This month, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — the individual entrusted with safeguarding the health of 330 million Americans — posted a 90-second video of himself and Kid Rock doing shirtless calisthenics in blue jeans, riding a stationary bike in the sauna, doing a slow-motion cold plunge and toasting glasses of whole milk in the pool. The internet responded with memes and mockery. I sat in my office at UCLA, where I’ve practiced pulmonary and critical care medicine for more than 40 years, and I did not laugh.

I felt the anger, real anger.

Because here’s what was not in that video: the more than 2,200 Americans who contracted measles in 2025, in a country that effectively eliminated the disease in 2000. The three who died. The more than 900 confirmed cases already reported in the U.S. in 2026. The children in South Carolina — totaling nearly 1,000 cases from a single outbreak— whose parents were persuaded by rhetoric this secretary spent decades amplifying about how the MMR vaccine was more dangerous than the disease.

It is not. Decades of rigorous science have shown it is not.

When the absurd reaches a certain pitch, mockery is a natural defense. But I worry we’ve become so numbed by spectacle, so conditioned to treat governance as entertainment, that we’ve lost our capacity for the emotion this moment demands: genuine outrage. The real thing. The kind that mobilizes physicians, parents and legislators to say, “This is not acceptable.”

Let me be precise about what Kennedy has done in his first year as HHS Secretary, because the shirtless antics are designed to distract you from it.

He fired all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — the expert panel that has guided national vaccine policy for decades — and replaced them with vaccine skeptics.

He forced out Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez.

He cut National Institutes of Health funding, gutting cancer research and addiction treatment programs.

He stopped federal support for mRNA research — one of the most significant advances in the history of immunology, being developed for vaccines against multiple sclerosis, influenza and certain cancers. When the FDA initially rejected Moderna’s mRNA flu vaccine this month on what experts called ideological grounds, only public backlash forced a reversal — during one of the worst flu seasons in modern history.

Then, last month, Kennedy gutted the childhood immunization schedule, reducing universally recommended vaccines from ages 11 to 17. Hepatitis A, hepatitis B, rotavirus and influenza were relegated to “shared clinical decision-making” — a bureaucratic euphemism for abandonment. Routine recommendations trigger automatic prompts in electronic medical records and allow nurses to vaccinate under standing orders. Shared decision-making requires a physician at every vaccination decision, creating bottlenecks that will reduce uptake among the more than 100 million Americans without regular primary care access.

During Kennedy’s 2025 confirmation hearings, he told senators under oath: “I support vaccines. I support the childhood schedule.” Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican physician from Louisiana, voted to confirm Kennedy explicitly on those pledges.

Every pledge has been broken.

The lone Republican who voted against him — Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a polio survivor — warned his colleagues. They did not listen. Trust in the CDC has since plummeted from 66% to 54%. Confidence in MMR vaccine school requirements among Republicans has fallen 27 points in just six years.

These are not poll numbers. They are harbingers of future outbreaks, future hospitalizations, future deaths.

I’ve seen this before. I was an intern at UCLA in the early 1980s when the first cases of what we would come to call AIDS appeared on our wards — young men dying of infections we had never seen in previously healthy patients. I watched an institution and a government fail to respond with the urgency a nascent epidemic demanded, and I watched people die because of that failure. The lesson was not subtle: When public health leadership falters, when ideology supplants science, when the people in charge decide that politics matters more than medicine, people die. Not in the abstract. In beds. In hospitals.

I am watching it happen again. The United States is poised to lose its measles elimination status — an achievement that took decades to build. Kennedy’s newly appointed CDC deputy Ralph Abraham responded to this prospect by calling it “just the cost of doing business.” Three people died of measles in this country last year. The cost of doing business.

So, when I see the secretary of Health and Human Services drinking whole milk in a pool with Kid Rock, I do not see comedy; nor should the response be memes or sarcasm. I see a man who bears direct responsibility for the resurgence of vaccine-preventable disease in the most medically advanced nation on Earth, performing a grotesque pantomime of wellness while children get sick. That is not a joke. It is a scandal. And it is long past time we treated it as one.

Robert B. Shpiner is a clinical professor of medicine at UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, with over 40 years of ICU experience at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. He wrote this column for the Los Angeles Times.

INDIANAPOLIS — There has been some gray area surrounding the Vikings ever since they fired Kwesi Adofo-Mensah out of nowhere.

This is a photo of Rob Brzezinski of the Minnesota Vikings NFL football team. This image reflects the Minnesota Vikings active roster as of Friday, June 16, 2023. (AP Photo)

Never mind that it was announced last month that Rob Brzezinski would serve as the acting general manager on a temporary basis through the 2026 NFL Draft before a permanent hire is made. It wasn’t clear if he was simply operating as a figurehead for the organization while Kevin O’Connell operated in the shadows.

There was some clarity provided on Tuesday afternoon inside the JW Marriott in Indianapolis. As much as the Vikings plan to be collaborative in their approach over the next couple of months, Brzezinski relented that the Wilfs have given him final say over O’Connell if push comes to shove.

“Obviously we have to have protocol in place,” Brzezinski said. “The owners have asked me to handle that responsibility.”

As soon as he clarified the structure the Vikings have in place, Brzezinski emphasized that he will work in concert with O’Connell, ensuring that everybody is on the same page heading into a pivotal stretch that could define the organization for the foreseeable future.

“We’re going to work very, very closely together to make sure that the personnel staff and the coaching staff are aligned,” Brzezinski said. “We’re just going to stack decisions here in this time period.”

That response perfectly encapsulates why the Wilfs have entrusted Brzezinski to navigate the current situation. Not only has he been a longstanding member of the Vikings since 1999, serving in a number of different roles in that span, he has long been somebody whose superpower is getting everybody to pull on the same rope.

“He’s unbelievable with people,” O’Connell said. “He knows how to connect people and bring out the best in people. That’s what we need right now. That’s what Rob has brought and will continue to bring.”

MINNEAPOLIS, MINNESOTA – JANUARY 04: Head coach Kevin O’Connell of the Minnesota Vikings looks on prior to a game against the Green Bay Packers at U.S. Bank Stadium on January 04, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

The ability to build consensus will serve as a compass for Brzezinski over the next couple of months as the Vikings work through a number of important items on their checklist.

Though the most pressing issue is finding another quarterback to compete with J.J. McCarthy for the starting job, there’s also the hurdle of getting the Vikings under the salary cap and putting together the big board ahead of the draft.

All of it will require Brzezinski to lead with a combination of conviction and grace.

“It’s been about getting everybody aligned and on the same page,” Brzezinski said. “A really important thing is for everybody to be themselves and be able to constructively challenge each other.”

It was hard to ignore the fact that Brzezinski acted and sounded like a general manager during the 30 minutes he chatted with reporters. Asked if he’d like to be considered as a candidate for whenever the Wilfs make the permanent hire, Brzezinski also struck the right tone, replying, “I can say that right now that I’m focused on the next couple of months.”

Meanwhile, O’Connell seemed to go to bat for Brzezinski on multiple occasions, which has to matter to some degree. Asked what has stood out about Brzezinski in their time working together, O’Connell heaped praise on the experience he brings to the table, replying, “He has been through situations where he can recall those experiences and really provide guidance.”

If anything is clear about Brzezinski beyond his resume, it’s how deeply he cares about the organization as a whole. He has built a life in Minnesota over the past few decades. He would love nothing more than to be the person that helped the Vikings get over the hump.

“There is a special connection here,” Brzezinski said. “Our fans deserve to see this organization raise the Lombardi Trophy.”

Not that he’s putting too much pressure on himself as the person suddenly calling the shots.

“We can’t manufacture or force what’s not there because that’s when we’ll make a mistake,” Brzezinski said. “We’re going to do everything we can over the next couple of months to make sure the Vikings are going in the right direction to attain our ultimate goal.”

The Minnesota Vikings’ brain trust, photographed at Vikings headquarters in Eden Prairie on Oct. 28, 2003, includes, from left, Rob Brzezinski, vice president of football operations, Scott Studwell, director of college scouting, Mike Tice, head coach, and Paul Wiggin, director of pro scouting. (Jean Pieri / Pioneer Press)

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Almost 3,000 city households in federally subsidized housing, including Section 8 and NYCHA, have members with mixed immigration statuses who would be impacted by the change, advocates said.

NYCHA’s Fulton Houses in Manhattan. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

At the end of last week, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) issued a rule that, if enacted, would ban families with mixed immigration statuses from living in federally subsidized housing.

The rule would “require the verification of U.S. citizenship or the eligible immigration status of all applicants and recipients of assistance under a covered program regardless of age”—what advocates say would impact thousands of New York City families who use Section 8 vouchers, or live in public housing at The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA).  

Eligibility for federal housing assistance is already limited to U.S. citizens and non-citizens with a qualifying immigration status (such as lawful permanent resident, refugee or asylee).

Housing subsidies only cover the household members who are eligible, meaning mixed-status families pay a higher rent—also known as a prorated assistance—that takes any ineligible tenants into account.

But HUD called the current policy a “loophole” the federal government wants to close, and comes as President Donald Trump continues to wage an aggressive immigration crackdown. The administration proposed a similar rule banning mixed-status families during Trump’s first term, though President Joe Biden later withdrew it. 

“Mixed Status families are already paying their fair share and are receiving prorated benefits under strict eligibility requirements,” New York Congresswoman Nydia M. Velázquez said in a statement in response to HUD’s latest proposal. “This is a cruel and inhumane policy that seeks to force families into the impossible choice between family separation and homelessness. It is designed to terrorize immigrant communities, plain and simple.”

Around 20,000 families nationwide, the vast majority of them people of color, could lose assistance if the rule is implemented, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). The impact would be felt particularly hard in New York City and State, which HUD says is home to approximately 13 percent of mixed-status households getting federal housing subsidies.

“In New York state, there are a total of 498,440 households currently receiving federal rental assistance, an estimated 2,540 mixed-status families who would be prohibited from receiving assistance, and 914,060 individual citizens who would be subject to new red tape, even though they have already been found to be eligible for assistance,” said Sonya Acosta, a senior policy analyst with the housing and income security team at CBPP.

New York state has the third-highest number of mixed-status households in public housing after California and Texas, explained Francisca Fajana, director of racial justice strategy with Latino Justice PRLDEF, a national civil rights organization.

According to Alex MacDougall, an attorney in the public housing unit at the Legal Aid Society, almost 3,000 city households would be at risk, impacting over 11,000 people, including 5,000 children, with an average household income of $26,000.

If implemented, advocates warned, families will have to choose between giving up affordable housing or separating. “Many households will not even have the option to separate to save their housing because the only eligible family members are minor children, forcing the entire family into housing insecurity,” MacDougall said.

NYCHA, the largest public housing agency in the country, said that it was reviewing the proposal, but didn’t provide estimates on how many of its households could be impacted. The Housing Authority “is bound by current requirements set by HUD, which will remain in place unless there are modifications issued in a final rule,” a spokesperson said in a statement via email. 

Because households must declare their citizenship or eligible immigration status when applying, HUD already has information on the immigration status of households receiving federal housing benefits, the spokesperson reiterated.

“This administration is using immigrants as a scapegoat to distract from their failure to invest in affordable housing,” Congresswoman Velázquez said in a statement.

Local advocates and civil defenders also pushed back against the federal government’s false assertion that housing authorities are are providing subsidies to undocumented immigrants. In a Washington Post opinion piece last week, HUD Secretary Scott Turner said the proposed rule would end “the era of illegal aliens and other ineligible noncitizens exploiting public housing resources.”

“This is simply untrue,” explained Anna Luft, project director of the New York Legal Assistance Group’s Public Housing Justice Project. “NYCHA, along with other housing authorities, already have a process in place to verify tenants’ immigration status to confirm who qualifies for either HUD-funded rent subsidies or to pay prorated—essentially market-rate—rent as part of a mixed-status living arrangement.”

While advocates worry about the possibility of future evictions, they’re also urging people not to panic, since the rule is still only a proposal. 

The public has 60 days, until April 21, to comment on it. A similar proposal during Trump’s first term—which ultimately never took effect—garnered some 30,000 public comments, more than 95 percent of them in opposition to the change, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. 

“For the time being … the existing laws around prorated assistance remain unchanged as it applies to people in mixed-status households,” Luft said.

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact Daniel@citylimits.org. To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org.

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