How Science lost America’s trust and surrendered health policy to skeptics
Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The rise of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
from fringe figure to the prospective head of U.S. health policy was fueled by skepticism and distrust of the medical establishment—views that went viral in the Covid-19 pandemic. People once dismissed for their disbelief in conventional medicine are now celebrating a new champion in Washington.
Scientists, meanwhile, are trying to figure how they could have managed the pandemic without setting off a populist movement they say threatens longstanding public-health measures. Lingering resentment over pandemic restrictions helped Kennedy and his “Make America Healthy Again" campaign draw people from the left and the right, voters who worried about the contamination of food, water and medicine. Many of them shared doubts about vaccines and felt their concerns were ignored by experts or regarded as ignorant.
Kennedy merged a crowd of Covid-era skeptics with people who long distrusted mainstream medicine and food conglomerates. Together, they helped return Donald Trump to the White House. With the president-elect’s selection of Kennedy to head the Department of Health and Human Services, the medical establishment is bracing for an overhaul of U.S.
health policy. Health authorities who beat the pandemic worry about losing more trust from the people they worked to save. Doctors, scientists and public-health officials are asking themselves how they can win it back.
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