The US Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday that Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sent a letter urging health care providers and medical boards to update treatment protocols for youth with gender dysphoria based on a controversial HHS review of scientific literature that was released earlier this month.

In advancing his agenda, Kennedy has already given his supporters what they wanted and his detractors what they feared.

The report takes from HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s playbook, calling out rising autism rates, the vaccine schedule and over medication of children as reasons for chronic diseases.

A budget proposal for the US Department of Health and Human Services details extensive cuts to funding for the National Institutes of Health, part of an effort to consolidate the work of its 27 institutes into just eight while reducing the agency’s budget nearly 40%.

In April 2025, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR)[1] announced a settlement marking its eighth enforcement action in its Risk Analysis Initiative.[2] Since its introduction in October 2024,