Weekly Wins: Historic Change at HHS as Secretary Kennedy Celebrates Year One

Feb 21, 2026

In a week when Secretary Kennedy celebrated one year at HHS, he didn’t rest on his laurels; he built on them. Real food, gold standard science and radical transparency continue to guide epochal reform throughout our public health agencies.

That’s How We MAHA

Watch Caitlin Sinclair’s MAHA Minute every Friday across MAHA Action’s social media channels, bringing you her inimitable take on HHS’s weekly wins.

Celebrating One Year of Secretary Kennedy

To commemorate one year, HHS released a list of its top achievements.

The list includes the following:

The new Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which emphasize the importance of real food while warning against the consumption of ultra-processed foods.
Convincing forty percent of the food industry to remove artificial dyes from their products.
A new Childhood Immunization Schedule, which stress informed consent and gold-standard science.
The publication of the MAHA Commission Report and Strategy, which offers a clear roadmap for winning the war against chronic disease.
A successful crack down on fraud to help redirect public health services to Americans in need.
A commitment of $50 billion to the Rural Healthcare Transformation Program, the largest initiative for rural health in history.
Clamping down on sex-reassignment surgeries performed on minors.
Granting SNAP waivers to 18 states so that taxpayer-funded programs no longer fund junk foods.
Passing new regulations that force drug companies to disclose all potential side effects in direct-to-consumer (DTC) ads.
Reforming organ donations,to preserve the dignity of all donors.
Doubling funding for the Childhood Cancer Data Initiative.

Commenting on his first year as Secretary of HHS, Kennedy said, “One year in, I’ve taken on broken systems, demanded transparency, and restored gold-standard science to the center of public health. We are driving down costs, rooting out corruption, and empowering Americans to EAT REAL FOOD. And we’re just getting started in our mission to Make America Healthy Again.”

Tennessee Goes MAHA

The MAHA Institute hosted Tennessee MAHA Day on the Hill at the state capitol. During the day-long event, MAHA advocates spoke with legislators about MAHA bills, several of which the state legislature will vote on in the current session.

Guest speaker Dr. Dan Stein, an endocrinologist and functional medicine doctor, addressed a special legislator-only event. The event featured discussions about environmental toxins that affect children and other policies that can advance MAHA values in Tennessee. MAHA State Council members participated in talks which covered MAHA focus areas, including food, informed consent, farming, and system reform.

In another big win for MAHA in Tennessee, the state House passed HB 1466, which implements the Presidential Fitness Test in public and charter schools. Additionally, the Tennessee House passed HB2255, a bill, which requires TennCare to publish comprehensive statewide data reports on the use of psychotropic medications. It will be heard next in the Senate Health Committee.

And Tennessee House Bill HB1853, which expands an existing ban on Red 40 to prohibit all artificial food dyes in school nutrition programs and beverages provided to students, is currently pending in the House Education Committee; a subcommittee on February 17, 2026, recommended its passage.

Radical Transparency Goes Open Source

HHS released the largest open-sourced Medicaid dataset in its history. The newly-published dataset includes aggregated, provider-level claims data. According to HHS DOGE, “This dataset contains aggregated, provider-level claims data for a specific billing code over time. For example, users could easily detect the large-scale autism diagnosis fraud seen in Minnesota using this dataset.”

Senate Bill Aims to End Vaccine Liability Shield

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) sponsored a bill to amend the Public Health Service Act to end the liability shield for vaccine manufacturers. Since 1986, manufacturers of vaccines on the CDC’s childhood vaccine schedule have enjoyed immunity from traditional liability when their products allegedly cause an injury.