When thinking of government health agencies, images of experts in lab coats, studies, and scientists come to mind, while conspiracy theories typically don’t. However, the new Trump administration’s Department of Health and Human Services is anything, but the expected.
Despite not being a doctor or medical professional in any regard, politician Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK) was appointed as the Secretary of Health in February 2025 at the start of the Trump administration. He’s been in the headlines constantly, whether it be for advocating for the consumption of raw milk against the guidelines of the CDC and FDA or making anti-vaccine comments. But as of late, his department has been under fire for more tangible issues.
Over the summer, RFK and his department rolled out plans for their Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) initiative, a federal program to regulate foods, research chronic diseases, and change legal guidelines relating to health-related issues. While some of the initiatives are scientifically backed, such as the proposed regulations about food dyes, the initiative has come under significant criticism for its complete lack of evidence, its contradictions with real studies, and its numerous fabricated sources.
First and foremost, the initiative takes an immediate, strong stance against vaccinations: removing vaccine recommendations for healthy children. Anti-vaccine recommendations are nothing new to the current government, but for the official Department of Health to speak out against them is entirely unprecedented.
There is no evidence to suggest that vaccines are harmful to recommended groups, yet RFK and other members of his organization continuously maintain that they’re dangerous. “There are adverse events from the [measles] vaccine,” claimed Kennedy in March this year. “It does cause deaths every year. It causes… encephalitis and blindness, et cetera.”
Despite his consistent claims, there is zero evidence that the measles vaccine can cause any of these side effects in healthy individuals. Now, not only is it dangerous to have health officials presenting misinformation in general, but these statements will have consequences. They aren’t just words, they’re words of authority. The MAHA movement will create distrust not only in health professionals but the vaccines themselves. Without these vaccines, the public will inevitably be more at risk as a direct result of this administration’s actions.
Regardless, Kennedy and his supporters within the movement have gone as far as to claim that vaccines also cause autism, which is even further of a stretch. But when it comes to an official government document, claims need evidence, and therefore, RFK needed some sort of study to back up his beliefs on vaccines, measles, autism, and the dozens of other points he has spread misinformation. Kennedy, who was out of other options, turned to an uncreditable source for answers: artificial intelligence (AI).
Some studies cited within the paper titled “The MAHA Report” don’t exist. While some of these studies cited do have real authors, the articles themselves were never written. Other studies have broken links, incorrect authors, or are misrepresented by MAHA.
Two studies: Shah, M. B., et al. (2008), and Findling, R. L., et al. (2009), have zero record of existing, and their “authors” deny having ever written them. This isn’t simply an error in citation. This is an AI “hallucination,” something that can occur when AI has a lack of information. Instead of saying that there isn’t any support for an argument, AI chatbots are more likely to make up sources, using real names or organizations.
“I feel like it harms their credibility,” says Pembroke Pines Charter High School junior Nusaybah Arif, who is interested in pursuing a future in the medical field. “It could create a bigger health crisis. If citizens can’t find the facts, how are we supposed to know what’s actually happening?”
Aside from the clear issues presented by using AI to create a health report and the blatant disregard for real science, the MAHA movement has perpetuated claims that, five years ago, would have been seen as comical. Kennedy himself has gone on record to say that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS. He’s stated that COVID-19 was somehow “ethnically targeted” at white people. He’s even come out and suggested that fluoride in water supplies has turned children gay or transgender.
People are rightfully shocked at the genuine misinformation spread by members of our government. “How are you going to tell me that a chemical substance alters your sexual orientation? It has absolutely no correlation,” says junior Andres Alaya. “It’s very off-putting. I don’t understand why government officials could correlate those two things.”
These are the kinds of statements heard in a satirical skit, not from a government agency. RFK and these officials, despite not being medical professionals nor qualified, don’t need to be good at their job to serve their purpose—at least not under President Trump’s term.
The goal of the Trump administration has been, as the President said, to “drain the swamp.” This administration’s goal is to effectively gut the federal government and programs like the Department of Health, as well as dozens of others, adding power to the president. Whether he’s ignoring court rulings, slashing aid funding, or laying off hundreds of employees, this has always been Trump’s plan.
His Department of Government Efficiency was created with the intent of dismantling government programs. The baseless claims and policies of the MAHA project turn the federal government into a mockery of itself, and that is exactly what Trump wants. The less power that the rest of the government has, the more Trump has for himself.
Kennedy may be a conspiracy theorist, but he’s serving his role perfectly, at least in Trump’s eyes. Especially in regard to medical fields, the government has transformed. Florida, for instance, isn’t requiring vaccinations for children anymore. This week, 600 members of the Center for Disease Control were fired en masse after members of the organization refused to approve Kennedy’s new guidelines. But this isn’t limited to just medicine, it’s much bigger than this.
Top members at the Pentagon, including the 4-star general, NATO admirals, and many others, have been relieved of duty for mere dissent. Trump has attempted to fire the Federal Reserve Governor for reporting facts that he didn’t agree with. His Homeland Security Secretary has fired FEMA workers for expressing disagreement with Trump’s budget cuts. All the while, Trump and his administration bring up new, unsubstantiated talking points to distract the media and cause distrust in the government.
The Trump administration undoubtedly means for all of this to happen because it’s entirely about control. Amidst the chaos is when fascism thrives best. We’ll be sold medicine for a disease that this administration created. Not a vaccine, of course, because those cause autism.
