Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to investigate climate and weather control, an idea gaining traction as an updated twist on a fringe theory linking airplane vapor trails, or contrails, to toxic substances that poison people.
Kennedy is expected to create a task force to recommend possible federal action, according to a former agency official, an 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 spokesperson Emily Hilliard said by email.
The plans show how rumors and conspiracy theories can gain an air of legitimacy under the Trump administration, where researchers say that unscientific ideas have unusual power to take hold and shape public health policy.
The concept posits that airplane vapor trails are really “chemtrails” that harm public health. Another version alleges planes or devices are being deployed by the federal government, private companies, or researchers to trigger big weather changes, such as hurricanes, or to alter the Earth’s climate, emitting hazardous chemicals in the process.
HHS is expected to appoint a special government employee to investigate climate and weather control, according to Gray Delany, former head of the department’s Make America Healthy Again agenda. He said he drafted the internal agency memo. HHS has interviewed applicants to lead a “chemtrails” task force, said Jim Lee, a blogger focused on weather and climate who Delany said helped edit the memo, which Lee confirmed.
Delany, who was ousted in August from HHS, said Kennedy has expressed strong interest in chemtrails. The memo alleges that “aerosolized heavy metals such as Aluminum, Barium, and Strontium, as well as other materials such as sulfuric acid precursors, are sprayed into the atmosphere under the auspices of combatting global warming,” through a process of stratospheric aerosol injection.
“That is a pretty shocking memo,” said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California. “It doesn’t get more tinfoil hat. They really believe toxins are being sprayed.”
Deploying chemtrails to poison people is just one of many baseless conspiracy theories that have found traction among Trump administration health policy officials led by Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist before entering politics who embraces a range of such ideas.
In April, Kennedy was asked on “Dr. Phil Primetime” about chemicals being sprayed into the stratosphere to change the Earth’s climate. “It’s done, we think, by DARPA,” Kennedy said, referring to a Department of Defense agency that develops emerging technology for the military’s use. “And a lot of it now is coming out of the jet fuel. Those materials are put in jet fuel. I’m going to do everything in my power to stop it. We’re bringing on somebody who’s going to think only about that.”
DARPA officials didn’t return a message seeking comment.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
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