How RFK Jr. is Dismantling America’s Health Policies

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🗓️ 11 March 2026

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

More To The Story: In January, the federal government released updated dietary guidelines for Americans that reimagine the nation’s longtime food pyramid by literally turning it upside down. The guidelines, which once prioritized foods like grains while minimizing fats, now recommend red meat, whole milk, proteins, and healthy fats. It’s one of the most unmistakable ways that US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has brought the Make America Healthy Again movement into the federal government. Over the last year, RFK Jr. has reshaped the country’s vaccine advisory committee with vaccine skeptics, fired thousands of employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, and revised the CDC’s stance on the unfounded link between vaccines and autism. The moves, often influenced and cheered by folks in the MAHA movement, are ones that infectious disease epidemiologist Jessica Malaty Rivera says are not merely misguided, but dangerous. On this week’s More To The Story, Rivera examines how Big Ag has influenced the nation’s latest dietary guidelines, whether the US is on the cusp of a national measles outbreak, and why the CDC dropping vaccine recommendations could have potentially long-term and deadly consequences.

Read: Measles Cases This Year Near 1,000. That We Know Of. (Mother Jones)
Listen: Why Trump Deemed Basic Sanitation Illegal DEI (More To The Story)
Read: RFK Jr. Wants to End the “War” on Unproven Treatments Like Stem Cell Therapy (Mother Jones)

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It's a huge indictment on the U.S. public health system and the U.S. public health communication system of how we've just said, these vaccines are optional.
0:11.6	They're a la carte choose-your-own-adventure example of whatever you can do for your health.
0:18.0	Coming up on more to the story, I talk with epidemiologist Jessica Malati-Rivera
0:22.6	about what she and other experts say is the dismantling of American health policy under
0:28.3	Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
0:30.2	Stay with us.
0:55.0	Thank you. This is more to the story. I'm Al Letson. When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was appointed secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
1:00.7	Some government officials praised him as an advocate for the people and cited his commitment to transparency. But most of the scientific community were shocked and concerned. RFK Jr. was already
1:08.2	outspoken in the anti-vaccination movement and as quote,
1:12.1	Make America Healthy Again initiatives seem to align with President Trump's agenda to drastically
1:17.8	change health policy. From a newly proposed vaccine schedule to an upside down food pyramid,
1:24.2	RFK Jr. is bringing major changes to health services and recommendations.
1:29.8	To help us figure out exactly what's going on, I brought back friend of the show, Jessica
1:34.3	Malati Rivera, who is an infectious disease expert and a science communicator.
1:41.4	Jessica Maladi Rivera, Jessica, how are you?
1:44.8	I'm doing okay, Al. Better seeing you.
1:47.7	Yes. I mean, every time we get together, we talk about depressing things. I'm sorry.
1:52.4	We do. I know. I always feel terrible.
1:55.4	We'll start off with the head of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. So he fired government
2:04.1	vaccine advisors. Who did he replace them with? He replaced them with his friends. His friends
2:11.5	who all have the same worldview, very strong-held bias against vaccines, to be on a very, very consequential committee,
2:23.0	the advisory committee on immunization practices, to pour over all of the clinical data related to
	...

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