Hello.

Since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. became the highest-ranking health official in the country, after more than a decade of promoting conspiracies, researchers have warned that Americans would grow increasingly misled about science. What many didn’t predict is the effect he would have on scientific institutions. 

No longer a fringe lawyer, Kennedy has the backing of President Donald Trump, who stood beside him at the White House’s autism announcement last month. Trump spoke of his longtime relationship with Kennedy, and their discussions on Tylenol, autism, and vaccines. “I was saying it with Bobby 20 years ago, and I was attacked,” Trump said. 

“Don’t take Tylenol,” Trump advised, despite weak evidence showing a putative and relatively small association between autism and acetaminophen (branded as Tylenol in the U.S.).

KFF’s polling division surveyed 1,334 adults in the U.S. in the days after the announcement. Sixty percent of them grasped the scientific uncertainty that exists on any connection — but the average hides a split along party lines. Democrats were more likely to outright reject the idea that Tylenol during pregnancy increases the risk of autism, with nearly 60% considering it “definitely false.” 

Republicans voiced less conviction, with 7% saying it was “definitely true” that Tylenol increases an autism risk, and 50% saying it was “probably true.”

(Having interviewed several autism researchers for my latest story, most of them would have checked “probably false,” with a few “probably true.” If given the space, they’d note that genetics plays an assuredly stronger role.) 

KFF’s poll also finds that 74% of Republicans support Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement, compared with 22% of Democrats. A key tenet of this movement is railing against the pharmaceutical industry, government regulators, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Kennedy regularly disparages the agency he oversees.

At the same time, Democrats are rapidly losing trust in the CDC as it transforms under Trump and Kennedy. The administration has laid off hundreds of CDC researchers and interfered with its ability to release data and respond to outbreaks. Kennedy has fired the agency’s vaccine advisers, ousted the agency’s director, and replaced her with a biotech entrepreneur who rapidly signed off on scientifically unjustified changes to vaccine recommendations.

Back in March 2020, about 85% of Republicans and independents, and 90% of Democrats, trusted the CDC on public health matters, according to KFF polls. A divide between the parties widened during the pandemic, as rules around masking and vaccines became political flash points. By September 2023, just 40% of Republicans said they trusted the CDC, compared with 88% of Democrats. 

The parties moved closer this year in their faith in the agency. Trust in the CDC has plummeted among Democrats, down to 64% this September, while staying about the same for Republicans. 

It’s highly unlikely that Trump’s announcement on Tylenol will make a dent in autism rates, but it may represent another gauge in the country’s scientific institutions. Conservatives have long aimed to shrink government, and a key tenet of the Heritage Foundation’s policy blueprint, Project 2025, is to diminish the influence of federal agencies. The project calls the CDC “perhaps the most incompetent and arrogant agency in the federal government.”

In very different ways, Kennedy is helping to carry this out by shrinking the nation’s leading public health institution in the minds of Americans.

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