Bobby is back

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. softened his image as a vaccine critic while seeking to become the nation's health secretary.

Two months after confirmation, he's sounding like his old self again, Daniel Payne reports. He's back to suggesting without evidence that some vaccines are risky, arguing that others don't work, promoting fringe treatments for a vaccine-preventable disease, calling the FDA a "sock puppet" for the industries it regulates, and calling the state of a key U.S. vaccine safety system "outrageous."

"He's the same Bobby Kennedy, 100%," said Mary Holland, CEO of Children's Health Defense, the anti-vaccine advocacy group Kennedy founded. "I think that he's on the right track."

vaccines

Monitoring vaccine side effects

Kennedy said Tuesday that he plans to improve the vaccine injury monitoring system to catch more reports of vaccine side effects, Daniel reports.

Reforming the current Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System has long been part of Kennedy's agenda to raise questions about the safety of immunizations that are currently in use. While the general idea of improving the system is uncontroversial, Kennedy has exaggerated the extent to which side effects of vaccinations go unrecorded, according to researchers.

Read Daniel's story to learn how this initiative fits in with everything else Kennedy is saying and doing about vaccines.

autism

Slow start to sprint for finding autism cause

But what exactly is Kennedy doing to find the cause of autism by September? When Isabella Cueto called nearly two dozen prominent people from the worlds of both mainstream autism research and vaccine opponents, they said they hadn't heard boo.

Kennedy said Wednesday that he plans to announce, in two to three weeks, the studies that will look into the sources of autism.

But even the guy who stood alongside Kennedy as he made that announcement was unaware of what studies Kennedy has in mind. Read more here from Isa about the thick fog surrounding Kennedy's plan.

drug pricing

Second verse, same as the first

The Trump administration announced an expansive plan for lowering drug prices for Americans, Tara Bannow and Anil Oza report.

But we have been here before, and the question is whether this time will be different.

The order leaves out some big policies that Trump attempted during his first term, and it calls for giving pills an extra four years on the market before Medicare gets to negotiate their prices. Contrary to the point of the executive order, that policy would raise Medicare drug spending and drug prices.

Read more from me on what's new and old in Trump's plan to control drug costs.

budget

Budget leak

An internal budget document leaked to the press on Wednesday gives the clearest vision yet of Kennedy's planned chronic disease-fighting agency, the Administration for a Healthy America, Isa reports.

Even after mass layoffs, some divisions would experience even deeper cuts as part of the restructuring, losing programs related to everything from firearm injury to HIV/AIDS treatment, worker safety and chronic diseases. HHS did not authenticate the document, and Congress rarely follows budget requests to a tee, but Republicans in Congress have been more willing than in the past to go along with Trump's wishes.

The plan calls for cutting the NIH budget from $47 billion budget to $27 billion, and the NIH's 27 institutes would be consolidated down to just eight.

The AHA would receive $14 billion of HHS' $80 billion budget. Read Isa's story for more details about the new agency.

To learn about the rest of the NIH reorganization and reactions to the restructuring, read this in-depth piece by Megan Molteni, Jonathan Wosen and Anil Oza.

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What we're reading

RFK Jr. calls rising autism rate an 'epidemic.' Researchers call it a 'good sign', STAT
IRS making plans to rescind Harvard's tax-exempt status, CNN
Harvard urges researchers to limit spending, cease hiring if projects are affected by Trump funding freeze, Boston Globe
Top NIH nutrition researcher studying ultraprocessed foods departs, citing censorship under Kennedy, CNN
Arkansas adopts first-in-the-nation law forcing companies to choose between running a PBM or pharmacies, STAT