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RFK Jr.’s Report Had a Surprise Target: Your Doctor
From food to pharma, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took on all the suspects he’s long maligned in a report on health threats to kids — along with one unexpected one: Doctors. Laced throughout the report from Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again Commission are accusations against doctors — for reportedly being influenced by the pharmaceutical industry to overprescribe certain medications and for failing to treat the root causes of disease.
The report, released Thursday, calls out the American Medical Association, the country’s leading physicians’ group, by name for adopting a policy the report claims discourages providers from deviating from standard practices and scientists from studying adverse vaccine reactions.
The surprise focus on physicians — softened in the report by calling them “well-intended” — comes after weeks of furious lobbying by the food, pharmaceutical and farming industries who feared being demonized by the review.
Instead, the report adopts an argument popularized by Kennedy and many of his colleagues in President Donald Trump’s health department during the COVID-19 pandemic, that the medical profession is dominated by groupthink and has been swayed by corporate interests.
Doctors fear speaking out against conventional guidance, the theory goes, for fear of being ostracized. That, the report says, has curtailed research into the causes of chronic disease.
NIH Director’s COVID Comments Spark Staff Walkout
Dozens of staff at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) walked out of a recent town hall meeting after Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya suggested the agency may have helped fund research that caused the COVID-19 pandemic. The protest happened roughly 27 minutes into the meeting, held at NIH headquarters in Bethesda, Md.
In a video obtained by CNN, Bhattacharya is shown telling staff that, based on his review of scientific evidence and public opinion polling, he believed COVID-19 may have started due to research funded, in part, by the NIH.
“It’s possible that the pandemic was caused by research conducted by human beings,” Bhattacharya said. “And it’s also possible that the NIH partly sponsored that research. And if that’s true — “. At that point, dozens of NIH employees walked out. Bhattacharya called the walkout “silent dissent” and continued on with the meeting.
RFK Jr. Asks Canadian Regulator to Reconsider Ostrich Cull at B.C. Farm
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has written a letter to the president of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency asking that ostriches at a B.C. farm be spared from a planned cull.
Kennedy, the U.S. Secretary for Health and Human Services, posted a letter on social media dated Friday and addressed to Paul MacKinnon, saying there would be “significant value” in studying the ostriches’ immune response to avian flu.
The secretary, who says he spoke with MacKinnon on Thursday about the cull, thanked the Canadian agency for what he said was an openness to discussing a collaboration on a long-term study of the roughly 400 birds at Universal Ostrich Farm in Edgewood, B.C.
The letter is co-signed by the heads of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and National Institutes of Health, who Kennedy said also took part in the conversation with MacKinnon. “It’s our hope that this collaboration will help us understand how to better protect human and animal populations and perhaps lead to the development of new vaccines and therapeutics,” Kennedy said in the social media post.
Revolutionizing Health: How the MAHA Institute Is Transforming America’s Future
The MAHA Institute, the policy and advocacy organization championing the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda, returned to the nation’s capital this past week, building on the momentum from its May 15 launch. Initially unveiled with the release of the highly-anticipated “MAHA Commission Report” led by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Institute has begun collaborating directly with federal leaders, Congress, and the White House to drive meaningful health reforms.
Founded to support robust public health improvements, the MAHA Institute works under its “Six Pillars” framework, aiming to amplify state and federal efforts, strengthen policy expertise, and highlight health policy victories alongside President Donald Trump’s administration. It also seeks to promote transparency, accountability, and sustainable innovation within the healthcare system.
“We have a situation now where we have amazing leadership at the federal health agencies,” stated Co-President Mark Gorton. “But the number of actual, true MAHA supporters at the top of these agencies is maybe 75 people across an HHS that has 60,000 employees. And their job is unbelievably daunting because these bureaucracies are highly resistant to change.”
Privacy and Hunger Groups Sue Over USDA Attempt to Collect Personal Data of SNAP Recipients
Privacy and hunger relief groups and a handful of people receiving food assistance benefits are suing the federal government over the Trump administration’s attempts to collect the personal information of millions of U.S. residents who use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The lawsuit filed in Washington, D.C., on May 22 says the U.S. Department of Agriculture violated federal privacy laws when it ordered states and vendors to turn over five years of data about food assistance program applicants and enrollees, including their names, birth dates, personal addresses and social security numbers.
The lawsuit “seeks to ensure that the government is not exploiting our most vulnerable citizens by disregarding longstanding privacy protections,” National Student Legal Defense Network attorney Daniel Zibel wrote in the complaint. The Electronic Privacy Information Center and Mazon Inc.: A Jewish Response to Hunger joined the four food assistance recipients in bringing the lawsuit.
