Once confirmed as the secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr promised a new era of “radical transparency” — but instead, he’s made the agencies he oversees even more opaque.
In February, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which Kennedy oversees, removed thousands of pages of medical information for doctors, from HIV protocols to guidance on contraception and transgender health care. Then, in April, the agency purged its eighteen-member media relations team and all of its public records team.
Now internal emails reveal how the FDA has been working to suppress scientific communication to the public since January, making it harder for doctors, patients, journalists, and advocates to access public health guidance.
For example, in response to a journalist’s queries regarding the FDA’s proposed rule on nutrition labels on February 7, a health department communications director told the FDA’s communications team, “Let’s ignore this request please.”
In a separate request for information on vaccines for RSV, a respiratory illness that’s the leading cause of infant hospitalizations, department officials told an FDA communications officer to remove part of the agency’s standard response stating that the FDA believes the benefits of the vaccines outweigh their risks.
Then, in March, a reporter from Vox requested information about the FDA’s vaccine monitoring program. A health department press secretary responded with this: “The decision to vaccinate is a personal one. People should consult with their healthcare provider to understand their options to get a vaccine and should be informed about the potential adverse events associated with vaccines.”
Vaccines have been recommended by the FDA since the 1940s as an essential public health measure to protect individuals from contracting debilitating diseases like polio and smallpox — and to reduce the risk of these diseases for the…
Auteur: Helen Santoro
