RFK Jr. has had a really, really bad couple of weeks.
Not long ago, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s agency, the US Department of Health and Human Services, shocked the medical community by rolling back federal recommendations for Covid vaccines — potentially yanking access from most Americans, including children and pregnant people. In response, America's leading physician groups defied him — saying they would keep recommending shots for the most vulnerable populations. Then came the chaos at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: The director was abruptly ousted, top leaders resigned in protest, and one called the standoff with Kennedy "an existential battle between science and anti-science." More than 1,000 current and former HHS staffers signed a letter demanding Kennedy's resignation, accusing him of endangering the nation's health.
Earlier this month, Vox broke the story that Kennedy's HHS and the White House have buried a major — and harrowing — federal study on American alcohol consumption.
The takeaway is staggering: Americans are about to get national health guidance on alcohol that ignores some of the best science we have.
Following our original reporting, Today, Explained host Sean Rameswaram sits down with senior correspondent Dylan Scott and Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist and a medical ethicist who works at the University of Pennsylvania, to discuss what this finding says about how we handle public health.
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—Paige Vega, climate editor
