Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has become increasingly unpopular among several government officials, largely as a result of his antivaccine rhetoric and actions. Other contentious issues reportedly include the approval of an abortion pill and other controversial FDA decisions.
White House officials want Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to tone down his skepticism of vaccines, a largely unpopular stance that could play out badly for the Trump administration during a key election year.
Senior officials have become increasingly frustrated with Kennedy and what they consider a series of policy missteps at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), according to an exclusive report from The Wall Street Journal on Friday, which cites anonymous sources with knowledge of the matter.
Kennedy continues to be in President Donald Trump’s good graces, the sources said, though the health secretary has grown more and more unpopular with others at the White House.
There have been several points of contention regarding Kennedy’s leadership over the past year. One was HHS’ laggard response to the measles outbreak last year—the first since 2015 to claim the life of a child—according to the WSJ. In total, last year’s outbreak killed at least three people, including two children, with 2,284 confirmed cases of measles for the full year—a 35-year high. This year, measles numbers are again climbing, and the country could surpass last year’s total by summer.
For the senior White House officials, Kennedy’s hardline stance against vaccines could be an electoral liability for the Trump administration, given that poll numbers show that the Secretary’s policies have been unpopular, according to the WSJ’'s sources.
Amid his worsening standing among Trump administration officials, Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement is rallying behind the secretary, according to Friday reporting from STAT News.
“We’re nowhere near done on the vaccine issue,” Brian Hooker, chief scientific officer of Children’s Health Defense, told the publication. Kennedy founded Children’s Health Defense, though he is no longer affiliated with the organization.
Jeffrey Tucker, founder of the Brownstone Institute, a nonprofit that has been described as a “covid contrarian clubhouse,” insists that his group remains adamant in its push for medical freedom and choice. Brownstone earlier this month surveyed 1,000 American voters and found that more than 80% believed that people should have the right to refuse vaccines, while nearly half associated shots with an alleged spike in chronic diseases. It is unclear what type of sampling Brownstone used.
“The MAHA positions are still strong,” Tucker told STAT.
But at least within the higher levels of the government, these convictions are starting to waver. Characterizing the partnership between the MAHA and MAGA movements, a White House official told STAT, “It’s a low point.”
And it’s not just Kennedy’s vaccine policies that the White House has taken issue with. Government officials were likewise not happy with Kennedy’s decision to terminate thousands of grants for mental health and substance use care. The awards were reinstated soon after due to strong pushback from Congress.
Another source of disappointment was the FDA’s approval of a generic version of an abortion pill, a decision that did not sit right with other high-ranking HHS officials.
The FDA also appears to have been a major sticking point for White House officials, who had long viewed the chaos at the regulator as problematic, according to WSJ’s sources.
Vinay Prasad, the outgoing director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, has been central to this chaos. One recent high-profile decision was Prasad’s refusal to file letter for Moderna’s mRNA-based flu vaccine. As with the mental health an substance abuse grants, this decision was quickly reversed—after FDA Commissioner Marty Makary was summoned to meet with President Donald Trump himself.
Prasad was also at the center of the FDA’s surprising decision that uniQure’s Phase 1/2 study for its Huntington’s disease gene therapy is insufficient for approval, despite the agency having previously agreed it would be sufficient. This is one of several reversals of course, especially in the rare disease space, that have thrown biotechs into a tailspin. Following blowback from the industry and patient advocacy groups over uniQure, Makary announced that Prasad would be leaving the FDA at the end of April, though he insisted this was always the plan.
Prasad’s upcoming exit highlights another concern about the FDA: leadership turnover. Last year, the FDA lost nearly 90% of its senior staff, leaving just three veterans at the heads of departments in the agency’s org chart. CBER’s sister division, the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), went through five directors before settling on the current acting head Tracy Beth Høeg, Makary’s former aide. Høeg is now reportedly trying to hire her friend, who shares her skepticism around the use of antidepressants in pregnancy.
Despite these high-level issues with Kennedy, the Trump administration remains confident in him, according to White House spokesperson Kush Desai, who told WSJ that “the White House continues to work hand in glove” with the secretary.
