Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in his first speech as Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), he laid out a plan to restore public confidence. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a decline in trust in federal health care and science. Between April 2020 and September 2023, the percentage of survey respondents who trusted information about the coronavirus and vaccinations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) "a lot" or "quite a lot" dropped from 83% to 63%. The article describes the first year of its operation as a failure. Includes mention of HHS layoffs and funding cuts.[1][4][5]