12 ways RFK Jr. has undercut vaccine confidence as health secretary

Since the Senate confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the nation’s health secretary seven months ago, he has made numerous changes to U.S. vaccine policy, stifled the voices of the nation’s top health experts and shared dozens of questionable statements about the effectiveness and safety of vaccines.

WATCH: In tense hearing, RFK Jr. challenged on vaccine views and trust in health agencies

After he purged more than a dozen medical experts serving on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices in June, Kennedy’s new advisory panel met in September to discuss and vote on key vaccine recommendations going into the respiratory virus season. Days later, Kennedy and the Trump administration repeated the claim, without evidence, that vaccines contributed to autism, a theory that has been thoroughly debunked for years.

Critics argue that Kennedy’s collective efforts have sown confusion and are likely to further jeopardize already declining vaccination rates across the United States. Without strong and consistent messaging about the benefits of vaccines, that decline will continue, said Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist who directs the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.

WATCH: ‘Public health is in trouble,’ says high-ranking CDC leader who resigned in protest

“Many of the myths and disinformation coming from this administration is likely to confuse parents and consumers of vaccines, and that will result in lower vaccination,” Osterholm told PBS News.

Kennedy, who has historically advocated against vaccines, promised during his Senate confirmation hearing that he would “do nothing as HHS secretary that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking” vaccines. In an April television interview, Kennedy said he was not going to “take people’s vaccines away from them.” But lawmakers and experts have criticized steps he has taken to change access and eligibility.

Susan Monarez, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned a Senate committee this month about the long-term implications of Kennedy’s actions. Monarez, who said she was ousted by Kennedy over pressure to preapprove recommendations without scientific evidence, suggested that more children will die of vaccine-preventable illnesses, such as polio, measles, diphtheria and whooping cough under his leadership. She also said that school systems and medical institutions will carry greater burdens “that could have been prevented by effective and safe vaccines.”

People take part in a protest, a day after the White House fired CDC Director Susan Monarez and several top officials resigned, in Atlanta, Georgia, Aug. 28, 2025. File photo by Alyssa Pointer/ Reuters

As the country’s chief health advocate, Kennedy wields major influence over the public health of Americans. Here are 12 times he has undercut U.S. vaccine confidence and access during his tenure so far.

1. Kennedy encourages measles vaccine but opposes mandates

Early on in his tenure, Kennedy expressed some confidence in fighting a U.S. measles outbreak with vaccination. In February, on X, he listed out the ways his department had assisted Texas public health officials, including support for administering 2,000 measles vaccine doses and funding the state’s immunization program.

By early April, roughly 500 people in Texas were sick from measles, one of the most infectious known illnesses, and two unvaccinated children had died. Though the U.S. had eliminated measles in 2000, anti-vaccine activists have promoted debunked studies to claim the measles vaccine harmed children.

In July, CDC data showed that 2025 had become the worst year for measles cases in the U.S. in more than three decades. Dr. Adam Ratner, author of “Booster Shots: The Urgent Lessons of Measles and the Uncertain Future of Children’s Health,” joined PBS News Hour’s Amna Nawaz to discuss.

In his first network television interview since becoming health secretary, Kennedy told CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook that the Trump administration encourages “people to get the measles vaccine.”

Moments later, Kennedy added, “People should get the measles vaccine, but the government should not be mandating those.”

Vaccine mandates have been used to boost community-level immunity to levels that would prevent certain infectious diseases from spreading and possibly infecting people who have compromised immune systems or are too young to get vaccinated. For example, research has shown that a 95% vaccination rate against measles can prevent its spread .

After the April 9 interview, Kennedy shared three clips on his X account, but none featured his clear message about the need for the measles vaccine.

2. Kennedy says the public shouldn’t be taking his medical advice

During a House Committee on Appropriations hearing on May 14, Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., posed a hypothetical question to Kennedy: If he had a child today, would he vaccinate that child?

WATCH: Inside the CDC turmoil as RFK Jr. eyes sweeping vaccine policy changes

“Um… probably for measles,” Kennedy said. He then added, “I don’t think people should be taking advice — medical advice — from me.”

Aside from diminishing his own authority, Kennedy sowed doubt by waffling on a question to which he had given a direct response weeks earlier. Health secretaries, especially those without medical experience, should defer to experts, particularly during a public health crisis, said Dr. Jerome Adams, who served as surgeon general during the first Trump administration, during a May 14 conversation with reporters.

When a measles outbreak occurred during the first Trump administration, then-Health Secretary Alex Azar “came out as a full-throated supporter of vaccines,” Adams said.

WATCH: States join forces to make their own vaccine recommendations amid CDC turmoil

“One would hope that the secretary of health for the United States of America could and would at least say that people should get their children vaccinated against measles unless they have a medical contraindication for doing so, because the evidence is clear regarding the benefits,” Adams said, adding that Kennedy represents agencies that have long recommended these vaccines to support public health.

3. Kennedy advocates for placebo-controlled vaccine trials

Kennedy has pushed against ethical norms in research, including advocating for the use of placebo-controlled trials in vaccine research.

“Placebo-controlled trials are gold-standard science,” Kennedy announced in a May 20 X post. “We can conduct vaccine studies without subjecting people to unethical experiments.”

READ MORE: RFK Jr. wants all new vaccines tested against a placebo. Doctors say that isn’t good science

Public health experts have argued against this method because it withholds potentially life-saving protection from people who might be exposed to a disease that could kill them or leave them severely ill.

4. Kennedy changes eligibility rules for COVID vaccines

Kennedy posted on his X account on May 21 that, “@US_FDA is finally breaking away from the one-size-fits-all vaccine policy that authorized COVID shots for every American over 6 months old. The era of rubber-stamping COVID boosters is over.”

WATCH: Sen. Cassidy asks RFK Jr. how he can support Nobel for Trump COVID program but not back the vaccines

On May 27, in a joint video message that Kennedy posted to X, he stood alongside officials from the Food and Drug Administration and National Institutes of Health and announced that the government would no longer recommend the COVID vaccine for pregnant people and healthy children.

The American Academy of Pediatrics released new COVID vaccination guidelines in August, and for the first time, they diverged significantly from the CDC’s recommendations. PBS News Hour’s Stephanie Sy spoke with Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician and director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, for more.

“I couldn’t be more pleased to announce that as of today, the COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from the CDC recommended immunization schedule,” Kennedy said.

READ MORE: Fact-checking RFK Jr.’s claim that pediatricians recommend vaccines for money

Changing official U.S. recommendations has potential implications for whether insurance will cover vaccination, affecting access for people who want the shot.

5. Kennedy fires experts on CDC vaccine panel and selects his own replacements

On June 9, Kennedy fired the entire Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a group of experts who advise the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on developing recommendations for use of vaccines that receive FDA approval.

READ MORE: Ousted vaccine panel members say rigorous science is being abandoned under RFK Jr.

“Today we are prioritizing the restoration of public trust above any specific pro- or anti-vaccine agenda,” Kennedy said in a statement his department released. He later added, “A clean sweep is necessary to reestablish public confidence in vaccine science.”

Two days later on X, he named eight new members to ACIP.

Critics have described these new members as vaccine skeptics and anti-vaccine activists. When they met Sept. 18 and 19, their deliberations quickly became chaotic, predominantly relying upon anecdotes and outliers over data.

WATCH: Examining RFK Jr.’s claims about vaccines, COVID and the health of Americans

The committee declined to recommend COVID shots for all Americans, tabled a vote on the hepatitis B vaccine and removed an option for children that had combined vaccines against measles, mumps, rubella and varicella for children under age 4.

“Now what they’ve done is take away the choice for parents,” Dr. Sean O’Leary from the American Academy of Pediatrics told PBS News.

6. Kennedy suggests updated international health regulations will result in global ‘medical surveillance’

Kennedy began to amplify conspiracy theories this summer as he and the Trump administration pushed away international allies in public health.

READ MORE: How vaccines changed the world and the public health challenges that persist

On July 18, Kennedy posted a video message to X about the World Health Organization’s proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations that were designed to improve pandemic response. Most of the world has adopted these regulations. But Kennedy warned the regulations would “open the door to the kind of narrative management, propaganda, and censorship that we saw during the COVID pandemic.”

He later added, without citing evidence, that “the agreement also contains provisions about global systems of health IDs, vaccine passports and a centralized medical database. It lays the groundwork for global medical surveillance of every human being.”

7. Kennedy repeals a Biden-era vaccination incentive for hospitals

Kennedy announced Aug. 1 that HHS and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services were ending a rule that tied federal reimbursement to hospitals with their reporting of staff vaccination rates.

WATCH: As Florida moves to end vaccine mandates, pediatricians fear more states could follow

“We’ve just repealed a dangerous Biden-era provision in the CMS inpatient payment rule that pressured hospitals to mandate COVID-19 shots for doctors and nurses,” he posted on X, calling the measure a “backdoor mandate, pure and simple.”

8. Kennedy cuts funding for mRNA vaccine development

Kennedy announced on X and through an official statement that he had cancelled contracts and slashed $500 million in funding for the further development of mRNA vaccines, claiming that those vaccines “fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu.”

“We’re shifting that funding toward safer, broader vaccine platforms that remain effective even as viruses mutate,” he said in an August post on X.

READ MORE: A look at how mRNA vaccines work as RFK Jr. cancels government-funded research

Public health experts were astonished by Kennedy’s decision. During the COVID pandemic, it’s estimated that mRNA vaccines saved millions of lives and more than $1 trillion in medical costs, according to the Commonwealth Fund, and the researchers who laid the groundwork for the development of those vaccines later won a 2023 Nobel Prize.

“This was the most dangerous public health decision I have ever seen made by a government body,” Osterholm told PBS News Hour’s Geoff Bennett.

9. Kennedy criticizes the CDC’s pandemic response after a deadly shooting at the agency

A gunman walked onto the CDC’s Roybal campus in Atlanta on Aug. 8 and opened fire more than 180 times, killing security guard David Rose.

WATCH: CDC shooting highlights increasing rhetoric and hostility against health professionals

Initially, Kennedy shared a message that CDC Director Monarez had posted on her X account: “We at @CDCgov are heartbroken by today’s attack,” she wrote, noting the courage of the officer who “gave his life.”

Community members pay their respects for David Rose, an officer killed on Aug. 8 while stopping a gunman at the Center of Disease Control and Prevention headquarters, in Atlanta, Georgia, Aug. 11, 2025. File photo by Megan Varner/ Reuters

He also posted his own message to X, echoing Monarez’s heartache and sympathy for CDC staff. But in an interview with Scripps News days later, Kennedy claimed that the shooter’s motive was unclear, though officials had begun to connect it to anger over the COVID vaccine. He expressed support for employees but also criticized the agency’s pandemic response.

Workers criticized how the administration responded to the shooting, saying the months of discord sown by Kennedy himself had ushered in tragedy.

10. Kennedy fires the CDC director

When Kennedy announced he’d “handpicked” Monarez for the job of CDC director, he commended her as “a longtime champion of MAHA values, and a caring, compassionate and brilliant microbiologist and a tech wizard who will reorient CDC toward public health and gold-standard science.”

Less than a month later, on Aug. 27, Kennedy fired Monarez.

In her Sept. 17 testimony before a Senate committee, Monarez said she was dismissed because she refused to preemptively approve recommendations from Kennedy’s revamped ACIP and to dismiss career scientists.

“I could not commit to that, and I truly believe that is why I was fired,” Monarez told members of Congress in her testimony. “I was fired for holding the line on scientific integrity.”

WATCH: Former CDC doctor says U.S. is on track to see uptick in preventable diseases under Kennedy

Senior CDC officials resigned in protest following Monarez’s firing, including Dr. Debra Houry, the agency’s chief medical officer, and Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who directed the CDC’s National Center for Immunizations and Respiratory Diseases.

11. CDC seeks to investigate link between vaccines and autism

Federal officials filed a notice Sept. 11 that the CDC intended to award a no-bid contract to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute for researchers to probe for potential links between vaccines and autism, the Associated Press reported.

WATCH: CDC panel overhauled by RFK Jr. changes childhood vaccine recommendations

A now-retracted 1998 study in The Lancet falsely linked MMR vaccines to autism in children through the use of cherrypicked data. Decades of research have shown that the study’s conclusion was wrong and its lead author, former surgeon Andrew Wakefield, was disgraced and removed from the United Kingdom’s medical register for “serious professional misconduct.” But that has not stopped disinformation campaigns that attempt to undermine the use of vaccines.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. discusses the findings of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network survey, during a press conference at the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C., April 16, 2025. File photo by Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters

12. RFK Jr. makes false claims about vaccines and autism at acetaminophen event

In a stunning announcement, President Donald Trump said without evidence that taking the pain reliever acetaminophen, commonly known as Tylenol, during pregnancy was linked to autism. Kennedy stood at his side, claiming that prior federal research into the causes of autism had been “entirely fruitless.”

At the Sept. 22 event, Trump and Kennedy also made false claims that are not supported by science to discredit the use of vaccines.

WATCH: Health experts respond to Trump’s claims linking autism to acetaminophen

“I think I can say that there are certain groups of people that don’t take vaccines and don’t take any pills that have no autism,” Trump said. “Does that tell you something?” He then looked around and asked, “Is that a correct statement by the way?”

Kennedy agreed with Trump, adding that “there are some studies that suggest that, with the Amish, for example.”

The claim that Amish children do not have autism due to not being vaccinated has been debunked by research for years.

WATCH: Autism advocate calls Trump’s statements on the condition ‘stigmatizing’

Kennedy also vowed further research into whether there is any link between autism and vaccines.

“We are continuing to investigate a multiplicity of potential causes. No area is taboo. One area that we’re closely examining, as the president mentioned, is vaccines. Some 40 to 70% of mothers who have children with autism, believe that their child was injured by a vaccine,” he said.

“This has been looked at so carefully,” Dr. Linda Eckert, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Washington, told PBS News Hour’s Amna Nawaz. “And there are many studies, tens and tens of studies, a very large number of patients all over the world that have shown that there is not a link between autism and vaccine use.”