Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants Americans to turn over their health data to tech companies and the government. It’s the very thing — prior to his takeover of the nation’s public health — that he’d been warning his followers to fear.
“It’s connecting all the things in your life, anything that you call smart, that could be your Apple Watch, it could be your telephone, your GPS on your telephone, the GPS on your car, your garage door opener,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on his podcast in 2020, produced by his then-employer, the anti-vaccine nonprofit Children’s Health Defense. “They have so much data now that they have access to … They’re going to take billions of terabytes of data and then they’re gonna do analytics on them and monetize them and sell them back to companies that want to turn you into a permanent consumer.”
Kennedy spent years warning his followers that wearable devices enabled tyranny.
Kennedy spent years warning his followers that wearable devices and the tech that they rely on were part of a sinister plan to surveil and control Americans — that they enabled tyranny, caused cancer and turned users into “permanent consumers” in a 5G-powered system of behavioral control orchestrated by Big Tech. Citing companies Apple, Google and Facebook, Kennedy cautioned on a 2023 podcast, “Those are the companies that are going to be the mechanisms for controlling our conduct, our behavior and exploiting our marketing behavior.” He was talking not just about wearables, but also all smart devices, generally known as “the Internet of Things.”
“What are you actually going to get out of it?” Kennedy asked, referencing 5G broadband technology that would connect the devices. “How is that actually going to benefit human beings? As it turns out, it has nothing to do with making our lives better. It has everything to do with creating an infrastructure for artificial intelligence, which is going to rob us of our jobs, and for surveillance and for data harvesting by big companies.”
But as health secretary, Kennedy is now trumpeting the kind of data gathering and sharing program that he and his followers would have likely opposed and spun into conspiracy catnip: a new government partnership with tech companies that will collect and track the health data and medical records of Americans.
“For decades, bureaucrats and entrenched interests buried health data and blocked patients from taking control of their health,” Kennedy said at the White House on Wednesday, in a stark departure from his past comments. “That ends today. We’re tearing down digital walls, returning power to patients and rebuilding a health system that serves the people. This is how we begin to Make America Healthy Again.”
The new initiative was announced at a ”Make Health Tech Great Again” event hosted by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Representatives pledging to support the program included Amazon, Anthropic, Apple, Google and OpenAI. The goal of the program seems to be making it easier for Americans to access their own medical records and share their data with services, including health care providers, health devices and wellness trackers.
This isn’t the first time Kennedy has backed away from or watered down conspiracy theories and extreme statements he made building the anti-vaccine and MAHA movements. During his failed presidential run and his campaign for HHS secretary, Kennedy morphed from staunch anti-vaxxer to a moderate who sought only “safe vaccines.” That he has been so far successful in his reinventions shows how conspiracy theorists and extremists can rebrand themselves once in positions of power.
They have so much data now that they have access to … They’re going to take billions of terabytes of data and then they’re gonna do analytics on them and monetize them and sell them back to companies that want to turn you into a permanent consumer.
rfk jr. on his podcast in 2020
Digital privacy watchdogs, civil rights advocates and progressive groups have voiced concern that patients’ personal health data is at risk of being monetized or misused under such a program. Conservative conspiracy theorists, including Laura Loomer, have suggested without evidence that Kennedy is looking to personally cash in on a data grab. And the extreme wing of Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement, the anti-vaccine activists and conspiracy theorists who make up his most ardent supporters, have also balked at his turn toward trackers and data sharing.
Children’s Health Defense came out against its founder and former chairman’s position on wearables in June, calling it “not a vision we share.”
“Wearables are spy devices,” Mike Adams, a Kennedy ally known to his audience as “the Health Ranger,” posted on X in June. “RFK Jr. claims they “empower consumers,” but they actually upload their data to centralized corporations, which gives them power over you.”
Kennedy began flirting with health trackers soon after taking office. In May, he held a roundtable with wellness influencers, device makers and app developers. In June, Kennedy told lawmakers that he wanted all Americans wearing a health tracker within four years and announced “one of the biggest advertising campaigns in HHS history,” to make it happen.
Under Kennedy, the NIH has reportedly been using private medical data from federal and commercial databases to study autism. And President Donald Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, Casey Means, co-founded a company that sells a subscription app linked to a wearable sensor that provides real-time data on how food and lifestyle impact blood sugar.
Kennedy and HHS did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Kennedy has previously argued falsely that Wi-Fi and technologies like 5G that power health trackers cause cancer and introduce toxins into the brain. “Wi-Fi radiation does all kinds of adverse things, including causing cancer,” Kennedy said on Joe Rogan’s podcast in 2023. “Wi-Fi radiation opens up your blood-brain barrier, so all these toxins that are in your body can now go into your brain.” When pushed by Rogan on how Wi-Fi did that, Kennedy conceded, “Now you’re going beyond my expertise.” Kennedy has previously argued falsely that Wi-Fi and technologies like 5G that power health trackers cause cancer and introduce toxins into the brain. “They’re putting in 5G to harvest our data and control our behavior,” Kennedy claimed in a speech at an anti-vaccine protest on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 2022, in which he referenced Bill Gates and said satellites “will be able to look at every square inch of the planet 24 hours a day. Digital currency that will allow them to punish us from a distance and cut off our food supply.” He warned that tech companies would collect biometric data used to manipulate consumer behavior and claimed 5G would enable a global surveillance regime. On the 2023 podcast, Dark Journalist, Kennedy said, “You know, Siri is sitting there listening to your conversations all day. And that is really good information. It knows when you cough. It knows when you change your diaper — your baby’s diaper. It can hear the baby crying and know whether you need more diapers or whatever. So that’s very valuable information for somebody to know. Right now under the current internet, they have no way of harvesting and exploiting all that. Now they’re going to know exactly where you’ve been 24 hours a day, they’re going to follow you on your GPS, on your Apple Watch, they’re going to know what your heartbeat is, what your heart rate is, what, whether you’ve been to the beach, where you went to the store, what you bought at the store.” What Kennedy really believes, a question often posed to me as a reporter who has covered him for the better part of a decade, I don’t know. Either Kennedy believes what he said before, that smart devices and data sharing would usher in a totalitarian state and is abandoning those beliefs to remain in a position of power — or he never believed it. A third possibility exists: That once in charge of the nation’s health, Kennedy was swayed — by experts or technologists or the White House to abandon the conspiracy theories he had spun, about this subject at least. I can tell you this: Representatives for several of the tech companies that Kennedy once villainized as perpetrators of data theft and a looming surveillance state were at Wednesday’s White House event. Now, with Kennedy in power, they are partners. This isn’t the first time Kennedy has backed away from or watered down conspiracy theories and extreme statements he made building the anti-vaccine and MAHA movements. During his failed presidential run and his campaign for HHS secretary, Kennedy morphed from staunch anti-vaxxer to a moderate who sought only “safe vaccines.” That he has been so far successful in his reinventions shows how conspiracy theorists and extremists can rebrand themselves once in positions of power.
Brandy Zadrozny is a senior enterprise reporter for MS NOW. She was a previously a senior enterprise reporter for NBC News, based in New York. 
