The war against...sunshine?
RFK Jr's erratic messaging keeps getting stranger
We’re a day away from the most consequential election in my lifetime. Among the many exceptionally dangerous possibilities of a second Trump presidency, I can’t shake the damage RFK Jr could do to public health, especially with tweets like this.
Unpacking all of this nonsense would require multiple articles. Instead, let’s recall Project 2025’s plans for health agencies, which is in direct opposition to RFK’s schemes.
There’s not a ton of policy crossover—the Heritage Foundation doesn’t write about psychedelics or the “plot against sunshine.” But their game plan includes deregulating all the agencies Kennedy wants to “reform” nearly out of (or completely out of) existence. This paradox makes believing RFK’s hype ludicrous: you can’t regulate with hobbled or non-existent agencies.
The FDA is only part of it: RFK claims that Trump has promised him control of the HHS, CDC, NIH, and USDA (though the Trump campaign has denied any such promises).
Let’s review some Project 2025 objectives—this article would be a novella if if all were covered—starting with anti-abortion activist Roger Severino’s five goals for reforming the HHS. All text in the bullet points was written with his hand, and endorsed by Heritage.
To be clear, the main goals of the HHS is to overseen Medicare and Medicaid; implement parts of the ACA; promote and implement public health protocols via the CDC; regulate food and drugs via the FDA; and conduct and support medical and public health research. There are more directives, like preventing child and domestic abuse and provide substance abuse services, so read Project 2025’s platform with that in mind.
Goal #1: Protecting Life, Conscience, and Bodily Integrity
From the moment of conception, every human being possesses inherent dignity and worth, and our humanity does not depend on our age, stage of development, race, or abilities. The Secretary must ensure that all HHS programs and activities are rooted in a deep respect for innocent human life from day one until natural death: Abortion and euthanasia are not health care.
Goal #2: Empowering Patient Choices and Provider Autonomy
Health care reform should be patient-centered and market-based and should empower individuals to control their health care–related dollars and decisions.
Goal #3: Promoting Stable and Flourishing Married Families
Families comprised of a married mother, father, and their children are the foundation of a well-ordered nation and healthy society. Unfortunately, family policies and programs under President Biden’s HHS are fraught with agenda items focusing on “LGBTQ+ equity,” subsidizing single-motherhood, disincentivizing work, and penalizing marriage. These policies should be repealed and replaced by policies that support the formation of stable, married, nuclear families.
Goal #4: Preparing for the Next Health Emergency
Basic human rights, medical choice, and the doctor–patient relationship were trampled without scientific justification and for extended periods of time. Excess deaths, not due to COVID-19, skyrocketed because of forced lockdowns, isolation, vaccine-related mass firings, and colossal disruptions of the economy and daily rhythms of life.
Goal #5: Instituting Greater Transparency, Accountability, and Oversight
We must shut and lock the revolving door between government and Big Pharma. Regulators should have a long “cooling off period” on their contracts (15 years would not be too long) that prevents them from working for companies they have regulated. Similarly, pharmaceutical company executives should be restricted from moving from industry into positions within regulatory agencies.
Severino’s main goal is to federally eliminate abortion under the guise of “health.” Forget about the possibility of universal healthcare or socialized medicine. Then Severino digs at anything not heterosexual—again, this is about reforming the HHS.
The fourth goal is actually a call to end all mask and vaccine mandates, which is more RFK-aligned, though in direct conflict with implementing public health protocols. Plus, it’s already happening: an Idaho health department, representing six counties, has just become the first to stop administering Covid vaccines.
As in, offering them at all.
As in, if you live there, you’re shit out of luck if you want a booster.
Only number five actually aligns with RFK’s call to end pharma lobbying, which is rich given that pharmaceutical companies have donated 55% of their money ($6.6M) this election cycle to Republicans. Even more tellingly, Pfizer, which is often considered the devil by the MAHA crowd, has donated 63% of its money to Republicans.
I completely agree that pharma lobbying should be out of politics. The idea that a benefiting party will end it is laughable.
Which is what makes the majority of RFK's rhetoric dead on arrival. Here are just a few other plans Project 2025 has in store for agencies Kennedy is aspiring to lead:
When deciding upon public health measures, the CDC should, according to Severino, find the “proper balance of lives saved versus souls saved,” which is part of Project 2025’s Christian nationalist, business-first ethos. The fact that a policy document includes the word “soul” is a giant red flag.
The role of the CDC comes clearer when Severino writes, “Abortion pills pose the single greatest threat to unborn children in a post-Roe world.” Federally speaking, the HHS restricts Medicaid funds so that they can only be used for abortions in cases of rape, incest, or life endangerment of the pregnant person. Yet Severino spends pages discussing abortion in this chapter.
Severino also believes the CDC should be split into two entities that don’t talk to each other. This “firewall” would mean that one entity can make recommendations (like public masking or government employee vaccine requirements) and the other could only pass them with Congress’s blessing—eviscerating the role of expertise in favor of partisan politics.
Let’s move to the EPA: Heritage believes regulatory efforts should focus on addressing supposed tangible environmental problems with cost-beneficial and affordable solutions. If measures don’t maximize shareholder value, then forget them, environmental costs be damned.
Make it even harder for people to get food stamps. Project 2025 wants to “reform” the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) by requiring citizens to work more to be eligible, reduce the amount of benefits the Biden administration has put into place, and end heating assistance to SNAP recipients.
They also want to move SNAP away from the USDA while loosening regulations that oversee our agriculture system.
This is MAHA’s sleight of hand: use population health statistics about obesity and chronic disease, which predominantly impacts poor and minority communities, and then deregulate or eliminate the agencies that could make a difference in those communities.
Despite claims that he wants to “end the chronic disease epidemic,” nothing RFK Jr is proposing will aid this goal. In fact, his recent proposal to remove fluoride from drinking water is just another example of his anti-science inclinations, coupled with his ability to deflect from enacting actual help solutions, like strengthening public health measures. Instead, he will gladly join an administration that wants to deregulate agencies responsible for enacting public health.
Kennedy’s barrage of bad ideas is little different than Trump’s Gish gallop. The difference is that his preoccupation is health, which has helped him capture the contrarian wellness market that’s indifferent or hostile toward evidence-based medicine.
A market that believes you can both dismantle federal agencies and have them strengthen regulations.
A privileged market certain that individualized health solutions are the road to salvation despite generations of evidence to the contrary.
A market that only cares about itself, not the health of a nation.