Leaning into RFK's junk science is no way to make America healthy again

President Donald Trump, left, and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attend a Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission Event in the East Room of the White House, Thursday, May 22, 2025, in Washington. Photo by: Jacquelyn Martin / AP

Touted as the “gold standard” of science by President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the “Make America Healthy Again” report turned out to be a deeply flawed document riddled with fake citations, nonexistent studies and dangerously misleading conclusions.

While the White House has tried to downplay the report’s problems as little more than “formatting issues,” the fact that the report’s reasoning and conclusions all seem to support RFK’s conspiracy theories and Trump’s political agenda make it more likely that the errors are intentional lies designed to mislead the American public. Even if the errors weren’t intentional, they demonstrate a disregard for the rigorous standards of scientific research and a growing reliance on artificial intelligence guided by the hands of a duo of conspiracy theorists.

Once a bastion of evidence-based research and sober policy leadership, HHS now resembles a fringe blog, promoting ideas once confined to the discredited corners of internet forums. Americans should be outraged and alarmed.

More than a half-dozen citations in the MAHA report don’t refer to real studies. Others mischaracterize or misrepresent actual research. Epidemiologist Katherine Keyes and pediatric psychologist Robert Findling were each cited for papers they didn’t write. In other cases, cited researchers and publications don’t appear to exist at all.

This isn’t merely sloppy work, it’s systemic fabrication underpinned by conspiracy.

And yes, Kennedy is a conspiracy theorist. His decadeslong crusade against vaccines has already eroded public confidence and contributed to a resurgence of preventable diseases like measles.

As of last week, more than 1,000 measles cases have been confirmed in 14 separate outbreaks across 33 states. By comparison, all of 2024 saw just 16 outbreaks of measles that resulted in less than 300 confirmed cases. But that was before Kennedy, who has falsely claimed that the measles vaccine contains fetal tissue, was confirmed as the secretary of HHS.

Now, the junk pseudoscientist is at the helm of our nation’s response to not just measles but increasing concerns about a new and more transmissible variant of COVID and an alarming rise in diseases like syphilis and colorectal cancer, to name just a few of the growing threats to public health in the United States.

Instead of confronting these urgent health threats, Kennedy and Trump have chosen to fight vaccines, academic research and higher education. These aren’t the causes of our nation’s health crises, they are essential tools in addressing them, yet the administration has taken a proverbial chain saw to funding for researchers, facilities and supplies; gutted the visiting international student visa program for foreign researchers wishing to come to the U.S.; and derided the country’s most prestigious research institutions as little more than propaganda factories. In short, Trump has codified his contempt for higher education in the federal budget. It’s no surprise, then, that the MAHA report reads like an undergraduate essay gone off the rails — unvetted, unsourced and scientifically incoherent.

To be fair, the MAHA report does touch on some real problems, such as the rise of ultraprocessed foods and environmental toxins. But even where it is directionally correct, it offers little in the way of solutions and veers wildly into misinterpretation and alarmism. It warns of rising childhood cancer rates but fails to note that mortality is declining. It rails against antidepressants and ADHD medications for children using phantom studies but ignores the complex reality of mental health treatment — and the increase in awareness and decrease in societal stigma surrounding mental health concerns. It omits entirely the leading cause of death among American children: firearms.

The core problem isn’t just Trump, Kennedy or even the report itself. It’s the willful abandonment of evidence-based facts, data and objective truth as principles of good governance. Science isn’t perfect; it evolves, refines and sometimes stumbles. But the standards of peer-reviewed research, academic scrutiny and intellectual honesty exist for a reason. They are the bulwark against the very chaos and disinformation that this report exemplifies.

Just as Trump has sown chaos in our foreign relations, social safety net and economy via his “shoot from the hip and ask questions later approach” to the budget and tariffs, he and Kennedy are also sowing chaos in our hospitals and health care facilities with their conspiratorial approach to public health and research.

In a functioning administration, such a fiasco would lead to resignations, public apologies and a redoubled commitment to honesty, integrity and fact finding. In the Trump-Kennedy era, it’s met with shrugs and spin. Americans are left to wonder: If this is the “gold standard” in public health, what does failure look like?

We are facing an age of resurgent disease, mounting misinformation and the rapid erosion of trust in our public institutions. The MAHA report doesn’t just fail to meet the moment — it actively sabotages it.

Public health policy must be rooted in evidence, not ideology. Until that principle is restored, America will remain not just unhealthy, but unwell.