How Science Lost America’s Trust and Surrendered Health Policy to Skeptics

People once dismissed for their disbelief in conventional medicine are now celebrating a new champion in Washington. Scientists, meanwhile, are trying to figure how they could have managed the pandemic without setting off a populist movement they say threatens longstanding public-health measures.

Lingering resentment over pandemic restrictions helped Kennedy and his “Make America Healthy Again” campaign draw people from the left and the right, voters who worried about the contamination of food, water and medicine. Many of them shared doubts about vaccines and felt their concerns were ignored by experts or regarded as ignorant.

Kennedy merged a crowd of Covid-era skeptics with people who long distrusted mainstream medicine and food conglomerates. Together, they helped return Donald Trump to the White House. With the president-elect’s selection of Kennedy to head the Department of Health and Human Services, the medical establishment is bracing for an overhaul of U.S. health policy.

Health authorities who beat the pandemic worry about losing more trust from the people they worked to save. Doctors, scientists and public-health officials are asking themselves how they can win it back. Among their postelection revelations: Don’t underestimate or talk down to those without a medical degree.

Officials fear that Kennedy will promote unproven remedies, appoint vaccine skeptics to immunization-advisory committees and hamper the government’s infectious-disease detectives in a future pandemic.

Kennedy has said he opposes food coloring and additives, the widely used pesticide glyphosate, seed oils and foods with added sugars, among many other issues. Medical authorities say some of his views, such as suspicion of ultra-processed foods, have scientific merit, while others are unfounded. The food and pharmaceutical industries are planning to win him over where they can and do battle where they can’t.

Much of Kennedy’s popularity reflects residual pandemic anger—over being told to stay at home or to wear masks; the extended closure of schools and businesses; and vaccine requirements to attend classes, board a plane or eat at a restaurant.

“We weren’t really considering the consequences in communities that were not New York City,” the places where the virus wasn’t hitting as hard, former National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins said at event last year.

Authorities focused on ways to stop the disease and failed to consider “this actually, totally disrupts peoples’ lives, ruins the economy and has many kids kept out of school,” Collins said. The U.S. overall took the right approach, he said, but overlooking long-term consequences was “really unfortunate. That’s another mistake we made.”

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Public-health officials wonder if they have sufficient clout for the next national emergency. “Science is losing its place as a source of truth,” said Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious-disease physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “It’s becoming just another voice in the room.”

Pandemic restrictions wore on Joel Grey, a 62-year-old retired car salesman in Belfair, Wash., who voted for Trump. He got vaccinated only because diabetes put him at higher risk of complications from Covid-19. He said he watched acquaintances lose jobs because they wouldn’t get the shot and blamed his mother’s death at 87 partly on the isolation of lockdowns.

Grey became frustrated with scientists telling Americans how to live, he said: “I just don’t think they have a place in our lives.” His view resonated broadly.

In October 2023, 27% of Americans who responded to a Pew Research Center poll said they had little to no trust in scientists to act in the public’s best interests, up from 13% in January 2019.

‘Latest nonsense’

Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit group founded by Kennedy, got a boost during the lockdown era, a time of surging interest in alternative medical and nutrition information and advice. The nonprofit raised more than $46 million from 2020 to 2022, nearly 10 times more than it collected in the three years before the pandemic, tax filings show.

The group published articles saying Covid-19 vaccines sabotaged the immune system and enriched shareholders of drugmakers. “Ignore the Latest Nonsense About ‘Variants.’ Stay Focused on Dangers of COVID Shots,” read the headline of one 2021 article. Others took aim at Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the federal government’s infectious-disease research center, and groups that supported vaccines, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

To counter such views, Jessica Malaty Rivera, an epidemiologist with hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers, shared information on the importance of vaccines and face masks. She dismissed unsupported claims as misinformation and described some of their purveyors as grifters.

Looking back, Rivera said her sometimes scolding messages weren’t helpful. “Everybody has been tempted by the slam dunk,” he said. “It’s not an effective way to communicate science. It’s just not.” She and others say they are dialing back the use of the word misinformation, saying it makes people feel they are being called liars or dumb.

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During the pandemic, Palmira Gerlach had questions about the Covid-19 vaccines, but doctors “were very dismissive,” the 44-year-old recalled.

Gerlach, a stay-at-home mother outside Pittsburgh, said she falsely told her child’s pediatrician that she got the shot, seeking to avoid judgment. The doctor told her, “Good girl.” Gerlach turned to podcasts featuring Kennedy, drawn to his willingness to question pandemic measures.

One challenge for health authorities was learning how to combat Covid-19 while hundreds of people died each day. Researchers needed months just to clarify how the virus spread. That meant answers to common questions kept shifting: Was it OK to gather outside? When was it safe to visit grandparents? Do I have to wear a face mask everywhere?

Health authorities sometimes got it wrong. At first, officials said Covid-19 vaccines would prevent transmission or infection. Later, they learned that the shots instead cut the risk for hospitalization or death.

Shelli Hopsecger, a small-business owner in Olympia, Wash., who described herself as an independent, said she listened closely to health officials when the pandemic hit. But as school closures and lockdowns dragged on, she began questioning what they said.

Hopsecger, 56, said the pandemic made her realize how powerful a role federal health agencies played in her life. “We all are aware now that there are these agencies that look at these things on our behalf,” she said. “As citizens, it’s time for us to start telling them what we want them to look at.”

Last year, Hopsecger said she started listening to Kennedy’s podcast interviews on the recommendation of her 26-year-old son. She recalled Kennedy pointing out how millions of Americans suffer from chronic diseases, despite vast sums spent on healthcare.

“Mr. Kennedy is definitely on to something,” Hopsecger said. “Our current policies and systems are not doing the job of preventing or even reversing chronic diseases.”

Us and them

Kennedy’s polling as an independent presidential candidate had fallen to the single digits when he threw his support to Trump in August and embraced the slogan “Make America Healthy Again.”

The career of Kennedy—an environmental lawyer, former heroin addict and the nephew of the late President John F. Kennedy—took a turn in 2005 when he began questioning the use of vaccines. He says he exercises, meditates and attends 12-step meetings every day.

While campaigning for Trump, Kennedy talked about how more Americans were obese and more young people were getting diagnosed with cancer. He decried the quality of foods and warned that water and medicines were polluted by toxins and chemicals. He criticized the medical establishment for pushing pills and shots, rather than addressing the root causes of disease.

“We were all told in Covid: ‘Trust the experts.’ But that’s not a thing,” Kennedy said in an episode of the “What is Money?” podcast in April. “Trusting the experts is not a feature of science. It’s the opposite of science. It’s not a feature of democracy.”

Many doctors, scientists and health officials with traditional credentials share Kennedy’s view that ultraprocessed foods contribute to obesity, yet they also say more study is needed. Likewise, many establishment health figures agree that scientists need to do more to understand the role of microplastics and so-called forever chemicals in food and water.

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Yet many scientists and food-industry officials say some of the food colorings and chemicals Kennedy pinpoints as dangerous don’t affect human health in such small quantities. Nearly all are alarmed by Kennedy’s unproven or disproved claims—that vaccines cause autism, AIDS might not be caused by HIV and antidepressant drugs might be linked to mass shootings.

Ashley Taylor, a 33-year-old entrepreneur in New York City, sides with Kennedy’s views on food safety and the role of experts. She became critical of traditional medicine after scoliosis surgery as a teenager left her reeling in pain and reliant on Tylenol. She said she rejected her doctors’ recommendations and found relief from her back problems with acupuncture, a nutritious diet, yoga and positive thinking.

Taylor said that health authorities during the pandemic ignored studies on natural immunity and didn’t acknowledge that people who had been infected with Covid-19 might not need to be vaccinated. “What I just don’t approve of is purposefully presenting information in a way that is not allowing the American public to arrive at their own opinion,” she said.

Taylor listened to part of Kennedy’s book, “The Real Anthony Fauci; Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health.” She was attracted to his ideas even more after watching a September roundtable on nutrition featuring Kennedy and his allies, hosted by Sen. Ron Johnson (R, Wisc.) in the Senate.

After previously voting for Democrats, Taylor said she cast her ballot for Trump.

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Mainstream doctors, researchers and health officials are bracing for a Kennedy-led federal health department. They are considering how best to communicate with the public if they need to counter decisions that stray from established public-health measures.

Some Food and Drug Administration staffers have already stopped saying that vaccines are safe and effective, instead advising that the benefits outweigh the risks, a person familiar with the matter said. The change is intended to make clear that all medical interventions have risks, the person said, and to spike the argument that rare side effects mean vaccines aren’t safe.

Virologist Dr. Greg Poland said he advises scientists to communicate with humility and empathy, to speak as a compassionate physician would with a patient. “We’re not dogmatic. We’re not about forcing people,” he said. “We’re about imparting information.”

To build trust in vaccines, Poland, who is also a Presbyterian minister, speaks to conservative churches and civic groups. He tells them he will be truthful and transparent and then explains how vaccines work and how scientists arrive at a consensus.

Poland said he stays until he has answered every last question.

Aaron Zitner contributed to this article.

Write to Liz Essley Whyte at liz.whyte@wsj.com