Doctors hate to admit when they are wrong. And during the pandemic, they were wrong on nearly everything that mattered—from masking, to prolonged school closures, to overpromising that vaccines would block transmission. The medical establishment made many mistakes during the pandemic—and who could blame them? It was the crisis of a lifetime, and many people were doing the best they could with the information available. But these weren’t just mistakes; they were serious failures. That’s why Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in his first months as Health and Human Services Secretary, set off a firestorm with his actions on COVID-19 vaccine policy. 

Secretary Kennedy is not beholden to an entrenched medical bureaucracy and certainly not a member of the public health elite. He has approached the role with both deep subject-matter knowledge and a willingness to act quickly when new evidence emerges. He moved away from universal COVID immunization in healthy children and pushed for diversification of vaccine research. His actions have aligned the United States with the best available evidence and international scientific consensus. The result? Fast and fierce opposition from the domestic medical establishment. 

This reflexive opposition reveals a deeper problem: institutional inability to adapt when new evidence shows that earlier policies were wrong. American medical institutions have become more invested in saving face than following the science.

Kennedy’s actions on COVID vaccination are illustrative. On May 27, 2025, he announced that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would no longer recommend the COVID-19 vaccination for healthy children. This was an area where the U.S. had lagged badly behind. The World Health Organization (

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