November 13, 2025
(Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) — During the Make America Healthy Again summit yesterday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-science agenda was not only on full display, but praised by Vice President J.D. Vance. The summit was attended by RFK Jr.’s closest supporters and allies in Washington and closed to the press.
“This closed-door convention is nothing more than an ego-stroking symposium of ‘wellbeing influencers’ and ‘MAHA moms’ whose rejection of scientific expertise puts our public health at risk,” said Erik Polyak, executive director of 314 Action.
Washington Post: At ‘Make America Healthy Again’ summit, Vance praises RFK Jr. for defying convention
Key points:
- Vice President JD Vance on Wednesday praised Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s willingness to question established science and embrace nontraditional voices in the health care space, saying that often throughout history, “all the experts were wrong.”
- Vance’s words show how Kennedy, whose wrecking-ball approach to public health agencies and longstanding vaccine skepticism have made him a polarizing figure among the public and in Congress, has been embraced by the White House as a needed force for change.
- Even as President Donald Trump and Kennedy have disagreed on issues from COVID-19 vaccines to abortion, the White House this year has largely left Kennedy alone as he has made sweeping changes to the agencies he leads, including laying off thousands of workers, firing science advisers and remaking vaccine guidelines .
- Critics, including some of the country’s leading medical associations, say that Kennedy’s disregard for established science is fomenting public distrust in mainstream medicine and that his views, once considered fringe, are being amplified from his perch as health secretary.
- “This closed-door convention is nothing more than an ego-stroking symposium of ‘wellbeing influencers’ and ‘MAHA moms’ whose rejection of scientific expertise puts our public health at risk,” said Erik Polyak, executive director of the progressive political action committee 314 Action, which works to elect Democratic scientists to office.
- In fact, many of the health secretary’s close allies and new hires have outright rejected medical consensus on topics including vaccines and how to heal chronic disease.
- MAHA Action, the Kennedy-supporting group hosting the event, said Trump’s embrace of the movement marks “a decisive turning point in U.S. health policy.”
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