In his first address to staffers at the Department of Health and Human Services, HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. promised that “nothing is going to be off limits” in his pursuit to reduce the chronic disease epidemic.

“Some of the possible factors we will investigate were formerly taboo or insufficiently scrutinized,” Kennedy told HHS staff, Tuesday morning. “I’m willing to subject them all to the scrutiny of unbiased science.”

Some of these previously taboo concerns, he said, include “the childhood vaccine schedule, electromagnetic radiation, glyphosate, other pesticides, ultra processed foods, artificial food additives, SSRI and other psychiatric drugs, PFAS, PFOAs, microplastics.”

RFK Jr. reminded HHS staff that an “overwhelming majority” of our Founding Fathers were “citizen scientists,” including “Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Adams, James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Rush, a physician, Julian Bartlett, a physician, Matthew Thornton, a physician, and Oliver Wolcott, a physician.”

“Science and democracy were born together during the enlightenment, and they share the same ideals for openness, for public access, and for transparency,” he said.

No one trusts science that isn’t transparent about its research hypothesis, its raw data, or its conflicts of interest. No one trusts a government built on lies, on secrets, on cover ups, and propaganda. That’s why my uncle famously observed that the word secrecy is repugnant to a free and open society.

RFK Jr. told the bureaucrats at HHS that a key “reason why our agencies have lost public trust is that they have become too politicized,”  and that “there’s no such thing as Democratic children or Republican children.”

“Science gets politicized when power and profit are involved, and power and profit are blind to compassion,” he continued. “Reducing the influence of money, therefore, goes hand in hand with depoliticizing HHS.”

Kennedy lamented that a “fog of narrative warfare” had left Americans with a warped view of his character and beliefs.

“Let’s start a relationship by letting go of any preconceptions that you may have about me,” he stated. “I’m going to keep asking questions but hold my preconceived answers lightly. I’m willing to be wrong,” Kennedy said.

“I’m not going to impose any of my beliefs over yours,” he added. “Instead, we’re going to launch a new era of radical transparency. Only through radical transparency can we provide Americans with genuine informed consent, which is the bedrock and foundation of Democracy.”

RFK Jr. continued: “It’s no secret that many of our institutions of our Democracy, and even of science and medicine, are no longer transparent.”

Because of this, he argued, these institutions “have become inefficient, dysfunctional or corrupt,” and in some cases, become “captive to profit-making industries and stagnated in bureaucratic secrecy.”

Kennedy acknowledged however that the majority of people in our public health agencies have good motives and are “competent, ethical, caring and idealistic.”

“I believe that most of you here are not here for the money,” he told his HHS audience.

“My goal as Secretary here at HHS will be to create a culture of competency, of ethics, of openness, of transparency, of caring, and of pride so that individuals who share these ideals can flourish and thrive,” Kennedy said. “Those who are unwilling to embrace those kinds of ideas can retire,” he added.

RFK Jr. vowed to “remove conflicts of interest” at HHS whenever possible or “balance them with other stakeholders,” and to shut the revolving door to outside companies “to restore public trust.”

“We will make our data and our policy process so transparent that people won’t even have to file a FOIA request,” he promised.

RFK Jr. also pledged to bring Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) into HHS to make Medicare and Medicaid more efficient.

“The same DOGE technology that has uncovered vast amounts of waste and fraud can be used to better serve our fellow citizens who depend on these programs to make sure that no one is left behind and no one is left out,” he said. “We will aim to set a standard of courtesy, efficiency, professionalism, and integrity that will make HHS again the envy of the world.”

[H/T American Greatness]