RFK Jr. Just Yanked $18.4 Million From Pediatricians Because the Word ‘Equity’ Hurt His Feelings

RFK Jr. walked into the Department of Health and Human Services and apparently decided his signature public health initiative would be: beefing with pediatricians online, then abusing his authority as HHS director and taking away $18.4 million away from programs that keep babies alive.

According to Reuters, HHS terminated seven federal grants to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) worth $18.4 million for 2025. Seven. Not one questionable contract. Not some obscure “consulting deliverable.” Seven separate grants that were funding stuff the civilized world generally agrees is good, like reducing sudden infant death syndrome, catching autism earlier, supporting adolescent health and mental health, expanding rural health access, preventing birth defects, and preventing fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. You know, the glamorous culture-war battlefield of “maybe babies should not die and kids should get help.”

HHS’s official line is that these grants “no longer align with the Department’s mission or priorities,” per Reuters. And if you’ve been awake for the past decade, you can hear the subtext thundering through the walls: the “priorities” in question are authoritarian, grievance, and punishing institutions that refuse to clap for anti-vax theater.

The part where they admit the quiet part without admitting it

One of the reported rationales for the cancellations is the AAP’s use of “identity-based language,” including phrases like “pregnant people,” and references to racial disparities, according to SEJ. Which is so revealing it almost feels like parody. HHS is telling you, out loud, that acknowledging reality counts as a disqualifying offense. If your program says, “Hey, outcomes differ by race, region, and income, so we should target resources accordingly,” that’s now treated like ideological contamination.

Also in the complaint pile: that at least one program didn’t sufficiently emphasize nutrition or chronic disease prevention, per SEJ. Which is cute, because nothing says “serious chronic disease strategy” like defunding pediatric public health projects that actually touch families, clinics, and communities. If you’re looking for a nutrition plan, maybe start by not starving the infrastructure that keeps kids connected to care.

Yes, this happened right after AAP criticized him. No, they’re not going to say the word “retaliation.”

The AAP and Kennedy have been in open conflict for months. The AAP has publicly objected to Kennedy’s vaccine-related changes, including his moves around CDC vaccine advisory panels and divergence on COVID-19 vaccine guidance for children, as Reuters reported. Kennedy, for his part, has tried to delegitimize the AAP by accusing it of pharmaceutical industry influence, per the same Reuters piece.

So here’s where we’re at: a federal health department led by a man whose political brand is suspicion of vaccines is now financially kneecapping the country’s flagship pediatric professional organization, right after it said his policies were dangerous. HHS can insist this is purely about “alignment,” and you’re allowed to believe that if you also believe your cat writes your emails.

The Daily Herald notes the core dispute plainly: critics see retaliation, HHS frames it as apolitical priority-setting, and there’s no official admission of a punitive motive. Right, because people who retaliate always issue a press release titled “We Are Retaliating.”

What gets hurt when you “own” pediatricians: actual children

The AAP has warned these cuts will harm infants, children, and families, particularly in vulnerable communities, and it’s weighing legal action, according to Reuters. The Daily Herald also points out that the exact downstream impact on each individual program isn’t fully known yet, because of course it isn’t. When you abruptly terminate grants, you don’t exactly include a neat little spreadsheet titled “Here’s how many rural clinics will reduce services” or “Here’s how many families will miss screenings.” The chaos is the feature.

And please spare me the “they can find other funding” shrug. Public health doesn’t work like a Substack. You don’t just spin up a replacement for federal support overnight, especially for programs that are designed to reach the exact people the market forgets: rural families, lower-income communities, kids dealing with mental health crises, and infants whose lives depend on safe sleep education being widely implemented.

The broader HHS plan: fewer experts, more ideology

This move is part of a larger re-engineering of HHS under Kennedy. Earlier in 2025, HHS announced plans that could cut up to 10,000 jobs across agencies like CDC, FDA, NIH, and HRSA, and consolidate departmental units from 28 to 15, according to The Guardian. That’s the kind of restructuring that can be sold as “efficiency” until you remember that public health capacity is not a decorative throw pillow. It’s the difference between an outbreak being caught early or becoming your whole personality for two years.

And the language-policing angle is fully baked into this era. The Guardian reported that HHS under Kennedy has been increasingly scrutinizing frameworks involving race, equity, gender, and disparities. Translation: they’re turning the federal health apparatus into another front of the culture war, where the biggest sin is accurately describing who is getting sick and why.

Where Gavin Newsom comes in, whether RFK Jr. likes it or not

California’s entire governing philosophy on health is basically the opposite of this melodrama. Newsom’s world treats public health as infrastructure: boring when it works, catastrophic when it doesn’t, and absolutely not a plaything for grievance politics. And yes, that means supporting evidence-based medicine, competent vaccination policy, and programs that talk honestly about disparities because disparities don’t vanish when you ban the vocabulary.

The AAP being targeted should ring alarm bells for every state that actually runs programs instead of running hashtags. When the federal government starts yanking funds because the words “pregnant people” appeared somewhere in a grant-supported project, that is not “mission alignment.” That’s ideological conformity testing. Today it’s pediatricians. Tomorrow it’s state partnerships, university research, rural clinics, and anyone else who refuses to pretend health outcomes are magically identical across every community.

If AAP files suit, it’s going to force the question into a venue that doesn’t care about Kennedy’s vibes: did HHS follow the law when it terminated these grants, and were the stated reasons pretext? The AAP says it’s considering legal action, per Reuters. Good. Drag it into the sunlight.

Because the grotesque part here is how small and petty the alleged triggers are compared to the stakes. “Identity-based language.” “Misalignment.” Meanwhile the actual line items include sudden infant death syndrome reduction and early autism detection, per Reuters. If your politics requires treating pediatric health initiatives as collateral damage in a tantrum, then your politics is just a hazard.

And for the MAGA crowd cheering this like it’s a WWE chair shot: congrats, you “owned” the people trying to keep babies alive. Very alpha. Very normal. Very “pro-life.”

Straight To Jail

I think that we’re all on board with holding this administration accountable with some actual jail time for obvious corruption. In no other developed country can a politician just pull funding for programs for public good because they are upset that the directive for giving kids raw milk or swimming in shit-water was not met with thunderous applause.