After 'Radical Transparency' Claim, RFK Jr. Backtracks

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who promised "radical transparency" in the work of his department—a guarantee also made for him by President Trump—has proposed eliminating public comment on its actions. The change is included in a document placed Friday in the Federal Register, stating that HHS will rescind its practice of more than 50 years of allowing Americans—including insurers, hospitals, and patient groups—to comment on its plans, STAT News reports. The statement is to be formally published on Monday. Legal scholars, public health experts, and advocates for patients and open government quickly raised objections to the change.

The HHS has had a waiver in place since 1971 requiring a period of public comment on decisions involving "agency management or personnel or to public property, loans, grants, benefits, or contracts," per CNN, a policy that exceeds the minimum of the Administrative Procedure Act. Now, anyone can read notices of HHS plans in the Federal Register and express an opinion about them; the notice says HHS will only meet the APA requirements, per Axios. The agency's policy has been to ignore the review and comment process "sparingly." Alex Howard, an open government advocate, said, "This is a direct attack on the idea that HHS—a gigantic agency—should have to tell the public everything that it's doing."

The existing policy is burdensome and hurts the agency's ability to respond to legal and policy mandates, HHS maintains, per Reuters. The new one would allow each part of HHS to decide whether to seek public response. Dan Troy, a former FDA chief counsel, said that the input has become "extremely time-consuming" and expensive and that dropping it might improve efficiency. A Georgetown law professor is among those who find the change problematic, possibly weakening public trust as well as judicial oversight. "Pushing HHS toward secrecy undermines decades of rulemaking transparency," Lawrence Gostin said, calling it part of the Trump administration's efforts to consolidate executive power. (More Health and Human Services stories.)