One of the world's leading medical journals, The Lancet, has published a sharp editorial rebuking Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s tenure as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services after one year. The piece highlights controversial actions that it says have damaged public health efforts. It warns that the effects could take generations to undo.
The editorial, titled "Robert F. Kennedy Jr: 1 year of failure," appears in the latest issue of The Lancet, one of the oldest and most cited peer-reviewed medical journals. A stark quote on the journal's front cover states: "The destruction that Kennedy has wrought in 1 year might take generations to repair, and there is little hope for US health and science while he remains at the helm."
The board details several actions under Kennedy's leadership at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), including the dismissal of agency employees, revisions to guidelines that contradict decades of established science, cuts to scientific research, undermining of vaccine policy, and promotion of what it calls "junk science and fringe beliefs." This comes as the U.S. has reported more than 1,000 measles cases in 2026 alone, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, putting the country's measles elimination status at risk.
Kennedy pledged during his confirmation to restore trust in public health through "honest engagement with everyone willing to work towards making the USA healthy again." However, he has publicly dismissed mainstream medical journals like The Lancet as "corrupt" and influenced by the pharmaceutical industry. In a podcast last year, he suggested government scientists might stop publishing in such outlets and has even threatened legal action against them.
An HHS spokesperson did not immediately respond to NPR's request for comment. Supporters, including National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, defended Kennedy on X, writing: "Sec. Kennedy is fixing the mess they helped make."
Critics of the editorial noted that The Lancet previously published and later retracted a discredited 1998 paper by Andrew Wakefield falsely linking vaccines to autism. Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told NPR: "You basically have the most prolific anti-vaccine advocate in the highest position of power in the federal government when it comes to health."
