RFK Jr.'s Impact On Americans' Health

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🗓️ 3 September 2025

⏱️ 47 minutes

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Summary

We look at the stormy tenure of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. New York Times reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg discusses how RFK Jr.'s cuts to government staff and expert groups will impact everyday Americans. A vaccine skeptic, Kennedy fired the CDC director last week.

Also, John Powers reviews the Prime Video thriller series Butterfly, starring Daniel Dae Kim.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for NPR and the following message come from the Walton Family Foundation, working to create access to opportunity for people and communities by tackling tough social and environmental problems.
0:12.0	More information is at walton family foundation.org.
0:16.1	This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies. Is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human
0:22.7	Services, endangering Americans' health? That's the gist of a letter signed by nine former
0:28.5	directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, published Monday in the New York Times.
0:34.6	Since Kennedy was sworn in last February, the nation's public health infrastructure has
0:39.2	been rocked by a series of events culminating with the abrupt firing of CDC director Susan
0:45.0	Minares last week. The CDC and other health agencies have been decimated by thousands of staff
0:51.4	layoffs. In August, a gunman, reportedly angry about COVID vaccines, fired hundreds of rounds at the CDC headquarters, killing a policeman.
1:01.2	Kennedy has announced new, more restrictive recommendations on who should receive COVID vaccine boosters, eliminating healthy pregnant women, among others.
1:10.5	He canceled $500 million in
1:12.5	mRNA vaccine research contracts. He fired all 17 members of a prestigious CDC advisory
1:19.3	committee on immunization, replacing them with eight appointees, some with histories as
1:24.7	vaccine skeptics. And when the CDC director was fired last week, four senior
1:29.7	officials of the agency abruptly resigned. Meanwhile, Kennedy is pursuing another agenda,
1:35.5	tagged Make America Healthy Again, or Maha, to reduce the presence of food additives and
1:40.9	ultra-processed food in our diets. To understand these events and how they'll affect us, we've invited Cheryl Gaye Stolberg to join us.
1:49.0	She covers health policy for the New York Times.
1:51.7	Before joining the Times in 1997, she was at the Los Angeles Times, where she shared in two Pulitzer Prizes for coverage of racial unrest and a devastating earthquake.
2:02.2	We recorded our conversation yesterday.
2:05.1	Well, Cheryl Gais Stolberg, welcome to fresh air.
2:07.8	Well, thank you for having me.
	...

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