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Actor Dennis Quaid Joins Secretary Kennedy to Discuss Treatments for Lyme Disease
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and actor Dennis Quaid teamed up Monday to make an announcement about furthering research about Lyme disease. “At HHS, we are taking bold new actions against Lyme disease, alpha-gal syndrome, and other tick-borne diseases — accelerating research, improving care, and driving new treatments,” Kennedy wrote on the social media platform, X. “Millions of Americans need faster diagnoses, better care, and real answers.”
In a video attached to the post, Quaid said that his friend, the late Kris Kristofferson spent years living with Alzheimer’s. “But Alzheimer’s wasn’t the problem,” Quaid said. “He actually had Lyme disease and when the doctors finally diagnosed him correctly in 2016 and started the right treatment, his symptoms did improve,” Kennedy said that HHS is investing millions of dollars in innovation to develop AI-powered tools to help improve patient care.
Fauci Declines to Sit for Transcribed Interview With Sen. Ron Johnson
Former White House COVID-19 czar Dr. Anthony Fauci told Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) he will not appear for a transcribed interview with the senator’s Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations about his role in the government’s pandemic response.
In a letter sent to Johnson Friday, Fauci’s attorneys said he intends to continue asserting his Fifth Amendment right to decline answering questions that are part of the ongoing GOP-led investigation. Any effort to compel his appearance before the subcommittee “would have no legislative purpose and would operate only to impermissibly harass or degrade Dr. Fauci for political purposes,” his attorneys wrote.
Johnson demanded Fauci sit for an interview with his panel after the former longtime leader of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 100 times last month in a hearing led by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
Making Americans Healthier Again
A little over a year ago, General Mills, maker of Trix and Lucky Charms, promised to pull synthetic dyes from all its U.S. cereals and school foods by the summer of 2026, and from its whole retail line by the end of 2027. Kraft Heinz made the same pledge days earlier, while Nestlé USA, Conagra, and Tyson followed with similar commitments.
Nobody forced them. They read the room.
The room had changed because of one man: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The Secretary of Health and Human Services has transformed how Americans think and talk about health policy. For years, Washington rightly worried about access to affordable care, especially in troubled federal programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Kennedy took on a bigger task: making Americans healthier.
This can’t be done without tackling our chronic disease crisis, especially among children. Backed by a presidential order to “Make America Healthy Again,” Kennedy and his colleagues have rolled out sweeping plans to do just that. Their approach rests on gold standard science, better economic incentives, and private-sector partnership.
How Louisiana’s New Surgeon General Wants to Transform Public Health
Dr. Evelyn Griffin had led a life out of the spotlight until she testified at the Louisiana statehouse five years ago and experienced what she called her “great awakening.”
The state health department wanted to add Covid vaccines to the school immunization schedule, a move no state has ever implemented. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., then known as a leading vaccine skeptic, had already claimed the Covid shot was “the deadliest vaccine ever made” during a poster board presentation at the legislative hearing.
Dr. Griffin, a longtime obstetrician, relied on nearly identical images during her own blistering testimony against the proposal. After the hearing, she expected splashy headlines about Mr. Kennedy’s assertions, shifting the public debate over Covid policies and vaccines. But that did not happen; one news outlet dismissed him as a promulgator of propaganda. Dr. Griffin was shocked.
That is “when I saw how the world worked,” she recalled in a podcast interview. Dr. Griffin said she and her husband, a vascular surgeon, decided to take action and “shine light on things.”
Sen. Baldwin Fights EPA Rollback of Wisconsin Drinking Water Protections
Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) spent the week focused on drinking water protections, health care and food assistance while also joining Wisconsin Democrats after Tuesday’s gubernatorial primary. Baldwin’s most substantive action came Monday, when she joined colleagues in demanding that the Environmental Protection Agency withdraw a proposal to roll back 2024 drinking water protections for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS.
The proposal would rescind federal drinking water limits for PFHxS, PFNA, GenX and certain PFAS mixtures while allowing water systems to seek additional time, until 2031, to comply with limits for PFOA and PFOS. EPA announced the two proposals in May.
“Safe drinking water is not a partisan issue,” Baldwin and her colleagues wrote to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. “Families across the country expect that when they turn on the tap, their water is safe to drink.” Baldwin’s office noted that she previously secured funding for PFAS remediation at Truax Field and Volk Field in Wisconsin and had pressed the Defense Department in July over cleanup delays at the sites.
