not at all when medication was ineffective, according to Dr. Russ Voltin, a West Virginia-based practicing psychiatrist and medical consultant at BrainsWay.
The biggest breakthrough, Voltin told Fox News Digital, has been neuromodulation therapies like deep transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), which are “clinically proven to non-invasively target the brain circuits involved in conditions such as depression and OCD, helping rebalance neural activity at its source.”
“Mental health is brain health, and for the first time, we have treatments designed to address it that way.”
For most of America’s 250 years, mental illness was largely treated indirectly with medication, or not at all when medication was ineffective. (iStock)
A generation ago, a patient who didn’t respond to medication had very limited options, he said.
“Today, a clinician can offer noninvasive brain stimulation in an outpatient chair – no anesthesia, no sedation, none of the prominent side effects of medication, and all with limited lifestyle interruption.”
The FDA recently expanded clearance for an accelerated Deep TMS protocol that shortens the initial phase of depression treatment from about four weeks of daily visits to just six treatment days.
“Mental health is brain health, and for the first time, we have treatments designed to address it that way.”
“For someone in a depressive crisis, this is the difference between waiting and getting better,” the expert said.
In clinical trials, roughly 78% of patients reached remission and more than 80% were still in remission a full year later.
“The biggest shift is that for people who once cycled through medication after medication with no relief, durable recovery is now a realistic goal rather than a hope.” (iStock)
“As a clinician, that last figure is the one that matters most: People going back to work, repairing relationships and re-entering their own lives, not just scoring better on a questionnaire,” Voltin said.
“The biggest shift is that for people who once cycled through medication after medication with no relief, durable recovery is now a realistic goal rather than a hope.”
No. 3: Cancer care
Cancer care has advanced dramatically over the past 250 years, with breakthroughs in prevention, screening, diagnosis and treatment transforming patient outcomes.
Leonard Kalman, MD, acting system chief executive at Baptist Health Cancer Care and acting executive medical director at Baptist Health Herbert Wertheim Cancer Institute in South Florida, said one of the most important breakthroughs in oncology is the understanding that “at its core,” cancer is a genetic disease.
Today, physicians can cure certain leukemias and lymphomas that were “once far more difficult to treat,” an expert noted. (iStock)
“Cancer can be driven by inherited germline mutations or by somatic mutations that occur in normal tissue and lead cells to become malignant,” he told Fox News Digital. “That discovery has transformed how we understand, diagnose and treat cancer.”
Today, physicians can cure certain leukemias and lymphomas that were “once far more difficult to treat,” the doctor noted.
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“We can also extend life while preserving quality of life for many patients with metastatic cancers — including diseases such as lung cancer, melanoma and prostate cancer, where treatment options were much more limited a generation ago,” Kalman said.
Many of those advances have shifted cancer care toward more individualized treatment, allowing physicians to tailor therapies based on a patient’s specific disease.
“For many patients, the goal is no longer just to relieve pain; it is to restore movement, independence and quality of life.”
“Advances in targeted therapies, immunotherapy, molecular testing and supportive care allow physicians to better personalize treatment, manage side effects and help patients live longer with a better quality of life, even when cancer has spread beyond the primary tumor,” the doctor said.
No. 4: Cardiovascular care
Tom Nguyen, MD, system chief executive at Baptist Health Heart & Vascular Care and chief medical executive at Baptist Health Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute in South Florida, highlighted the ability to diagnose heart disease earlier and treat “even the most complex conditions” with safer, more precise and less invasive therapies.
“Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide, but patients who once might have died in their 40s or 50s are now routinely living into their 80s and 90s with an excellent quality of life,” he told Fox News Digital.
Although cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide, patients who once might have died in their 40s or 50s are now “routinely living into their 80s and 90s with an excellent quality of life,” the doctor said. (iStock)
Procedures like open-heart surgery, coronary artery bypass surgery, coronary stents, catheter-based valve replacement, advanced imaging and robotic heart surgery have “completely transformed what is possible,” according to Nguyen.
“Robotic heart surgery is a powerful example of how far the field has come,” he said. “For appropriately selected patients, surgeons can now perform highly complex heart procedures through much smaller incisions using robotic technology that provides exceptional visualization, precision and control.”
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The biggest achievement, Nguyen said, is not only helping people live longer, but also helping them “live better.”
“Today, heart and vascular specialists can perform procedures that would have seemed almost unimaginable just one generation ago,” he said. “Patients are surviving heart attacks, valve disease, rhythm disorders and complex vascular conditions at rates that would have been difficult to imagine decades ago.”
“Many complex cardiac operations that once required opening the chest can now be performed through small incisions, or robotically – allowing patients to recover much faster with less pain and disruption to their lives,” a doctor said. (iStock)
Success isn’t measured only by survival, Nguyen added. “Our ultimate goal is to help patients feel better and return to the lives they enjoy.”
No. 5: Neurology
Michael McDermott, MD, system chief executive of Baptist Health Brain & Spine Care and chief medical executive at Baptist Health Miami Neuroscience Institute, said the ability to safely operate on the brain is the greatest advancement in American neuroscience.
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“Less than a century ago, a craniotomy was an extraordinarily risky operation, and survival itself was far from guaranteed,” he told Fox News Digital. “Today, advances in anesthesia, electrocautery, imaging, surgical navigation, brain mapping and intraoperative neurophysiologic monitoring have transformed brain surgery into a highly precise and much safer procedure.”
The ability to treat acute stroke in real time has been “equally transformative,” McDermott noted.
The growth of artificial intelligence is “beginning to transform spine surgery,” a neurologist said, by helping physicians identify which patients are “most likely to benefit from complex corrective procedures and by allowing implants to be precisely modeled before surgery.” (iStock)
“Using advanced imaging and mechanical thrombectomy, physicians can now remove a clot from the brain and restore blood flow before permanent damage occurs in many eligible patients,” he said. “At the same time, innovations such as high-intensity focused ultrasound for essential tremor demonstrate how neuroscience has become increasingly precise and less invasive.”
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Today, neuro experts can accomplish tasks that “would have been difficult to imagine just one generation ago,” McDermott noted.
“We can remove blood clots from the brain during an active stroke, implant deep brain stimulation devices for Parkinson’s disease, and perform highly sophisticated brain and spine surgery using advanced imaging, navigation and artificial intelligence,” he said.
Medical advancements have improved quality of life in patients with brain tumors and spinal complications. (iStock)
Advances like image-guided surgery, intra-operative brain mapping, neurophysiologic monitoring and radio-surgery allow surgeons to remove tumors more safely while protecting areas of the brain responsible for movement, speech and other critical functions, he said.
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Beyond brain tumors, other advances across neuroscience, like corrective spine surgery, have allowed doctors to restore posture and mobility in patients with severe spinal deformities. Meanwhile, focused ultrasound can “significantly reduce tremors that interfere with everyday activities such as writing, eating or drinking,” McDermott noted.
“Increasingly, our goal isn’t simply to help patients survive – we’re helping them maintain their independence, preserve function and return to the lives they want to live.”
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Health
West Nile virus detected in southern state as health officials warn residents about mosquitoes
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Health officials in Nashville are urging residents to protect themselves from mosquito bites after West Nile virus was detected in mosquitoes for the first time this year.
The Metro Public Health Department (MPHD) announced the virus was found in a mosquito pool collected near Cass Street in North Nashville, marking the city’s first detection of West Nile virus in 2026 and the earliest positive mosquito sample of the season.
The detection comes after health officials reported elevated West Nile virus activity in mosquito pools during 2025, when one human case of the virus was confirmed.
“We can all play a role in reducing the presence of mosquitoes in our community, making our outdoor areas both more pleasant and safer from mosquito-borne diseases like West Nile virus,” Dr. Sanmi Areola, director of health at the Metro Public Health Department, said in a statement to Fox 17.
MEASLES-INFECTED TRAVELER MAY HAVE EXPOSED PASSENGERS AT LAX AND NEARBY HOTEL, HEALTH OFFICIALS WARN
A close-up shows mosquitoes feeding in Tehatta, India, on May 1, 2026. Health officials in Nashville recently detected West Nile virus in a mosquito pool, prompting residents to take precautions against mosquito bites. (Soumyabrata Roy/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
“As our team educates those in the area where West Nile virus was found, we hope the rest of our community does what they can to protect themselves and their families from mosquitoes this summer.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, West Nile virus is the leading mosquito-borne disease in the United States. Most people infected with the virus do not develop symptoms, but about one in five experience fever, headaches, body aches, vomiting, diarrhea or a rash. Fewer than 1% develop a serious neurological illness that can affect the brain or spinal cord, with older adults and people with weakened immune systems facing the greatest risk.
Public health officials routinely trap and test mosquitoes throughout the summer to monitor for West Nile virus activity. A positive mosquito sample does not necessarily mean people in the area will become infected, but it serves as an early warning that the virus is circulating locally.
In response to the positive test, MPHD said crews are distributing educational flyers in the affected neighborhood, increasing mosquito trapping, monitoring standing water and applying larvicide where needed to help reduce mosquito populations. The department said it does not spray insecticide to kill adult mosquitoes.
POTENTIALLY SEVERE MOSQUITO-BORNE VIRUS SURGES IN US ABOVE NORMAL LEVELS
The Aedes mosquito is a known vector for several viruses, including West Nile virus, yellow fever virus, dengue virus, chikungunya virus, and Zika virus. (Soumyabrata Roy/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Residents can also request a free backyard inspection from the department’s Pest Management team to identify areas where mosquitoes may be breeding.
Health officials recommend eliminating standing water from bird baths, flowerpots, buckets, old tires, children’s toys and other outdoor containers where mosquitoes lay eggs. Trimming overgrown vegetation around homes can also help reduce mosquito activity.
A field sample of mosquitoes that could carry West Nile Virus is seen at offices of the Riverside County Department of Environmental Health on April 26, 2007, in Hemet, California. (David McNew/Getty Images)
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To help prevent mosquito bites, the health department recommends using EPA-approved insect repellents containing DEET, picaridin or oil of lemon eucalyptus, wearing long sleeves and pants outdoors during peak mosquito hours around dusk and dawn, and making sure window and door screens are in good repair.
Officials said reducing mosquito breeding around homes can help lower the risk of West Nile virus and other mosquito-borne illnesses throughout the community.
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