Make America Die Again, Part II: Anti-Health Policies at EPA and HHS

January 28, 2026

IV: Cutting Regulations that Save Lives

In his Senate confirmation hearings for Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin acknowledged that climate change was a real issue, and he agreed to address it.  However, in March 2025 Zeldin held a press conference to announce what he called “the largest deregulatory announcement in U.S. history.”  Zeldin then listed scores of environmental regulations that were being rolled back or cancelled.  He claimed that these actions “Would drive down cost of living for American families, unleash American energy, bring auto jobs back to the U.S. and more.”  The press conference was striking because Zeldin did not mention protecting the environment, the primary mission of the EPA since its founding 55 years ago.  In fact, the founding administrator of the EPA, Republican William Ruckelshaus, described the mission of EPA: “It [the EPA]has no obligation to promote agriculture or commerce; only the critical obligation to protect and enhance the environment.”  Ruckelshaus further stated that the EPA would deal “with regard to five environmental hazards; air and water pollution, solid waste disposal, radiation, and pesticides.” So Zeldin’s priorities were the precise opposite of those for which the EPA was founded.  By the way, on the EPA Website Ruckelshaus’ statement of its mission has the header: “Note: This content is not maintained and may no longer apply.” 

The EPA assault on regulations encompasses a wide range and number of rules that will either be cut or enforcement of those rules will be ignored. Here, we will consider two of the general areas where the EPA is now cutting back on regulations.  These two areas are regulations of air pollution under the Clean Air Act and regulation of releases of dangerous chemicals under the Clean Water Act.  In each of these cases we will attempt to estimate the effect of the regulations on human health, before the EPA began attempting to roll back these requirements. 

The US Clean Air Act:

The United States first passed a Clean Air Act in 1963, and it has been modified many times since then.  It is composed of many different regulations, with two of the most comprehensive being the National Ambient Air Quality Standards program and the National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants program.  Figure IV.1 shows estimates of the costs of the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments (light blue diamonds) vs. the benefits (blue squares) from 2000 – 2020.  The costs are those of abatement of air pollution while the benefits are in reduced mortality due to air quality improvements.  Note that the benefits are about 30 times the costs. 

Figure IV.1: Benefits of the 1990 US Clean Air Act Amendments (dark blue squares) vs. costs (light blue diamonds) from 2000 – 2020.  The costs represent the costs of air pollution abatement, while the dominant contribution to the benefits is reduced mortality due to improvements in air quality.  The benefits are roughly 30 times the costs.

The EPA also set tailpipe emissions standards for cars and trucks.  Figure IV.2 shows the volatile organic compounds (VOC) emitted by automobiles, in grams VOC per mile (blue line and right axis), versus vehicle miles traveled in the US (bar graphs, left axis) in trillions of miles, from 1970 to 2020.  During this period miles traveled increased by a factor of 4 while VOC per mile decreased by a factor of 50.  The EPA and the American Lung Association estimated that a complete transition to electric vehicles would save thousands of lives per year and cut health costs by trillions of dollars.  

Figure IV.2: Bar graphs and left axis: annual vehicle miles traveled in the US, in trillions of vehicle miles, from 1970 to 2020, and extrapolated to 2030.  Solid blue curve and right axis: volatile organic compounds (VOC) released by autos, in grams per mile traveled.  During this period, miles traveled increase by a factor greater than 4, while VOC per mile decreases by a factor of 50.  This shows one effect of Clean Air Act regulations on vehicle emissions. 

The Environmental Protection Agency (before Lee Zeldin took over as Administrator) made the following estimates of the effects of the Clean Air Act (CAA).  One of the accomplishments of the Clean Air Act was to remove smog and particulate matter in large cities.  Figure IV.3 shows a highway in Denver in 1974, during an era where smog and other air pollution produced dirty and unhealthy air quality in many American cities. 

• 1970 – 1990: An EPA retrospective study of Clean Air Act programs for the first 20 years showed that regulations prevented approximately 205,000 premature deaths by the year 1990. 
• An analysis of the 1990 Amendments estimated that those regulations saved roughly 160,000 lives annually by 2010, and were projected to prevent more than 230,000 early deaths annually by 2020. 
• An analysis by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago estimated that reductions in particulate matter from CAA regulations have added about 1.5 years to the life expectancy of the average American since 1970. (From 1970 to 2019 – before COVID – U.S. average life expectancy grew by about 8 years overall.)

Figure IV.3: A highway in Denver in 1974, showing the effects of smog.  EPA Clean Air Act regulations have cleaned up the air in most U.S. cities; but recent EPA deregulation efforts mean that air quality in the U.S. will suffer, and so will the health of American citizens. 

Figure IV.4 compares (left chart) the death rate, in number of deaths per terawatt-hour of electricity production for eight sources of energy: coal; oil; natural gas; biomass; hydropower; wind; nuclear energy; and solar.  The death rate ranges from coal, at 24.6 deaths per terawatt-hour, to solar with 0.02 deaths (a factor of 1,230 smaller than coal). The right-hand scale shows the greenhouse gas emissions for each energy source, in metric tons of CO2 equivalent per gigawatt-hour of electricity generated.  Again, coal is by far the largest with 970 tonnes emitted per gigawatt-hour, while nuclear energy is 6 tonnes and solar is 0 – 53 tonnes, depending on the technology and terrain. For calibration, the total U.S. annual demand for electricity has been about 4,000 terawatt-hours or 4 million gigawatt-hours.

Figure IV.4: Comparison of various sources of energy.  Left: death rate from accidents and pollution, in deaths per terawatt-hour of energy generated.  Right: Greenhouse gas emissions from each power source, in tonnes of CO2 equivalent released for every gigawatt-hour of energy produced. 

Figure IV.4 shows that the mantra of “beautiful clean coal” adopted by the Trump administration and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is totally false when assessing either the deaths from each power source or the greenhouse gas emissions from that source.  Kit Kennedy, managing director for power at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), stated that “Coal plants are old and dirty, uncompetitive and unreliable.”  She claimed that the Trump administration was “Stuck in the past, trying to make utility customers pay more for yesterday’s energy.”  Indeed, before Trump’s April 2025 Executive Order (“Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry and Amending Executive Order 14241”), several power companies had decided to shut down their coal-fired plants and replace them with cheaper and less polluting fuels.  Indeed, the NRDC is correct: we should be spending our money creating the grid of the future, focusing on support for renewable energy. 

A third area where the Trump administration is rolling back regulations on air quality is mercury emissions from fossil fuel plants.  In June 2025 the Trump administration proposed to roll back the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) that limited emissions of mercury and other toxic chemicals from 68 power plants, including some of our nation’s most polluting plants.  The rollback would triple the amount of mercury the power plants are allowed to release, while also allowing tripling emissions of toxic substances such as lead, arsenic and chromium.  This rollback of emission standards is being pushed despite the fact that the health hazards of emissions from coal-fired power plants have been widely studied.  It is estimated that five percent of the total premature mortality in the contiguous U.S. is due to outdoor air pollution.  Apparently, power plants that use coal as their power source can’t survive unless they are exempted from the limits on toxic particle emissions.  “Beautiful clean coal,” my a$$!  

On Jan. 12, 2026, the New York Times revealed that in making cost-benefit analyses of the effects of clean-air regulations, the EPA would no longer take into account the health benefits of regulations for clean air; they would “only estimate the costs to businesses of complying with the rules.”  It is indeed true that estimates of human health benefits can have significant error bars, as is also true of projected compliance costs.  As administrations change over the years, their estimates of health benefits may show significant variation.  However, what the Trump administration is now doing is equivalent to setting the monetary value of a human life to zero in a cost-benefit analysis or equivalently, to ignoring the dark blue line in Fig. IV.1!   Conservative critics of the cost-benefit analyses complain that estimates of the benefits may be too large; however, many environmental experts find that cost estimates of regulatory compliance are often too large.  As we pointed out here, cost-benefit analysis estimates of these environmental regulations have shown that the benefits are overwhelmingly larger than the costs.  The differences are so stark that New York Times op-ed columnist Thomas Edsall called the attacks on environmental regulations “a killing spree cloaked as deregulation.”   

The EPA statement specifically mentioned that they would no longer calculate the benefits of reducing PM2.5 (fine particulate matter with diameter less than 2.5 microns), or of reducing ozone in the air.  PM2.5 particles are sufficiently small that they can “enter the bloodstream, lodge deeply in the lungs and cross the blood-brain barrier. PM2.5 has been linked to diabetes, obesity, dementia, cancer, low birth weight and asthma. Ozone, a key ingredient of smog, is particularly dangerous for people with asthma and other lung diseases, especially children.” The Air Quality Life Index maintained by the University of Chicago indicates that PM2.5 pollution globally is responsible for a greater loss in life expectancy than tobacco usage or malnutrition. This is shown in Figure IV.5, which plots external threats to life expectancy, in life years lost, for the eight most dangerous threats.  Exposure to PM2.5 results in 1.86 life years lost, compared with tobacco use at 1.69 and maternal and child malnutrition at 1.36 life years lost. An analysis of ambient PM2.5 levels and life expectancy across 545 U.S. counties determined that every increase in PM2.5 level by 10 micrograms per cubic meter would decrease life expectancy in the U.S. by an average of 0.35 years. The cost in life years is much worse in urban areas and for people with respiratory deficiencies. Failure to account for the health benefits could lead to an increase in U.S. fine particulate air pollution by many times 10 micrograms per cubic meter.

Figure IV.5: Graph from Air Quality Life Index, Univ. of Chicago, showing External Threats to Life Expectancy globally. in Life Years Lost for the eight most dangerous external threats. Fine particulate matter with diameter 2.5 microns or less (PM2.5) is the leader at 1.86, beating out tobacco at 1.69 life years lost, and all other major threats.  

A January 2026 Scientific American article by Andrea Thompson showed that America’s air would get dirtier, and more dangerous to its citizens, under the new EPA policies that neglect the health benefits of Clean Air Act regulations.  Thompson cites studies that showed that by 2020 the Clean Air Act had benefitted the U.S. public by $2 trillion, compared with $65 billion in costs of implementing regulations (these are the data shown in Fig. IV.1).  Lisa Heinzerling, an expert on environmental law at Georgetown University, stated that the health benefits from the Clean Air Act not only “pay for themselves; they pay for the entire EPA [budget].” 

In making this change, the Trump administration is apparently ignoring a 2015 Supreme Court case Michigan v. EPA.  In the majority decision, Antonin Scalia stated that if an agency considers the benefits of a regulation, it must also consider the costs, and vice versa.   The EPA is specifically applying these new rules in failing to estimate the damage caused by the release of fine particulate matter called PM2.5, and also by ozone.  PM2.5 is emitted by power plants and ozone from power plants, factories and vehicles.  The Biden administration estimated that for every $1 spent on reducing PM2.5 emissions, it could result in $77 in health benefits.  So, even if we assume that the Biden estimate was too high by a factor of 4, that would still result in $19 in health benefits for every $1 in the cost of regulations.  The research group Berkeley Earth estimates that 1.6 million people were dying from air pollution every year in China.  The primary sources of air pollution there were PM2.5, CO2, NO2, and ozone. 

Figure IV.6 shows results of a 2020 report commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council.  It projects the effect in 2030 of Clean Air Act regulations in reducing negative health outcomes in various areas.  The specific annual health outcomes, and the projected health benefits from the CAA, were: premature deaths (229,000 – 457,000 reduction); nonfatal heart attacks (54,600); hospital admissions for cardiac problems (177,000); hospital admissions for respiratory problems (45,200); and emergency room visits for asthma (141,000). 

Figure IV.6: Results of a report by the Natural Resources Defense Council on the health benefits of the Clean Air Act, projected to 2030.  The report estimated the reductions in five types of negative health outcomes.  They were: premature deaths; nonfatal heart attacks; hospital admission for cardiac problems; hospital admissions for respiratory problems; and emergency room visits for asthma. Each colored square in the figure represents 1,000 incidents avoided. 

In addition to Zeldin’s promised deregulations of noxious emission standards, he is trying to rescind the 2009 EPA Endangerment Finding, which declared greenhouse gases to be air pollutants subject to EPA regulation, a declaration reinforced by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. We have posted on this site the very detailed response to that proposal we co-authored with the group Concerned Scientists @ IU, pointing out the many legal and scientific flaws in the EPA’s new argument. Nonetheless, Zeldin has by now submitted for White House approval a modified version of that rescission proposal. Removing regulation of greenhouse gas emissions will accelerate climate change and risk many additional lives, not only in the U.S., in the long term. Litigation has already been filed to prevent the rescission of the Endangerment Finding by opposing the shoddy 2025 DOE scientific “study” on which EPA’s proposal is based.

Regulations on Water Quality for Drinking Purposes: Regulations on water quality are based on the Clean Water Act that first became law in 1972.  The goal was to restore and maintain the physical, chemical and biological integrity of waters of the United States.  In 2006 in Rapanos v United States, a decision written by Antonin Scalia ruled that the term “waters of the U.S.” included only those bodies of water such as “streams[,]… oceans, rivers, [and] lakes.” This definition would leave out wetlands and ephemeral streams.  In a separate opinion, Anthony Kennedy included wetlands with a “significant nexus” to traditionally defined navigable waters. But in 2023 in the case Sackett v. EPA, the Supreme Court rejected the “significant nexus” test, leaving out wetlands and ephemeral streams.  It was estimated that this decision removed roughly half the waters that were previously covered under the Clean Water Act. 

The Trump administration has issued new rules in November 2025 that would remove protection from even more wetlands.  These rules would remove protections for more than 80% of wetlands in the U.S.  These wetlands play a crucial role in filtering pollutants out of water; in addition, the wetlands are important habitats for fish, waterfowl and other wildlife.  The new rule would then allow polluters to exploit, contaminate, or destroy wetlands and ephemeral streams. 

The EPA also announced that it was relaxing the rules for limits on PFAS (Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances, also called “forever chemicals”).  Until now, the national standard for PFAS in drinking water has been 4.0 parts per trillion (ppt).  It is estimated that this limit saves thousands of deaths and tens of thousands of serious illnesses annually.  In May 2025 the EPA announced that although it was retaining the limits on two types of PFAS (PFOA or perfluorooctanoic acid, and PFOS or Perfluorooctane Sulfonic Acid), it was extending the deadline for compliance from 2029 to 2031.  PFOA is a synthetic chemical that resists oil, stains and water; it is used in products such as Teflon, Gore-Tex and other non-stick cookware.  PFOS is a synthetic chemical that is used to repel water, oil and stains, and was used in products such as Scotchgard or in fire-fighting foams.  These products, part of the PFAS family of chemicals, do not break down easily and therefore build up in the environment and in bodies.  They pose health concerns such as reproductive effects in women, developmental effects in children, including  low birth weight and behavioral issues, cancer and developmental issues, and possible liver, kidney and thyroid effects. Before the Trump administration the EPA was also removing limits on four other types of PFAS that had been announced during the Biden administration. 

Although the health dangers of PFAS chemicals were first noticed by the EPA around 2000, it turns out that companies like DuPont and 3M knew that these chemicals could produce liver disease and cancer in lab animals back in the 1970s.  Figure IV.7 shows a publicity photo for the film Dark Waters.  That movie depicts the experience of lawyer Robert Bilott, who discovered that humans and animals were experiencing serious health problems caused by discharge of sludge containing PFOA “forever chemicals” from a DuPont Washington Works factory near Parkersburg, West Virginia.  Bilott also found that DuPont employees had known of the toxic properties of PFOA for decades and had suppressed this information. 

Figure IV.7:  A promo photo for the 2019 movie Dark Waters.  It tells the true story of lawyer Robert Bilott, who discovered that DuPont had contaminated a town with PFAS chemicals.  As a result of Bilott’s lawsuits, DuPont eventually agreed to a settlement that pays $671 million to cover damages from their chemicals. 

It is difficult to estimate the costs to human health of the rollback of clean air and clean water requirements by the EPA under Administrator Lee Zeldin.  We will consider the effect of a few of the EPA actions.  The National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) estimates that pollution from coal-fired power plants was responsible for 390,000 deaths between 1999 and 2007.  The Rocky Mountain Institute estimated that between 2015 and 2023, U.S. communities paid $236 billion in health costs from coal pollution; the main areas were costs of ER visits, strokes and cardiac events.  The continued use of coal-fired power plants that had been scheduled to be closed would add to these costs.  In addition, 68 coal power plants were exempted for two years from mercury emission regulations, citing “national security” issues and false claims of “unavailability of technology” to install enhanced pollution-control equipment. 

A second issue is the pollution of drinking water from the PFAS “forever chemicals.”  The Trump Administration has allowed the chemical industry a two-year extension before the new limits on PFAS contamination of drinking water (for PFOA and PFOS chemicals) take effect.  In addition, the Trump administration removed limits on four other types of PFAS chemicals.  PFAS chemicals produce many adverse health effects.  Among these are: “kidney and testicular cancer, ulcerative colitis, pregnancy and fertility problems, liver diseases, thyroid and high cholesterol.”  Multiple studies have linked prenatal PFAS exposure with higher infant mortality, low birth weight, more pre-term births and more births with weight less than 5.5 pounds.  These conditions are associated with higher risk of cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease and adult diabetes, as well as impaired cognitive development.  A study led by researchers from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia looked at 13 medical conditions that could result from daily exposure to PFAS in drinking water.  They concluded that this health damage from PFAS could cost Americans between $5.5 billion and $63 billion in health costs over the lifetime of the current population. 

In conclusion, there is much uncertainty in the effect of the Trump administration’s onslaught on regulation of hazardous substances in our air and drinking water.  In addition, there are many lawsuits pending against the regulatory cuts being proposed or carried out by the second Trump administration.  Inside Climate News has followed the outcome of several major lawsuits against the administration.  Figure IV.8 shows the outcome of 37 of these lawsuits, as of Nov. 4, 2025.  Of those there has been no action on 23 suits, and the Trump administration won 6 of the remaining suits, they lost 5, and in three cases there were mixed results (with judges ruling in part for Trump and in part for the plaintiffs).  This represents a major judicial shift from the first Trump administration.  In Trump 1.0, the judiciary was far more likely to rule against the Trump administration.  However, after Trump appointed three new members of the Supreme Court and hundreds of judges in his first administration, the judiciary now seems more likely to rule in Trump’s favor than against him.   This means that efforts to stop Trump’s slashing of environmental protections may be less likely to succeed in this administration. 

Figure IV.8: A summary by Inside Climate News of the results of 37 lawsuits against the systematic weakening of environmental regulations during the second Trump administration.  Of the 14 cases where rulings were issued, Trump won 6 of these, lost 5 and in 3 cases a decision was mixed, with judges ruling for Trump in some issues and against in others. 

V: Actions by Health and Human Services

Many Americans are alarmed by the actions of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as head of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the second Trump administration.  In this section we will list many of the radical changes in HHS and its agencies since RFK Jr. was confirmed; and we will show why these will likely have dramatic negative effects on the health of our country, unless they are reversed soon.  But first we will try to explain the conspiracy theories and anti-science biases that inform the perplexing claims made by Secretary Kennedy.  We hope this will help illuminate RFK Jr’s philosophy and his decisions that appear to defy logic, reason, and sound science.

• Kennedy believes, without scientific basis, that major health organizations, but in particular Big Pharma, are conspiring to profit by producing medications (and in particular vaccines) that kill more people than they help.  This leads him to reject any claims made by pharmaceutical firms regarding the safety of their products.  He also believes that major medical associations are in on this scam, so he disregards any statements they make about medicine and health.  RFK Jr. has put his prejudices into action by throwing medical experts off panels that review health policy, claiming that they have conflicts of interest (while he completely ignores conflicts of interest by his hand-picked cronies when they are appointed to major positions at HHS agencies, or when they are chosen to serve on health policy committees). 
• RFK Jr. has no idea how science operates.  His critics have said that prior to Kennedy’s confirmation, decisions at HHS and other science agencies relied on “evidence-based decision making.”  Now, however, his science policies and panels use “decision-based evidence-making.”  That is, officials at science agencies under Trump decide what they believe, and search for any “evidence” that might support these prejudices, while rejecting the abundant evidence that contradicts their prejudices.  In this way, RFK Jr. is behaving more like a defense attorney (his former profession) than a scientist.  A scientist will form a hypothesis and then rely on careful experiments to determine whether the hypothesis is true.  If the data does not support the hypothesis, then scientists should reject that theory.  Noted astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson expressed this behavior as follows: “A skeptic will question claims, then embrace the evidence.  A denier will question claims then reject the evidence.”  Kennedy acts like a true denier; he welcomes “evidence” from studies that are unpublished, or retracted, or ‘results’ from discredited researchers.  But he never cites the results of robust clinical trials that invalidate his claims.  As we said, this is behavior that we expect from defense attorneys, but not from scientists. 
• Kennedy has no idea how to evaluate data.  While legitimate scientists will rely on the results of major clinical trials to determine whether a hypothesis is correct, RFK Jr. accepts results that confirm his prejudices and rejects those that refute his views.  A scientist will accept the result of a carefully controlled clinical trial with over a million participants.  But if that result contradicts Kennedy’s pre-formed prejudices, he will accept results from a “trial” with as few as a dozen subjects.  This explains why the CDC has taken down a statement on their website that there is no link between vaccines and autism, replacing it with a claim that “’vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim.”  As the Autism Science Foundation remarked, “the CDC webpage “Autism and Vaccines” is now filled with anti-vaccine rhetoric and outright lies about vaccines and autism.”   See our blog post on “Understanding Autism” for a detailed discussion regarding the evidence against a causal link between vaccines and autism.  Suffice it to say that RFK Jr. accepts the “evidence” from poorly-designed, or retracted, or even fraudulent studies that claim to show a relationship between vaccines and autism; at the same time, he denies the vast amount of data, in scores of epidemiological studies around the world, showing zero relationship between vaccines and autism. 

Here are some examples of radical views that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has brought to HHS since he was confirmed as HHS Secretary in February 2025. 

• Denial of the efficacy of vaccines.  Kennedy refuses to believe that vaccines are effective.  He denies that vaccines for smallpox, measles and polio have brought levels of these diseases to zero or near zero.  He claims that other factors such as improved sanitation and environmental conditions played a major role in curbing these diseases.  While those factors may have some effect on the levels of these diseases, they do not explain how these diseases could have been eliminated in the U.S.  Figure V.1 shows U.S. measles cases from 1962 to 2023.  Immediately after the measles vaccine was licensed in 1963, measles cases rapidly dropped to zero.  After an outbreak of measles in 1989, a second dose of the measles vaccine was recommended; after that, U.S. measles cases dropped to essentially zero, and in 2000 it was announced that endemic cases of measles in the U.S. had been eliminated. 

• Kennedy refuses to acknowledge that vaccines are the reason that we have eliminated several of the most dangerous contagious diseases, particularly for children.  He has even expressed rejection of the germ theory of disease in favor of a “miasma theory” that was popular in earlier eras before it was debunked. 

• But Kennedy’s anti-vaccine views go much farther than denial of the efficacy of vaccines.  Against voluminous evidence to the contrary, RFK Jr. frequently claims that vaccines cause great injury.  In public statements and in various books, Kennedy has claimed that measles vaccines cause widespread injury.  He claimed that the polio vaccine caused a wave of cancers that “killed many, many, many more people than polio ever did.”  And he claimed falsely that the COVID vaccine was “the deadliest vaccine ever made.”  He has also claimed that no vaccine is”safe and effective.”  When the HHS Secretary makes such statements, it is bound to create confusion in the general public.  And this is especially dangerous because all of these statements are grievously wrong. 
• RFK Jr. does not understand that substances that are toxic in very large amounts could be beneficial in extremely small amounts.  An example of this might be the medicine Xanax.  If you take one tablet of Xanax it might relieve your anxiety; however, if you take an entire bottle at once, it is likely to kill you.  Kennedy does not understand this.  As a result, he claims that fluoride is “industrial waste.”  Based on tests with levels of fluoride that are much higher than are applied in U.S. drinking water, Kennedy claims that levels of fluoride in water systems cause “arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease.”  At higher levels of fluoride, some of these conditions have been found.  However, studies have not shown any association between higher levels of cancer and fluoridated water at levels used in U.S. municipalities. 
• Kennedy also claims, with essentially no evidence, that minute levels of minerals that have been added to some vaccines are toxic and cause significant vaccine injury.  Thimerosal is an ethylmercury compound that was added to multiuse vaccines to prevent microbial growth.  Studies have shown no measurable harmful effects in vaccines that included thimerosal.  Now, virtually all vaccines in the U.S. (especially for young children) contain no thimerosal.  Despite this, RFK Jr. has claimed that thimerosal caused significant vaccine injury; he particularly alleges, with no valid evidence, that thimerosal in vaccines caused autism.  Kennedy has also claimed that aluminum salts, which are used in certain vaccines as an adjuvant (a substance that enhances the body’s immune response to an antigen), are neurotoxic and linked to diseases such as asthma, autism and autoimmune diseases.  However, extensive research has convinced the overwhelming majority of scientists, that there is no causal link between vaccines that contain aluminum and autism. 
• Kennedy has also made categorically false statements about HIV and AIDS.  Research has proven that HIV is the cause of AIDS.  At the beginning of the AIDS crisis, the precise cause of AIDS was not known; it took a few years before this was proved.  In his book, The Real Anthony Fauci, Kennedy devotes almost 100 pages to HIV-AIDS denial.  His ‘hero’ in this erroneous tale is Peter Duesberg, a researcher at UC Berkeley who passed away on Jan. 27, 2026.  Duesberg, shown in Figure V.2, was one of the only remaining scientists in the world who denied that HIV causes AIDS. 

Figure V.2: Dr. Peter Duesberg, oncologist from UC Berkeley.  Duesberg was a denier that HIV causes AIDS for nearly 40 years.  He convinced South African politicians to ban AIDS anti-retroviral therapy in that country, and it is estimated that this decision caused over 300,000 unnecessary deaths from AIDS in that country before it was reversed. 

Peter Duesberg served on a committee in South Africa that recommended steps to take against AIDS.  He argued against using anti-retroviral therapy (ART) to treat that disease, based on his false claim that HIV does not cause AIDS.  It is estimated that over 300,000 South Africans died needlessly from AIDS because that country refused to implement ART therapies.  But RFK Jr. continues to spread false information regarding the fact that HIV causes AIDS.  Moreover, he claims that zidovudine (commonly called AZT), a key ingredient of early ART therapies “kills far more people than it heals.”  In his book The Real Anthony Fauci, Kennedy has a section titled “Is AZT Mass Murder?”  This is yet another example of RFK Jr. failing to realize that a substance that is toxic at large doses can have therapeutic effects at very small doses.  In fact, for many years AZT was a component of Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy (or HAART).  However, more recently it is not being used because of its side effects. 

Effect of HHS Decisions on Vaccines:

Since his confirmation as HHS Secretary, Kennedy has postponed meetings of key committees that determine vaccine schedules and research.  Kennedy then fired all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  Members of ACIP are typically experts in vaccines or public health, and their selection followed a rigorous process.  In the past, ACIP candidates would be vetted for a period of up to two years before they could be named to this panel.  Every two years, new members were added to the panel as the terms of some members came to an end.  This ensured that the ACIP panel retained an institutional memory of its prior actions. 

However, after firing all 17 members of ACIP, Kennedy personally appointed 7 new members, with no significant vetting process for the new members.  Kennedy stated that the old committee had been “plagued with persistent conflicts of interest.”  Here, RFK Jr misrepresents the situation with conflicts of interest (COI).  But with RFK Jr’s 7-person ACIP panel, no COI or ethics forms were released prior to the June 2025 panel meeting.  Some of the new panel members have served as paid witnesses in anti-vaccine trials, and some new appointees had expressed opposition to vaccines.  Furthermore, the new committee members had far less vaccine expertise than the old committee.

On Monday, January 5, 2026, the CDC announced that, beginning immediately, it was reducing the number of vaccines recommended for all children from 17 diseases to 11.  The following diseases were being dropped from the universally recommended vaccine list: Flu; Hepatitis A; Hepatitis B; Meningococcal disease; Rotavirus; Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).  COVID-19 was included in this list though the decision to drop this from the list recommended for all children was made in 2025.  For these six diseases, the CDC only recommends vaccination for children at high risk for the disease or based on individual consultation between doctors and parents.  The CDC continued a recommendation that children be vaccinated for human papillomavirus (HPV), but it reduced the number of recommended vaccine doses from two or three shots to one shot. 

Arthur Caplan, the founding head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, commented on the decision by HHS to reduce the number of universally recommended vaccines given to American children.  “Vaccination is inherently good.  It has saved 150 million children’s lives worldwide over the past 50 years.  In fact, vaccines have saved more lives than any other medical intervention.  While there are always small risks of vaccine-related injury (as any medical intervention carries some level of risk), the benefits vastly outweigh the risks.  The pediatric vaccine schedule was based in evidence – there was a reason each and every one of those vaccines was recommended.” 

RFK Jr. said that the decision reducing the number of diseases for which vaccination would be recommended was because American children were being subjected to more vaccinations than necessary.  He noted that the U.S. was on the high end of diseases recommended for vaccination, and said that the reduction from 17 diseases to 11 was to bring this country in line with countries like Denmark, which is on the low end of vaccinations, as opposed to countries like the U.S., Germany, France and Israel, which are on the high end.  But CDC data show the benefits of routine childhood vaccination for diseases not recommended by Denmark. From 1994 to 2023, the CDC data show that in the U.S. these vaccines “prevented 6 million hepatitis B cases (and 940,000 hospitalizations), 4 million hepatitis A cases (and 78,000 hospitalizations), and 30 million rotavirus cases (and over 800,000 hospitalizations).”   

American medical groups were unanimously opposed to the changes to the childhood vaccine schedule.  Andrew Racine, MD, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, stated “For decades, leading health experts, immunologists and pediatricians have carefully reviewed new data and evidence as part of the immunization recommendation process, helping to keep newborns, infants, and children protected from diseases they could be exposed to in the United States as they develop and grow.  Today’s decision, which was based on a brief review of other countries’ practices, upends this deliberate scientific process.”  Jason Goldman, MD, president of the American College of Physicians (ACP), noted “Abandoning the U.S. evidence-based process is a dangerous and potentially deadly decision for Americans.  ACP demands an immediate stop to this policy change.”  And Sandra Adamson Fryhofer, Trustee of the American Medical Association (AMA), stated “Changes of this magnitude require careful review, expert and public input, and clear scientific justification. That level of rigor and transparency was not part of this decision … The scientific evidence remains unchanged, and the AMA supports continued access to childhood immunizations recommended by national medical specialty societies.”  Michael Osterholm, MD, MPH, head of the Vaccine Integrity Project at the University of Minnesota, remarked “Abandoning recommendations for vaccines that prevent influenza, hepatitis and rotavirus, and changing the recommendation for HPV without a public process to weigh the risks and benefits, will lead to more hospitalizations and preventable deaths among American children.” 

Under normal circumstances, changing the recommendations for vaccines that prevent a particular disease would require a long, careful procedure that would involve detailed studies of the effectiveness of the vaccine, weighing the risks vs. the benefits, and a transparent process where groups of experts would present their arguments and the public would be invited to comment.  This radical change in the childhood vaccine schedule bypassed all these steps.  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has long claimed that American children were receiving far too many vaccine shots: although RFK Jr. claimed that children were being given 90 shots, the actual number was around 30 shots.  He stated, with no real justification, that children’s immune systems may be overwhelmed by so many vaccines.  This statement has been thoroughly debunked by vaccine experts. 

At this moment, it is difficult to say with certainty what will be the result of this change in the vaccine schedule.  It is not clear how many parents will opt to have their children immunized against diseases when vaccination is no longer recommended for them.  However, there is no debating that the number of vaccinated children will decrease.  Since 95% of the population must be vaccinated in order to achieve natural herd immunity, measles epidemics will surely increase in the U.S.  We are already seeing this; in 2025, there were 2,144 confirmed cases of measles in the U.S.  This is the largest number of cases since 1991.  And there were three confirmed deaths from measles; these were the first U.S. measles deaths in a decade.  There were 49 measles outbreaks (defined as 3 or more related cases) reported in 2025, compared with 16 outbreaks in 2024.  And Kennedy’s reluctance to recommend vaccination for all U.S. children, his false claims about the prevalence of vaccine injury, and his advocacy for dubious treatments for measles, are certain to cause confusion and resistance among Americans towards vaccination.  

So, a radical step has been taken with no new data that justifies this decision.  Expert groups and medical associations were not consulted in making this decision, and the CDC’s own statistics show that millions of cases of communicable disease will likely result.  These cases of disease and death will have been preventable.  Virologist James Alwine, PhD, of the group Defend Public Health, commented “Kennedy’s decision will harm and kill children, like all of his anti-vaccination decisions will.  Viruses and bacteria that were under control are being set free on our most vulnerable.  It may take one or two years for the tragic consequences to become clear, but … it won’t work and can’t end well.” 

Dr. Kirk Milhoan, the current chair of ACIP, recently made some startling statements about vaccine policy.  He stated that vaccine shots against polio and measles – and perhaps all diseases – should be optional, offered only in consultation with a doctor.  Milhoan said that a person’s right to reject vaccines should supersede the risk that a child might become paralyzed or die from an infectious disease, or that an unvaccinated child who contracts a disease may pass it along to many others.  Dr. Milhoan, shown in Figure V.3, claimed that making all vaccines optional would “eventually restore trust in public health.”  At present, all 50 states require that children be vaccinated against many childhood diseases before they can attend public schools.  But Milhoan claimed that requiring such shots to attend school is “heavy handed” and “authoritarian.”  He further claimed that there was emerging evidence that repeatedly stimulating the immune system with multiple vaccines might increase the risk of allergies, asthma and eczema.  Apparently, Dr. Milhoan believes that the death of many thousands of children from preventable infectious diseases is the price we should pay for allowing their parents to have “autonomy” in deciding to reject vaccines.  Perhaps Dr. Milhoan needs to be reminded that the agency he advises is named Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, not Centers for Parental Autonomy.

Vaccine experts did not mince words in responding to Milhoan’s statements.  Dr. Sean O’Leary, chair of the infectious disease committee of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said “He has no idea what he’s talking about.  It’s very frustrating for those of us who spend our careers trying to do what we can to improve the health of children to see harm coming to children because of an ideological agenda not grounded in science.”  And Dr. Noel Brewer, a former member of ACIP, said that “For me, autonomy means being able to go to the grocery store or go to preschool and not be stalked by a vaccine-preventable disease that will kill them.  Ensuring high uptake of vaccines through school-entry requirements protects my child and other children.” 

Figure V.3: Dr. Kirk Milhoan, the current chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.  Milhoan recently expressed his opinion that vaccination for measles and polio – and perhaps all communicable diseases, should be optional and not required.  Milhoan also stated that he trusts his own observations over what “established science” says about vaccines. 

In a recent post on our blog, Live Free AND Die: Why Republican Voters are Dying Younger than Democratic Voters, we noted that Americans who lived in counties that voted for the GOP were suffering from many more chronic diseases than voters in Democratic counties.  In fact, life expectancy in Blue counties was significantly higher than in Red counties, and the disparities were increasing over time.  This can be seen in Figure V.4, which shows the life expectancy in every state.  There is nearly a 9-year difference in life expectancy between the state with the highest (Hawaii) and that with the lowest (Mississippi).  And if one looks at the county level, the U.S. county with the highest life expectancy has a 20-year longer average lifetime than the county with the lowest life expectancy! Differences in life expectancy between Blue and Red states are increasing over time. 

Figure V.4: Life expectancy in each state as of 2020.  Of the 10 states with the highest life expectancy, only Utah was a Red state; and all 10 states with the lowest life expectancy were Red states.  There is a difference of nearly 9 years between the state with the highest (Hawaii) and that with the lowest (Mississippi) life expectancy. 

Recent actions by agencies under Health and Human Services will only exacerbate these health outcomes.  Red states are much more likely to accept decisions championed by RFK Jr. and seconded by Donald Trump.  We can already see this playing out, as coalitions of Blue states (the West Coast Health Alliance and the Northeast Public Health Collaborative) have recently formed alliances to follow prior recommendations from CDC and NIH.  Analysts have suggested that recent CDC changes in vaccine schedules could increase a “Red State – Blue State” divide in health practices.  Thus, we would expect to see a growing “Red state -Blue state” divide in the fraction of children vaccinated against childhood diseases.  We are already seeing decreases across the country in the percentage of children vaccinated against childhood diseases.  This is shown in Figure V.5, which plots the fraction of children vaccinated against measles in U.S. counties.  Generally, rates of vaccination are significantly higher in urban as opposed to rural areas; however, vaccination rates are low state-wide in Louisiana, Idaho, Wisconsin and Tennessee.  And Florida, under Governor Ron DeSantis and Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, is removing all vaccine requirements in that state.  It is easy to see that this move will cause a resurgence of childhood diseases such as measles, chickenpox, pertussis (whooping cough), and diphtheria in that state.  And we can also expect to see outbreaks rapidly spreading to states with low vaccination rates. 

Figure V.5: Measles vaccination rates for kindergarten-age children, by U.S. county.  Data is for 2023 or 2024, depending on availability.  Vaccination rates need to be at or near the “herd immunity threshold” of 95% to prevent measles outbreaks from spreading into epidemics. 

Figure V.5 shows that nationwide, vaccination rates are falling, and Kennedy’s antipathy towards vaccines and the misinformation emanating from HHS agencies will surely exacerbate differences in vaccination rates between Red MAGA states and Blue states. 

Figure V.6 shows the results of a “health report card” issued by United Health Foundation (UHF) on Jan. 7, 2026.  The criteria for the study included a wide array of measures of health listed on the UHF health topics webpage.  There were some encouraging signs as rates of premature death, drug deaths, firearm deaths and homicides all fell across the U.S. between 2022 and 2024.

From the UHF study the top states for “health” were (in order 1 – 10) New Hampshire; Massachusetts; Vermont; Connecticut; Utah; Minnesota; Washington; Maryland; Hawaii; and Rhode Island.  All of the “healthiest” states except for Utah were Blue states.  The bottom ten states (in order 50 – 41) were: Louisiana; Arkansas; Mississippi; Alabama; West Virginia; Oklahoma; Tennessee; Kentucky; Nevada; and New Mexico.  The least healthy list included one ‘Purple’ state and one Blue state in addition to eight Red states. 

Figure V.6: Rankings of U.S. states on the health of citizens.  States were ranked 1 to 50 based on a ‘health report card’ study by United Health Foundation.  Criteria used in this study are listed on their health topics webpage.  Nine of the ten ‘healthiest’ states were Blue states, while eight of the ten ‘least healthy’ states were Red states. 

Cancellation of programs for HIV-AIDS Treatment and Research:

Under HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s direction of Health and Human Services, the Trump administration has announced the termination of numerous programs aimed at preventing and eliminating HIV and AIDS.  The Trump administration has issued an Executive Order requiring that no federal funds can be used to “promote gender ideology.”  This has led many government agencies to target programs that specifically related to LBGTQ+ issues; and one of those issues could be research and support for programs that provide health assistance to people with HIV and AIDS.  On the part of HHS Secretary Kennedy, hostility to HIV-AIDS issues stems from his promoting HIV-AIDS denial, and also from his completely false claim that the anti-retroviral drug zidovudine (AZT) kills more people than it heals. 

The first budget request of Donald Trump’s second term included a $1.5 billion reduction in funding for domestic HIV programs.  Within five years, this could lead to over 143,000 additional HIV cases in the U.S. and 127,000 additional deaths.  In addition, under Kennedy’s leadership the CDC “canceled a $285 million program aimed at developing a preventative HIV vaccine, targeted studies on Black and Latino gay men, and delayed grant awards related to HIV prevention.”  These actions reflect Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s hostility to HIV-AIDS research and treatment and his anti-vaccination prejudices. 

Highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) has been exceptionally effective.  Figure V.7 shows the number of people dying from AIDS (blue curve, left axis) and the number of people living with HIV (red curve, right axis) as a function of time, from 1981 to 2007.  HAART was introduced in 1995 (vertical line in Figure V.7).  The number of people dying from AIDS dropped precipitously, and the number living with HIV increased rapidly, immediately following the rollout of HAART.  There is no question that HAART is effective.  With HAART, people living with HIV can reduce their levels so that the HIV is undetectable.  At that point, they will not develop AIDS, and they cannot transmit HIV to others.  Cutting back on research and the availability of HAART would drastically increase the number of AIDS deaths in the U.S. 

Figure V.7: Deaths from AIDS (blue curve, left axis) and people living with HIV infection (red curve, right axis).  Highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) was introduced in 1995 (vertical line).  The number of AIDS deaths dropped precipitously at that point, and the number of people living with HIV increased rapidly. 

Cancelling Research on mRNA Vaccines: 

In August 2025, RFK Jr. announced that he was cancelling $500 million in funding for research on messenger RNA (mRNA) techniques.  In our blog post mRNA Vaccines: Promise and Demonization, we pointed out the great promise of vaccines using mRNA techniques.  Developments in this field are so path-breaking that Katolin Kariko and Drew Weissman shared the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their contributions in this field.  Figure V.8 shows a timeline of advances that led to the development of mRNA vaccines to fight the SARS-CoV-2 virus in 2020.  The left column in this figure tracks advances in the use of mRNA methods to treat diseases.  The middle column shows the development of lipids that carry mRNA molecules into the body’s cells.  The right column shows the advances that combine mRNA molecules and lipids in order to produce vaccines; and the far right column shows the timeline of commercial efforts to produce a vaccine. 

Figure V.8: A timeline of advances that led to the development of mRNA vaccines to deal with the SARS-CoV-2 virus in 2020.  Left column: advances in the use of mRNA to produce vaccines or treat diseases.  Middle column: advances in development of lipids that carried the mRNA molecules into the cells of the body.  Right column: combining the mRNA and lipid advances in order to produce vaccines.  Far right column: timeline of commercial efforts to produce a vaccine employing mRNA and lipid nanoparticle techniques. 

An mRNA vaccine is activated in a unique way. When an mRNA vaccine is injected into the muscle cells of a body, the mRNA instructs the cells to make millions of copies of a unique protein characterizing the targeted virus.  For COVID-19, the body produced copies of the spike protein in the SARS-CoV-2 virus.  When the body sensed the presence of this spike protein, the antibodies produced attacked the virus.  mRNA vaccines have many advantages that are lacking in conventional vaccines.  Since conventional vaccines often use weakened or inactivated viruses, this can occasionally cause the body to produce the virus it was meant to attack.  If a virus mutates, mRNA techniques can rapidly produce a vaccine targeted to the new form of the virus.  And side effects of the mRNA vaccines are overwhelmingly mild. 

Many scientists regard the mRNA techniques, and the vaccines produced in this way, as akin to medical miracles.  The way that mRNA vaccines ‘teach’ the immune system to recognize and fight viruses is novel and suggests the use of these methods to fight other diseases, possibly cancers.  This promises the potential of a “golden age” of new, safe and effective products to combat diseases.  Unfortunately, MAGA and MAHA adherents have shown great hostility to mRNA techniques.  Many Trump supporters oppose these new techniques as part of exacting retribution against the medical field’s recommendations during the COVID pandemic.  There was organized resistance by MAGA supporters against various restrictions imposed during the pandemic, and during the 2020 presidential race Trump himself claimed that the pandemic was being used by the medical community to force Americans into obeying overly harsh regulations. 

RFK Jr. claimed that mRNA vaccines “fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections such as COVID and flu;” furthermore, he said that HHS would shift towards “safer, more effective vaccines.”  Kennedy’s response to research on mRNA techniques is yet another example where his viewpoint is not only wrong, but it is exactly backwards.  Everything we have seen to date suggests that mRNA techniques produce vaccines that are safer than conventional vaccine techniques.   The mRNA vaccines used against the SARS-CoV-2 virus are estimated to have saved millions of lives worldwide, and it is estimated that termination of this research could cost roughly 50,000 lives annually. The Alliance for mRNA Medicines stated that “Secretary Kennedy’s unscientific and misguided vilification of mRNA technology and cancellation of grants is the epitome of cutting off your nose to spite your face.”  The editors of Nature stated that “mRNA technology is on its way to unlocking vaccine self-sufficiency in health emergencies for low- and middle-income countries … Fifteen countries are on a programme to establish and eventually scale up manufacturing to the required quality, quantity, safety and efficacy standards. The plan, which is being implemented by Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines, a company based in Cape Town, South Africa, is working. It’s a real win and an excellent model for how to share technologies so that everyone benefits.”  

Kennedy’s misguided attitudes about vaccines will not end mRNA research, as many countries in Europe and Asia will continue research in this promising field.  However, a field that was dominated by U.S. research may now be abandoned in this country and left to others.  Worse still, if HHS continues to be run by Kennedy and his MAHA cronies, the FDA may refuse to recommend new mRNA meds that are developed in other countries.  However, in September 2025, the House Appropriations Committee advanced a spending package that included $1.1 billion for “advanced research and development at the Center for Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.”  This included research on mRNA techniques.  This does not guarantee that the money will be spent for this purpose, as the Trump administration has attempted to divert funds from some purposes recommended by Congress, or to fail to fund such programs.  However, it is a step towards restoring sanity in funding for such promising research. 

In conclusion, when we consider the rollbacks on regulations that affect the emissions of toxic products into the air, emissions of toxic chemicals into our water supply, combined with the assaults by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on our standards for vaccines and measures to combat the spread of HIV-AIDS, we agree with Thomas Edsall’s statement that these actions constitute “a killing spree cloaked as deregulation.”   

VI: Summary

When the 2025 actions of the Trump administration and their Republican supporters in Congress are considered as an overall statement on MAGA/MAHA strategy, they represent an extraordinary assault on Americans’ health. Severe cuts to Medicaid, ACA tax credits, biomedical research, and staff levels at NIH, CDC, and FDA threaten Americans’ access to quality healthcare, health insurance, and life-saving developments of novel approaches to disease treatment and prevention. When these cuts are coupled with the steady stream of misinformation — about vaccines, mRNA techniques, the treatment of HIV, and the causes of autism – emanating from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s Department of Health and Human Services, and from Donald Trump himself, they are likely to lead to millions of premature, preventable American deaths. The situation is exacerbated by Lee Zeldin’s attempts to roll back many of the EPA regulatory guidelines that have strongly contributed to the growth in American life expectancy over the half-century since the adoption of the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act.

In this post we have tried to provide ballpark estimates, often based on detailed simulations, of the number of premature deaths that Trump administration policies may cause. Taken together, the policies we have treated in this post are likely to place hundreds of thousands of American lives at risk every year, increasing mortality rates by 10% or more. In case another pandemic arrives, based on a previously unencountered virus, that toll may well rise into the multiple millions. Senator Joni Ernst’s observation to her constituents that “We all are going to die” will provide little comfort to families that lose their loved ones before their time.

The most remarkable aspect of all these policies is that the Americans who will suffer the most severe impacts largely reside in reliable Republican-voting counties, mostly in the rural South and Appalachia, as we have documented in a previous post. That is what Thomas Edsall meant in his opinion piece entitled “The MAHA Pipe Dream is Going to Hurt MAGA the Most.” American voters have traditionally listed economic concerns as the primary motivation for their electoral preferences and have tended to blame the current administration when their financial situation deteriorates. In contrast, we think voters have often assumed that their own bad health outcomes are determined by chance or life circumstances, with little influence from government policies. That assumption is no longer viable. Trump administration policies are threatening their own voters’ lives. The backward-looking mantra to Make America Great Again appears aimed at returning the U.S. not only to an era when robber barons ruled and women were less troublesome, but also to a country of much poorer health.

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