--- title: What Donald Trump's Win Could Mean for Vaccines description: Vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may help shape health policy in the Trump Administration. What does that mean for vaccine policy? canonical: https://time.com/7173744/donald-trump-vaccines/ author: Jamie Ducharme article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-11-07T20:33:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-01-19T15:21:18.000Z article:section: Health og:title: What Donald Trump's Win Could Mean for Vaccines og:description: Vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may influence health policy in the Trump Administration. og:url: https://time.com/7173744/donald-trump-vaccines/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt83f920318efab095/698a9bfd011682741998cc8b/trump-vaccine-policy.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: President-elect Donald Trump speaking at a podium. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What Donald Trump's Win Could Mean for Vaccines twitter:description: Vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may influence health policy in the Trump Administration. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt83f920318efab095/698a9bfd011682741998cc8b/trump-vaccine-policy.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What Donald Trump's Win Could Mean for Vaccines > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Updated: Jan 19, 2026 3:21 PM UTCPublished: Nov 7, 2024 8:33 PM UTC  Then-President Donald Trump speaks at the Operation Warp Speed Vaccine Summit in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 8, 2020. Then-President Donald Trump speaks at the Operation Warp Speed Vaccine Summit in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 8, 2020.Tasos Katopodis—Getty Images  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Updated: Jan 19, 2026 3:21 PM UTCPublished: Nov 7, 2024 8:33 PM UTC President-elect [Donald Trump](https://time.com/7172052/how-donald-trump-won-2024/) will nominate [Robert F. Kennedy Jr](https://time.com/7014448/rfk-campaign-trump-endorsement/)., one of the country’s most notorious vaccine skeptics, to run the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), a sprawling agency that includes the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It’s not yet clear whether the Senate will confirm Kennedy’s appointment. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries [told Politico](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/14/robert-f-kennedy-jr-trump-hhs-secretary-pick-00188617), which first reported the news, that Kennedy is “clearly” not the “best qualified person in the United States of America to lead us forward as we grapple with an enormous amount of health challenges in this country.” Kennedy, who is infamous for [peddling debunked views of vaccines](https://time.com/6289037/robert-f-kennedy-jr-wrong-about-vaccines/) and science, has [pushed a broad plan](https://www.mahanow.org/issues) to “make America healthy again,” with a focus on reversing the “epidemic of chronic disease engulfing our nation.” But his long history of anti-vaccine views has stoked fears about what a second Trump Administration will mean for public health. “I see an America whose health will suffer greatly in the next four years,” says Lawrence Gostin, director of Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. “And I see an American whose trust in science and public health will be severely damaged in the next four years.” Trump's first administration oversaw [Operation Warp Speed](https://time.com/5919956/covid-19-vaccine-distribution-d-day/), the cross-governmental effort that led to the historically fast [creation and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines](https://time.com/heroes-of-the-year-2021-vaccine-scientists/). But Kennedy’s influence has some experts worried that, the second time around, Trump's administration may attempt to discourage people from receiving vaccines or even curtail access to them. Kennedy [has said that he is not against vaccination](https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/06/rfk-jr-vaccines-trump-00187903), but he has for years spread misinformation about immunizations, questioning their well-proven safety and efficacy and promoting the debunked claim that they are linked to autism. **Read More**: [_Did the Pandemic Break Our Brains?_](https://time.com/7021575/covid-pandemic-19-brain-cognition/) Howard Lutnick, co-chair of Trump’s transition team, [told CNN](https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/31/politics/howard-lutnick-robert-f-kennedy-jr-vaccines-cnntv/index.html) in October that Kennedy wants additional data on vaccines, despite the fact that troves of information about vaccine safety and efficacy are already widely available. “He says, ‘If you give me the data, all I want is the data and I’ll take on the data and show that it’s not safe. And then if you pull the product liability, the companies will yank these vaccines right off of the market.’ So that’s his point,” Lutnick told CNN. Kennedy, however, said in post-election interviews that he and the Trump Administration do not plan to take vaccines off the market, despite [widespread speculation to that effect](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-banning-vaccines-president-rfk-fluoride-rcna178570). “I’m not going to take away anybody’s vaccines. I’ve never been anti-vaccine. If vaccines are working for somebody, I’m not going to take them away,” [he told NBC](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/trump-win-rfk-jr-says-wont-take-away-anybodys-vaccines-rcna178955) on Nov. 6\. “People ought to have \[a\] choice, and that choice ought to be informed by the best information.” (In the same interview, Kennedy cast doubt on the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, which are [credited with saving millions of lives](https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/global-covid-vaccination-saved-24-million-lives-first-8-months-study-estimates).) Even if the Trump Administration did attack vaccine access, it’s not clear how much they could actually do, Gostin says. The federal government has a hand in aspects of vaccine distribution, including [funding the Vaccines for Children program](https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines-for-children/about/index.html), which provides free shots to kids whose parents could otherwise not afford them. But ultimately, states craft their own policies around vaccination, including which shots are required for children entering school. At least under current standards of governance, the president “would have no power to force the states to do anything,” Gostin says. That’s not to say anti-vaccine sentiment in the White House would have no effect, says Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia who has served on CDC and FDA vaccine advisory committees. [One aim of Project 2025](https://www.apha.org/topics-and-issues/project-2025)—a conservative policy plan [from which Trump tried to distance himself](https://time.com/7014767/project-2025-imperial-presidency/) during his campaign, but which many political experts view as a blueprint for his second term—is restructuring the CDC such that it can no longer provide recommendations about vaccinations. Many states lean on CDC guidance to create their local mandates, Offit says, and the agency's recommendations also inform insurance coverage. **Read More**: [_How to Break 8 Toxic Communication Habits_](https://time.com/7113647/how-to-break-toxic-communication-habits/) If states ease vaccine requirements—or if people emboldened by a vaccine-hesitant White House seek exemptions from those requirements, [a trend that’s already on the rise](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/73/wr/mm7341a3.htm)—the U.S. may see a resurgence of vaccine-preventable illnesses such as measles, chickenpox, and mumps. “Viruses don’t recognize state lines,” Offit says. “We don’t see ourselves as part of a whole. But we are, especially when it comes to contagious diseases.” What will happen within the FDA, which approves vaccines and drugs, is another question mark. The Trump Administration could nominate an FDA commissioner who, if confirmed by the Senate, could theoretically try to revoke approvals for vaccines. But, Gostin says, such a move would likely be challenged in court. “If the FDA were to have a record of approving a vaccine for many decades and then all of a sudden withdrew that approval, the courts would demand scientific justification for it,” he says. Even with a conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court in place, Gostin says he’s confident the judiciary wouldn’t overlook decades of solid safety and efficacy data on vaccines. In June, the Supreme Court [ruled that anti-abortion activists](https://time.com/6988192/supreme-court-abortion-pill-mifepristone-decision/) seeking to overturn the FDA's long-standing approval of mifepristone, one of two drugs used to complete a [medication abortion](https://time.com/6190341/how-abortion-pills-work/), had no legal basis to do so. Their decision signals some willingness to respect the FDA's scientific review process, since ruling in favor of the anti-abortion groups could have set a precedent that made it easier for other groups to challenge the agency's decisions. It's too soon to say what legal or legislative curveballs a second Trump term will bring. But Gostin says he’s confident legal guardrails will hold, even though they can’t stop the influence of anti-vaccine sentiment entirely. The best thing concerned people can do now, Gostin says, is “get yourself and your children [up to date on all their vaccinations](https://time.com/6993279/vaccines-to-get-fall-winter/). Be very active in your local school boards, and fight for vaccination and public health.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/7173744/donald-trump-vaccines/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/7173744/donald-trump-vaccines/"},"headline":"What Donald Trump's Win Could Mean for Vaccines","datePublished":"2024-11-07T20:33:29.000Z","dateModified":"2026-01-19T15:21:18.000Z","description":"Vaccine skeptic Robert F. 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