Radical opacity RFK Jr. shuts Americans out of health decisions despite vow for transparency Kennedy vowed last month to usher in an era of "radical transparency." Beth Mole Mar 4, 2025 10:21 am | 5 US Secretary of Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. listens as President Donald Trump holds a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, on February 26, 2025. Credit: Getty | Jim Watson US Secretary of Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. listens as President Donald Trump holds a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, on February 26, 2025. Credit: Getty | Jim Watson Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreFederal health policies and decisions are quickly becoming less transparent under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.despite him telling Health Department employees just last month that he would work with them to "launch a new era of radical transparency."Since then, Kennedy has axed a public meeting on vaccinesleaving lingering questions about the future of those transparent proceedings. He has also revoked a broad transparency policy for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that required public notice for certain new rules and a comment period to allow for the public to be involved with the rulemaking process. Revoking the policy could have sweeping effects. For instance, HHS could now change Medicaid requirements with no notice or change federal research grants without input from the research communitysomething the Trump administration has already tried to do before it was put on hold by a federal judge.Rolling back public participationOn Monday, Kennedy published the new policy in the Federal Register, which specifically revoked a transparency rule adopted by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in 1971. The rulecalled the Richardson Waiver, after then-health secretary Elliot Richardsonrequired HHS to have public notice-and-comment periods for proposed rules and policies regarding certain matters, namely public property, loans, grants, benefits, or contracts. These five categories would otherwise have been exempt from public notice-and-comment requirements under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). The APA also says that public notice-and-comment periods can be waived for "good cause."The Nixon-era Richardson Waiver came about amid a push for more public engagement, with the waiver acting essentially as a workaround to amending the APA's exemptions. As Richard Brady, the assistant secretary for administration. wrote in the Federal Register at the time, implementing the Richardson Waiver "should result in greater participation by the public in the formulation of this Department's rules and regulations.""The public benefit from such participation should outweigh any administrative inconvenience or delay which may result from use of the APA procedures in the five exempt categories," Brady wrote. The waiver also noted that the Health Department should use the "good cause" exception "sparingly."Kennedy's new policy rescinds Richardson Waiver entirely. He writes in stark contrast: "The extra-statutory obligations of the Richardson Waiver impose costs on the Department and the public, are contrary to the efficient operation of the Department, and impede the Department's flexibility to adapt quickly to legal and policy mandates."Ars Technica has reached out to HHS to ask how rescinding the waiver fits with Kennedy's pledge for transparency and how removing public notice and comment periods will improve the agency's efficiency. HHS did not respond, but we will update this story if it does.Eliminating transparencyMeanwhile, Kennedy has also leapfrogged independent advisors for the Food and Drug Administration who make transparent recommendations on a variety of things, including the virus strains in seasonal flu shots. Last week, the FDA abruptly and without explanation canceled the committee's March 13 meeting on the upcoming seasonal flu vaccine. In an agency statement sent late Friday, the FDA essentially said it will now decide the 20252026 flu shots without its independent advisors, relying only on federal partners instead.The move does not necessarily imperil the tight, six-month manufacturing schedule for the upcoming flu vaccine. The US typically goes along with the flu strain selection decisions made by the World Health Organization, which has already held its meeting and announced the selections. Representatives for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and FDA were present at the meeting, despite the country's planned withdrawal from the agency, according to reporting from Stat News.Still, the advisory meetings were the most open portion of the US process. The advisors held public meetings with comment periods in which advisors had open discussionsand sometimes disagreements. They reviewed the global flu data and offered post-mortem analysis of the previous year's season and vaccines.Now, the committeethe Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC)is in limbo. Members are unsure why they were cut out of the process and whether they will meet to discuss other decisions, including the upcoming selection of strains for the next annual COVID-19 shots. Other meeting dates are not populating their calendars as they normally would, according to Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and VRBPAC member.Ars Technica has reached out to the FDA asking, again, why the meeting was canceled, why the agency is moving forward without the advisors' input, and what the future is for VRBPAC. The FDA did not respond."That's what worries me in thisthat this represents something bigger," Offit told Ars Technica. These meetings give the public a way to see how experts are viewing vaccines and what they see as their strengths and weaknesses. "When you eliminate that, you eliminate transparency, which according to RFK Jr. is what he wanted."For now, all one can do is "just sort of buckle up and see how this plays out," he said.Beth MoleSenior Health ReporterBeth MoleSenior Health Reporter Beth is Ars Technicas Senior Health Reporter. Beth has a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and attended the Science Communication program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She specializes in covering infectious diseases, public health, and microbes. 5 Comments