HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said that federal health agencies are riddled with conflicts of interest. During confirmation hearings, he insisted that 97% of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices had ties to the industry, referring to a government report from 2009. A former CDC director from that time told NPR the statement was “a total misrepresentation of a 20-year-old report, about a process that was already being improved before that report was issued.”

Whether or not Kennedy is cherry-picking decades-old data to set the stage for an HHS MAHA makeover, the message to the industry and its regulators is clear: Don’t let the revolving door hit you on the way out. The problem is, which healthcare experts are left to do the work when those with experience in both industry and government are excluded from the conversation?

Meanwhile, conflicts of interest remain a major concern among the Trump administration’s own ranks — consider the president’s global business holdings in hotels, golf courses, merchandise and more, or how Elon Musk has slashed federal programs while leaving government contracts with his companies intact. 

Kennedy’s own conflicts of interest, including the millions he’s made from lawsuits against vaccine makers, peppered his confirmation hearings. And now, Kennedy’s conflicts are once again in the spotlight. Today, we’re exploring lawmakers’ recent request for details surrounding high-level Mar-a-Lago meetings between Kennedy, President Trump and top pharma executives — and what they could mean for the direction of the federal health agency.

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