RFK Jr. promised to restore trust in US health agencies. A year later,
it’s eroding
[February 13, 2026]
By MIKE STOBBE and ALI SWENSON
NEW YORK (AP) — Since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in to lead the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services one year ago, he has
defended his upending of federal health policy by saying the changes
will restore trust in America’s public health agencies.
But as the longtime leader of the anti-vaccine movement scales back
immunization guidance and dismisses scientists and advisers, he has
clashed with top medical groups who say he is not following the science.
The confrontation is deepening confusion that surged during the COVID-19
pandemic. Surveys show trust in the agencies Kennedy leads is falling,
not rising, as the country's health landscape undergoes dramatic change.
Kennedy says he aims to boost transparency to empower Americans to make
their own health choices. Doctors counter that the false and unverified
information he promotes is causing major, perhaps irreversible, damage —
and that if enough people forgo vaccination, it will prompt a surge of
illness and death.
People once trusted health agencies regardless of party, and the
government reported “the best of what science knows at this point,” said
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center
at the University of Pennsylvania.
"Now, you cannot confidently go to federal websites and know that," she
said.
HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said that trust had suffered during the Biden
administration. “Kennedy’s mandate is to restore transparency,
scientific rigor, and accountability,” he said.
Surveys show trust is declining
New findings from the health care research nonprofit KFF show that 47%
of Americans trust the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
“a great deal” or “a fair amount” to provide reliable vaccine
information, down about 10 percentage points since the beginning of
Trump’s second term.
Trust among Democrats dropped 9 percentage points since September, to
55%, the survey found. Trust among Republicans and independents hasn't
changed since September, but it has declined somewhat among both groups
since the beginning of Trump’s term.
Even among supporters of Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement,
fewer than half say they trust agencies like the CDC and Food and Drug
Administration “a lot” or “some” to make recommendations about childhood
vaccine schedules.
Gallup surveys also show a drop in Americans who believe the CDC is
doing a “good job,” from 40% in 2024 to 31% last year.
Those results came alongside a decline of trust across the government,
not just agencies under Kennedy’s oversight. Yet concerns about
Kennedy’s trustworthiness also have emerged, including through documents
recently obtained by The Associated Press and The Guardian, which
undermine his statements about his motive behind a 2019 trip to Samoa,
prompting senators to accuse Kennedy of lying.
Trust slid during the COVID pandemic
Historically, federal scientific and public health agencies enjoyed
strong ratings in opinion polls. The CDC for decades scored above many
other government agencies in Gallup surveys asking whether they were
doing a “good” or “excellent” job.
Two decades ago, more than 60% of Americans gave the CDC high marks,
according to Gallup. But that number plummeted at the beginning of the
COVID-19 pandemic, amid agency mistakes and guidance that some people
didn’t like.
In 2020, the percentage of Americans who believed the CDC was doing at
least a “good” job fell to 40% and then leveled off for a few years.
Alix Ellis, a hairstylist and mom in Madison, Georgia, lost her
confidence in the CDC and other health agencies during the pandemic. She
said some guidance didn't make sense. At her salon, stylists could work
directly on someone’s hair, but others in the room had to be several
feet away.
“I’m not saying that we were lied to, but that is when I was like, OK,
‘Why are we doing this?’ ” the 35-year-old said.
Kennedy helped create the trust problem, doctor says
Part of Kennedy’s pitch as health secretary has been restoring
Americans’ trust in public health.
“We’re going to tell them what we know, we’re going to tell them what we
don’t know, and we’re going to tell them what we’re researching and how
we’re doing it,” Kennedy told senators about the CDC last September.
“It’s the only way to restore trust in the agency — by making it
trustworthy.”
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President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White
House, Sept. 22, 2025, in Washington, as Health and Human Services
Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. listens. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
 Before entering politics, Kennedy
was one of the loudest voices spreading false information about
immunizations. Now, he is trying to fix a trust problem he helped
create, said Dr. Rob Davidson, a Michigan emergency physician.
“You fed those people false information to create the distrust, and
now you’re sweeping into power and you’re going to cure the distrust
by promoting the same disinformation,” said Davidson, who runs a
doctor group called the Committee to Protect Health Care. “It’s
upside-down.”
Kennedy has wielded the power of his office to take steps that
diverge from medical consensus.
Last May, he announced COVID-19 vaccines were no longer recommended
for healthy children and pregnant women, a move doctors called
concerning and confusing.
In November, he directed the CDC to abandon its position that
vaccines do not cause autism, without supplying new evidence.
Earlier this year, the CDC reduced the number of vaccines
recommended for every child, a decision medical groups said would
undermine protections against a half-dozen diseases.
Kennedy also overhauled his department through canceled grants and
mass layoffs. Last summer, Kennedy fired his CDC chief after less
than a month over vaccine policy disagreements.
Confusion emerges as trust erodes
Some have applauded the moves. But surveys suggest many Americans do
not.
“I have much less trust,” said Mark Rasmussen, a 67-year-old retiree
in Danbury, Connecticut.
Shocked by Kennedy's dismantling of public health norms,
professional medical groups have urged Americans not to follow new
vaccine recommendations they say were adopted without public input
or compelling evidence.
More than 200 public health and advocacy groups urged Congress to
investigate Kennedy's change to the vaccine schedule. The American
Medical Association, working with the University of Minnesota's
Vaccine Integrity Project, this week announced a new evidence-based
process for reviewing the safety of respiratory virus vaccines —
something they say is needed since the government stopped doing that
kind of systematic review.
Many Democratic-led states have created their own alliances to
counter Kennedy's vaccine guidance.
“We see burgeoning confusion about which sources to trust and about
which sources are real. That makes decision-making on an individual
level much harder," said Dr. Megan Ranney, dean of the Yale School
of Public Health.
She said she worried the confusion was contributing to the rise in
diseases like whooping cough and measles, once largely eliminated in
the U.S.
Surveys indicate growing public wavering over support for the
measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. An August 2025 Annenberg survey found
that 82% would be “very” or “somewhat” likely to recommend that an
eligible child in their household get MMR vaccine, compared with 90%
in November 2024.
HHS officials say they are promoting independent decision-making by
families while working to reduce preventable diseases. They say
reducing routine vaccine recommendations was meant to ensure parents
vaccinate children against the riskiest diseases.
As Kennedy has pledged to restore trust, he has also urged people to
come to their own conclusions.
“This idea that you should trust the experts," Kennedy said recently
on The Katie Miller Podcast, “a good mother doesn’t do that.”
___
AP writer Amelia Thomson DeVeaux in Washington contributed to this
report.
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