RFK Jr. reveals his top priorities as Trump’s health chief as flurry of senior officials at FDA and CDC quit

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delivered his first speech as an official member of Donald Trump’s cabinet unveiling his plan to restore Americans’ health.

However, the former Democrat isn’t getting a warm reception in his new role as the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

DOGE has conducted a series of layoffs at the agencies that fall underneath RFK Jr.’s  purview.

And several senior-level officials at top agencies under HHS resigned or quit in protest after he was sworn in last week. 

The head of the Food and Drug Administration’s food division resigned on Monday after 89 staffers at his agency were laid off.

Jim Jones, who as FDA food division head led the agency towards banning food dye Red No. 3 last month, cited the widespread and ‘indiscriminate’ cuts for his resignation.

Reports also emerged on Tuesday revealing the Centers for Disease Control’s Acting Principal Deputy Director Nirav Shah is also stepping down.

It’s unclear if the new HHS Secretary is prepared to immediately replace these two top vacancies.

Meanwhile, RFK Jr. ignored the resignations and revealed some of his priorities during his first speech – including tackling the health epidemic nationwide and scrutinizing every aspect of Americans’ medicines, drugs and food.

The new HHS head talked about his former belief that vaccines led to a spike in childhood autism cases, scrutinized and investigated through ‘unbiased science.’

He denounced many of those views during the Senate confirmation process. 

Kennedy listed the many areas he wants HHS to ‘scrutinize,’ specifically standards for foods, medicines, drugs and pesticides that he feels have been overlooked or given a pass in the past.

‘Some of the possible factors we will investigate were formerly taboo or insufficiently scrutinized – the childhood vaccine schedule, electromagnetic radiation, glyphosate, other pesticides, ultra-processed foods, artificial food additives, SSRI and other psychiatric drugs, PFAs, PFOAs, microplastics,’ Kennedy said. ‘Nothing is going to be off limits.’

‘Whatever belief or suspicion I have expressed in the past, I’m willing to subject them all to the scrutiny of unbiased science,’ he continued. ‘That is going to be our template: unbiased science.’

‘That’s something that will make us all proud of this agency and of our role in restoring American health.’

RFK Jr. was a controversial pick for HHS Secretary.

Not only was he a lifelong Democrat, he is also an anti-vaxxer who has some pretty strong beliefs on how food, drugs and other substances should be controlled by HHS.

Many senators questioned Kennedy on his vaccine stance during his confirmation hearings.

He insisted that he would not impose his personal viewpoints on the entirety of the U.S. through policies at HHS.

But it appears his confirmation – and the policies being implemented at HHS under the Trump administration – are already impacting the department in a big way.

Last week, 3,600 newer HHS employees who were still in their probationary period were laid off.

The firings were primarily among staffers at the CDC and the National Institutes of Health. But 89 staffers at the FDA’s food division were laid off in what their director Jim Jones called ‘indiscriminate’ cuts.

Jones resigned on Monday.

‘I was looking forward to working to pursue the department’s agenda of improving the health of Americans by reducing diet-related chronic disease and risks from chemicals in food,’ he said in a resignation letter to Acting FDA Commissioner Sara Brenner.

But he claimed that given the new administration’s ‘disdain for the very people’ needed to make these changes, it would be ‘fruitless for me to continue in this role.’

On Tuesday reports emerged of the CDC’s Acting Principal Deputy Director Nirav Shah also stepping down.