Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed and sworn in as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services this week, but his promise to “Make America Healthy Again” may prove challenging to achieve — due both to the limits of his role as well as actions already being taken by the administration to make cuts to health agencies.
On CBS News 24/7 Friday, Dr. Céline Gounder, CBS News medical contributor and editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News, said widespread firings at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ordered by the Trump administration, could hamper progress on health issues for years to come.
“Over 1,200 (new hires) are expected to be fired,” she said. “…That’s a huge proportion of the CDC workforce.”
Beyond that, she said, “Another group that is being targeted here are senior scientists. These are some of the top of the top talent, and then also the very youngest, the pipeline of new talent. And so this is very concerning when you have your top talent, your new talent, being fired in one big purge.”
How CDC cuts could affect Americans and their health
These firings come as the nation is currently dealing with a deadly second surge of the flu this season, measles outbreaks in parts of the country, and mounting worries about bird flu.
“We’re going to see a couple things. One, it’s a chilling of the Public Health Service. So people will be afraid to do the work that they need to do in terms of informing the public, in terms of warning the public,” Gounder said. “We’ve also seen in some states like Louisiana pulling back on mass vaccinations. I think we’ll continue to see moves like that, and that policy may not be guided by science, but rather by politics and ideology.”
Already, vaccine skepticism in the country is threatening public health. Health experts have seen these views on vaccines, which have become increasingly politicized, contributing to lower vaccination rates across the country, leading to outbreaks of otherwise preventable diseases
Kennedy has a long history of raising doubts about vaccines — despite decades of evidence showing they’ve saved millions of people from debilitating illness or death.
What does RFK Jr. actually control?
With his confirmation, Kennedy sits at the helm of the sprawling HHS department, which includes the CDC, the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Food and Drug Administration — but, despite his passion for changing the way Americans eat, he doesn’t have much direct control over that.
“HHS does not have a ton of levers in terms of improving and making the food supply more healthy,” Gounder said, since that’s largely the role of the United States Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency.
“In fact, during the Senate confirmation hearings, one of the senators kind of took him to task on this and essentially told him, you’re going to need to stay in your lane and acknowledge that this is not under your purview, that some of these issues are under the purview of USDA and EPA when it comes to tackling chemicals in the environment,” she added. “And so, whether he can deliver on his promises, I am very skeptical.”
One concrete thing he could help move forward is preliminary guidance at the FDA on front-of-package food labeling, Gounder said.
“(These labels) would make it very clear to consumers whether something’s healthy, but whether that rule will be finalized under this administration remains very unclear,” she said.
Gounder pointed out the MAHA movement is also not focusing on a large chunk of what harms children in the U.S.
“It’s great to say we want our children to be healthy. What are the number one and number two causes of death among kids in this country? It’s gun violence and it’s motor vehicle accidents,” she said. “There’s nothing about that in the MAHA executive order that was signed by President Trump.”
