Ancient miasma theory may help explain Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s vaccine moves [View all]

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has upended medical research and public health in the U.S. in many ways. One of the ideas that could be influencing his overhaul of federal health agencies dates back to ancient Greece.

The miasma theory is one of the first ideas that civilization hatched to try to explain why people get sick.

"It goes back to Hippocrates," says Dr. Howard Markel, an emeritus professor of medical history from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. "He wrote in a book called Epidemics, that epidemics came from some type of pollution – some pollution of the atmosphere, of the air that we breathe. And hence we got terrible infectious diseases."

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But in a book Kennedy published about four years ago, The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health, the now- health secretary harkens back to the miasma theory.

"Miasma theory emphasizes preventing disease by fortifying the immune system through nutrition and reducing exposures to environmental toxins and stresses," Kennedy writes.

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/06/14/nx-s1-5429732/ancient-miasma-theory-may-help-explain-health-secretary-robert-f-kennedy-jr-s-vaccine-moves