Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to study climate and weather control. The idea is gaining traction as an update to a fringe theory linking airplane vapor trails, or contrails, to toxic substances that poison people.
Kennedy is expected to create a task force that will recommend possible federal actions, according to a former agency official. internal agency memo obtained by KFF Health News and a consultant who says he helped with the memo.
“HHS does not comment on future or potential policy decisions and task forces,” agency spokeswoman Emily Hilliard said in an email.
The plans show how rumors and conspiracy theories could gain legitimacy under the Trump administration, where researchers say unscientific ideas have unusual power to gain a foothold and shape public health policy.
The concept claims that aircraft vapor trails really “chemtrails” that are harmful to public health. Another version claims that aircraft or devices deployed by the federal governmentprivate companies or researchers to cause large weather changes, such as hurricanes, or change the Earth's climate, releasing dangerous chemicals in the process.
HHS Expected to Appoint Special Government Official to Investigate Climate and Weather Control, According to Report Gray Delaney former manager Department's Make America Healthy Again program. He said he prepared an internal agency memo. HHS has interviewed candidates to lead the chemtrails task force, said Jim Lee, a weather and climate blogger who Delaney said helped edit the memo, which Lee confirmed.
Delaney, who was overthrown in August of HHS, said Kennedy expressed great interest in chemtrails. The memo states that “aerosolized heavy metals such as aluminum, barium and strontium, as well as other materials such as sulfuric acid precursors, are being dispersed into the atmosphere under the auspices of combating global warming” through the process of stratospheric aerosol release.
“This is a pretty shocking note,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California. “He won't get any more tin foil hats. They really believe that toxins are being sprayed.”
Using chemtrails to poison people is just one of many baseless conspiracy theories that have found support among Trump administration health policy officials led by Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccination activist before entering politics who has supported a number of similar ideas.
In April, Kennedy was asked on Dr. Phil Primetime about chemicals being sprayed into the stratosphere to change the Earth's climate. “We think DARPA did it.” Kennedy said: referring to the agency of the Department of Defense that develops new technologies for use in the military. “And most of it is now coming from jet fuel. These materials are being added to aviation fuel. I will do everything in my power to stop this. We are bringing in someone who will think about this.”
DARPA officials did not respond to a message seeking comment.
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