Updated June 11, 2026 WASHINGTON — A pledge to “Make America Healthy Again” earned Robert F. Kennedy Jr. his job atop U.S. health agencies a year and some change ago. He’s now had the opportunity to turn his words into action, with mixed results.
“All one needs” to prove the health secretary’s attentiveness is to “review my unprecedented list of accomplishments on a wide range of issues, all of which I drove,” Kennedy posted on X on Wednesday in response to a journalist.
Indeed, Kennedy has a long list of to-dos. He has made numerous additional promises, some of which are well underway (think artificial dyes and school meal changes). Yet many other ambitions have changed shape against the hard edges of reality. For instance, his announcement in 2025 that Health and Human Services would find a root cause of autism in a matter of months did not come true. Kennedy has failed to persuade Congress to fund a new chronic disease-focused agency, or the president to ban direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising.
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