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vaccines
'One Year of Failure': The Lancet Warns RFK Jr.'s Assault on Science May 'Take Generations to Repair'
Kennedy has "made a habit of throwing good money after bad" by promoting "junk science and fringe beliefs."
Feb 27, 2026
A scathing editorial published Friday in one of the world's most prestigious medical journals took US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to task for what it described as "one year of failure."
In its editorial, the Lancet began by listing off several of the broken promises Kennedy made during his first speech after being confirmed to lead the US Health and Human Services Department (HHS), such as his vow to have "open and honest engagement with everyone willing to work towards making the USA healthy again" and usher in "a new era of unbiased science without hidden conflicts of interest, secrecy, or profiteering."
In fact, the Lancet found that it took Kennedy less than two weeks to break a key promise.
"Ten days after his speech about trust and openness," the journal noted, "HHS rescinded a 54-year-old policy of soliciting public comments for new rules and regulations, silencing the voices of many of the stakeholders he pledged to serve."
Things have only gotten worse since then, the editorial continued, as Kennedy has shelved research into mRNA vaccines and "made a habit of throwing good money after bad" by promoting "junk science and fringe beliefs."
The editorial concluded by warning "the destruction that Kennedy has wrought in one year might take generations to repair, and there is little hope for US health and science while he remains at the helm." The journal urged the US Congress to "hold Kennedy accountable for his record, or else accept responsibility for endorsing President Trump's decision to let him 'run wild on health.'"
The Lancet editorial drew a range of reactions from medical experts and academics.
Scott Forbes, an ecologist at the University of Winnipeg, explained the significance of a journal such as the Lancet publishing such an overtly political editorial.
"For context, the Lancet is one of the two most important medical journals on the planet," he wrote in a social media post. "When they put this on their front cover, it is only because there is something seriously wrong. That something is RFK Jr. He is a notorious crank and charlatan. But that's par for the course in the Trump regime."
Forbes' point was echoed by Krutika Kuppalli, associate professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center's Department of Internal Medicine.
"When a leading medical journal uses language like this, it’s not rhetoric," she wrote. "It’s a warning the world should take seriously."
Pediatrician Vincent Iannelli took the Lancet to task for publishing a since-retracted study in 1998 that falsely linked vaccination with the development of autism, which subsequently helped the anti-vaccination movement gain currency.
"Let's not forget that Wakefield's fraudulent paper that was published in the Lancet helped get us on this road," Iannelli said. "RFK Jr. was influenced by mothers who blamed vaccines for their child's autism."
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Trump's Surgeon General Nominee Dodges Senators' Questions on Vaccines, Conflicts of Interest
"Means is another example of President Trump nominating someone with financial conflicts instead of qualifications," said one consumer advocate.
Feb 25, 2026
The US Senate's confirmation hearing for Casey Means, President Donald Trump's nominee to be the next US surgeon general, showcased "just how profoundly unqualified" the wellness influencer is to serve as the nation's top doctor, said one consumer advocate after Means dodged questions about her potential conflicts of interest, refused to affirm that anti-vaccine conspiracy theories have been debunked, and spread misinformation about contraception.
Means was nominated to the role on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s recommendation, and her lack of a current medical license would make her an outlier among past surgeons general. Her license lapsed in 2024, and she did not finish her medical residency at Oregon Health and Science University, leaving in 2018 just months before she was set to complete it because, as PBS NewsHour reported last year, "she came to view the healthcare system as exploitative."
Means then became a self-described "metabolic health evangelist" and a social media wellness influencer, sharing a newsletter with her hundreds of thousands of followers to whom she marketed health products and supplements and earning tens of thousands of dollars in income doing so.
She is also the co-founder of a company called Levels, which offers a subscription for wearable glucose monitors—and which could benefit from Kennedy's endorsement of wearable medical devices.
Means signed a government ethics agreement last September stating she would resign from her advisory position at Levels and stop promoting wellness products for income, but Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, including Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), had questions about Means' recent potential conflicts of interest.
Murphy noted that Means failed to disclose her financial interests numerous times when promoting her lab testing platform, Function Health; Genova Diagnostics, another testing company that she sponsored; and Zenbasil seeds, a supplement that she recommended in her newsletter and whose maker she had a financial partnership with.
"This seems systemic," said Murphy. "It seems that in a majority of instances in which you were, as a medical professional, recommending a product, you were hiding the fact that you had a financial partnership."
Means responded by accusing Murphy's staff of "intentionally" mischaracterizing the data about her disclosures.
damn, Trump's surgeon general nominee Casey Means is a transparent bullshitter even by the standards of the regime. Watch how she's tries to blame Chris Murphy's staffers for the fact he has her dead to rights on being dishonest and corrupt.
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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) February 25, 2026 at 11:28 AM
"Means is another example of President Trump nominating someone with financial conflicts instead of qualifications—elevated precisely because of her opposition to the best science and fundamental public health principles," said Robert Weissman, co-president of government watchdog Public Citizen. "We need a surgeon general who understands that public health is, fundamentally, about taking care of each other, not leaving each of us to go it alone."
Considering Means' background, he added, "it is clear that Means will not push back on Trump and RFK Jr. as they put profits ahead of patients and anti-science views ahead of sound public health information. The already broken US healthcare system has been made much worse by Trump and his allies, who have gutted important health agencies and made dangerous cuts to health programs to fund tax cuts for billionaires."
“Casey Means has no place as US surgeon general, and every senator should reject her absurd nomination," said Weissman.
As in Kennedy's confirmation hearing last year, a number of questions from senators were related to Means' views on vaccination. Like the HHS secretary, during her career Means has expressed skepticism about immunization despite scientific studies and decades of evidence that have shown vaccines against diseases like polio and measles have prevented millions of deaths and amounted to some of the most successful public health interventions in history.
On Joe Rogan's podcast in 2024, Means allowed that "one vaccine probably isn’t causing autism" but asked, "What about the 20 that they’re getting before 18 months?”
There is no evidence that the childhood vaccine schedule in the US leads to autism. The increased number of vaccinations children receive today compared to the 1980s and '90s is frequently cited as a concern among vaccine skeptics, but the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's Vaccine Education Center notes that the "immunological components in vaccines has dramatically decreased" due to "scientific advances in protein chemistry and protein purification that have allowed for purer, safer vaccines."
Means said Wednesday that "anti-vaccine rhetoric has never been a part of my message," but refused to answer several direct questions about immunization.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a physician, asked Means whether she would encourage Americans to be vaccinated against the flu.
Means replied that patients should "have informed consent with their doctor before getting any medication" and said that "vaccines save lives," but did not confirm whether she would endorse the flu vaccine.
CASSIDY: Would you encourage Americans to take the flu vaccine?
CASEY MEANS: I do think it's important as a physician and to rebuild trust in public health to make sure patients are encouraged to have informed consent with their doctors before getting any medication pic.twitter.com/b5JhGUMs5R
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 25, 2026
She also would not say whether she would recommend the measles vaccine as surgeon general. Nearly 1,000 children have been sickened with the highly contagious, preventable illness in South Carolina, and two children died of measles in West Texas last year, with the outbreaks spreading among the unvaccinated population in the affected areas.
"Would you encourage mothers to vaccinate their children with the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, seeing how we've had children die?" asked Cassidy.
Means again said only that she is "supportive" of the vaccine but continued to focus her reply on the idea that parents should have "a conversation" with their doctor about immunization against deadly diseases.
Dr. Casey Means, Trump's nominee for surgeon general, won't unambiguously say that mothers should have their kids vaccinated against measles: "I do believe that each mother needs to have a conversation with their pediatrician about any medication they're putting in their… pic.twitter.com/tiqYv7eeAD
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 25, 2026
Angela Rasmussen, a virologist and Defend Public Health member, said Means' "only apparent qualification for the job of surgeon general is her willingness to promote RFK Jr.’s disinformation and quackery.”
Epidemiologist Elizabeth Jacobs, a member of the group's coordinating committee, added that "the leading US government voice on public health issues... must be someone Americans can trust to give credible advice based on solid science and real data, not a charlatan who specializes in selling expensive, unproven tests and treatments."
"It's time for the Senate to grow a backbone and say, 'Enough!'" said Jacobs, "starting with Casey Means."
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Freedom, Responsibility, and the Lessons Polio Taught Our Generation
Those of us who lived through the polio era know something that is easy to forget today: Vaccines did not take freedom away, they restored it.
Feb 24, 2026
In recent conversations about vaccines, we often hear an argument framed around individual rights and personal choice. This perspective was echoed by Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices Chair Kirk Milhoan in his January 22 interview with STAT News, when he suggested that vaccine recommendations should place greater emphasis on individual autonomy and questioned whether longstanding vaccines, including polio, should continue to be viewed primarily through a public health lens.
As grandparents, we understand that instinct deeply. We raised children. We worried about their safety, questioned new information, and felt the weight of responsibility that comes with making decisions for someone you love more than yourself. Respect for individual liberty is not abstract to us, it is part of who we are as Americans.
But we also belong to a generation that remembers polio. And that memory changes how we see this debate.
Polio was not a distant or theoretical threat when we were children. It arrived quietly, spread easily, and struck without warning. One day a child was fine; the next, paralyzed. Parents kept their children out of swimming pools, movie theaters, and playgrounds. Summers were seasons of fear. Hospital wards filled with children in iron lungs, machines that breathed for bodies polio had left unable to do so.
Protecting public health does not mean erasing individual rights. It means recognizing that some choices carry consequences beyond ourselves.
Janice (Jan) Flood Nichols can attest to what life was like before vaccines. She and her twin brother Frankie were in first grade. It was fall, and they were excited to go trick-or-treating. A few days before Halloween, Frankie caught what seemed like a simple head cold, so their parents kept him home to rest. But the day before Halloween, he suddenly struggled to breathe. They rushed him to the communicable disease hospital in Syracuse.
Doctors performed a spinal tap and placed Frankie in an iron lung. By morning, the diagnosis was confirmed: polio. Jan was brought to the same hospital and given massive doses of gamma globulin, the only treatment doctors hoped might stop the disease.
Frankie’s condition worsened. Unable to control his breathing, doctors rushed him toward emergency surgery. He never made it. Frankie died on November 1, 1953, at 10:25 pm.
That same night, Jan developed symptoms of polio. Her condition deteriorated rapidly, and she was rushed back to the hospital where Frankie had died. Doctors told her parents they did not know if she would live or die. Jan did survive but spent months painfully rehabilitating and learning to walk again.
Jan’s story is why discussions about polio vaccination cannot be reduced to personal preference alone. Polio is not just a risk to one child or one family. It is a highly contagious virus that spreads silently, often through people who show no symptoms at all. That means individual decisions ripple outward, affecting newborns, pregnant women, immunocompromised individuals, and entire communities.
When we talk about rights, we must also talk about responsibility.
In America, freedom has never meant the absence of limits when others are placed in danger. We accept speed limits not because we distrust drivers, but because unchecked speed endangers everyone on the road. We require clean drinking water and food safety standards because one person’s contamination can harm thousands. Public health has always been a balance between individual liberty and collective protection.
Polio vaccination is no different.
Those of us who lived through the polio era know something that is easy to forget today: Vaccines did not take freedom away, they restored it. The widespread use of the polio vaccine didn’t just reduce disease; it gave families their lives back. Children returned to playgrounds and pools. Parents stopped holding their breath every summer. Communities could gather without fear that invisible danger lurked in everyday spaces.
It’s also important to say this clearly: Today’s parents are not reckless or uncaring. Vaccine hesitancy often grows from love, fear, and an overwhelming flood of conflicting information. Many parents have never seen the diseases vaccines prevent. That is a testament to how successful vaccination programs have been, but it also makes the risk feel abstract.
For grandparents, it is anything but abstract.
Many of us came together through Grandparents for Vaccines, a national grassroots organization formed to ensure that the hard-won lessons of the past are not forgotten. We speak not as politicians or policymakers, but as witnesses, people who saw firsthand what happens when diseases like polio are allowed to spread, and who now want to protect the children and grandchildren we love.
We remember classmates who never walked again. We remember neighbors who lived with lifelong disabilities. We remember funerals for children who should have grown old alongside us. These memories are not meant to frighten, they are meant to remind us what happens when a dangerous virus is allowed to spread unchecked.
Protecting public health does not mean erasing individual rights. It means recognizing that some choices carry consequences beyond ourselves. Infants cannot choose to be vaccinated yet. People undergoing cancer treatment cannot choose to have fully functioning immune systems. They rely on the rest of us to create a protective barrier around them.
That is not government overreach. It is community care.
As grandparents, our perspective is shaped by time. We have seen what happens before vaccines and after them. We have watched fear give way to relief, and tragedy replaced by prevention. When we advocate for polio vaccination, we are not dismissing freedom—we are defending a broader, deeper version of it.
The freedom for a child to grow up walking.
The freedom for families to trust public spaces.
The freedom for future generations to know polio only as a chapter in history books, not a living threat.
Our message is simple and heartfelt: We respect choice and we remember the cost of unchecked disease. Polio showed our generation that collective protection can increase freedom across an entire society. That lesson continues to matter for the health and well-being of our grandchildren.
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