USA TODAY sits down with HHS Secretary RFK Jr. for an exclusive
The Excerpt
USA TODAY
4.1 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 22 January 2026
⏱️ 25 minutes
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Summary
The healthcare system has been thrown into disarray since Robert F Kennedy Jr.’s appointment as Health and Human Services Secretary. He’s changed the childhood vaccine schedule that has been in place for decades, released a new set of dietary guidelines that emphasizes more protein while calling for an end to the “war” on saturated fats, cancelled billions of dollars in grants and, last but not least, launched a cultural movement called Make America Healthy Again. Is he succeeding in that seemingly noble goal? USA TODAY Will Carless sat down for an exclusive interview with the MAHA leader.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The American healthcare system has been thrown into disarray since Robert F. Kennedy |
| 0:07.5 | Jr.'s appointment as Secretary of Health and Human Services. |
| 0:12.0 | He's changed the childhood vaccine schedule that has been in place for decades. |
| 0:16.0 | Released a new set of dietary guidelines that emphasizes more protein while calling for an end to the war |
| 0:22.8 | unsaturated fats, cancelled billions of dollars in grants, and last but not least, launched a cultural |
| 0:29.5 | movement called Make America Healthy Again. Is he succeeding in that seemingly noble goal? |
| 0:37.1 | Hello, and welcome to the excerpt. |
| 0:39.5 | I'm USA Today national correspondent Will Carlos, |
| 0:42.7 | and I host a show called Extremely Normal. |
| 0:45.9 | Today is Thursday, January 22nd, 26. |
| 0:52.9 | First of all, because there's a lot of skepticism and confusion about this, are you anti-vaccine? |
| 0:58.7 | No, I've never been anti-vaccine. I've said that thousands and thousands of times. |
| 1:04.9 | My concern is that we should properly safety test vaccines so that people understand and we are able to |
| 1:15.4 | understand the risk profile for these products. We know that many vaccines prevent disease. If you |
| 1:20.7 | get your measles vaccine, your chance of getting measles goes down by 97%. |
| 1:27.5 | But we don't know what the risks are of taking that vaccine |
| 1:33.1 | because we've never done a randomized placebo control trial, |
| 1:37.6 | and that is required for every other medical product. |
| 1:41.0 | But right now, when I was a kid, we gave three vaccines. |
| 1:44.0 | I got three vaccines, and I was a kid, we gave three vaccines. |
| 1:46.6 | I got three vaccines, and I was fully compliant. |
| 1:52.6 | The age children get between 80 and 92 vaccines. |
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