RFK Jr is a danger to public health – but local Maha laws could be a bigger threat | Katrina vanden Heuvel

An array of under-the-radar initiatives are taking hold across the US, often tied to immunization, fluoridation and raw milk

Even within the freak show that is Donald Trump's cabinet, the health and human services secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has a singular knack for dominating the headlines with the most disturbing sort of carnivalesque spectacle.

In recent months, he's amplified harmful misinformation linking Tylenol and autism and dismissed the entire CDC vaccine advisory committee, replacing them with skeptics and conspiracy theorists. And even as that agency debated and ultimately scrapped its hepatitis B vaccination recommendation for many newborns, Kennedy courted further controversy for his alleged involvement in a tabloid-fodder love triangle.

Katrina vanden Heuvel is editor and publisher of the Nation, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a contributor to the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times