Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is currently on a national tour, touting his overhaul of federal dietary guidelines and urging Americans to “eat real food.” With this in mind, he brought his pitch to a Tennessee audience this week and proceeded to do fresh harm to whatever remains of his credibility. The New York Times reported:
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asserted on Wednesday that the keto diet could cure schizophrenia — an unfounded claim that experts say vastly overstates preliminary research into whether the high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet might help patients with the disorder. […]
‘We now know that the things that you eat are driving mental illness in this country,’ Mr. Kennedy told a crowd at the Tennessee State Capitol, adding that a doctor at Harvard had ‘cured schizophrenia using keto diets.’
He was apparently referring to a doctor named Christopher Palmer, who wrote in 2019 that two schizophrenia patients experienced “complete remission of symptoms” with the keto diet.
The problem, as the Times’ report explained in detail, is that the diet “poses risks to heart health,” and RFK Jr. oversold the available evidence. What’s more, Palmer himself noted that Kennedy’s characterization of his research was incorrect.
Dr. Paul Appelbaum, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University and past president of the American Psychiatric Association, told the newspaper that there’s some “very preliminary evidence” that the diet “might be helpful” in patients with schizophrenia, but it is “simply misleading to suggest that we know that ketogenic diets can improve schizophrenia symptoms, much less that they can ‘cure’ the condition.”
That’s important information, though it’s also worth emphasizing the broader concern: In 2026, Americans are not in a position to trust or rely upon the nation’s health secretary.
The Times report noted, for example, that RFK Jr. “has a history of promoting ideas with little to no scientific evidence to back them up. He has rejected established evidence that H.I.V. is the cause of AIDS, pushed the idea that Covid-19 was ‘ethnically targeted’ to spare Jews and Chinese people, and repeatedly insisted that vaccines are a possible cause of autism despite a lack of proof.”
That is, of course, a small sample from a larger list. NPR had a report along these lines in 2023, noting, “Wi-Fi causes cancer and ‘leaky brain,’ Kennedy told podcaster Joe Rogan. … Antidepressants are to blame for school shootings, he mused during an appearance with Twitter CEO Elon Musk. Chemicals in the water supply could turn children transgender, he told right-wing Canadian psychologist and podcaster Jordan Peterson, echoing a false assertion made by serial fabulist Alex Jones.”
RFK Jr. keeps adding to this embarrassing record. A few weeks ago, he claimed that a “good mother” doesn’t “trust the experts” on matters of public health. All things considered, he appears to be the last person who should be talking about who deserves the public’s trust.
This post has been updated to reflect a statement from Dr. Christopher Palmer.
