Two celebrity members of President Donald Trump’s cabinet joined Hoosier Gov. Mike Braun on Tuesday to kick off a “Make Indiana Healthy Again” initiative featuring vaccine skepticism amid a growing measles outbreak — and nine freshly inked executive orders.
“You’re setting the stage at the federal level; we’re going to be your best ally at the state level,” Braun told U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz.
He spoke atop a dais before dozens of dignitaries and others packed into an ornate, wood-paneled room at the Indiana State Library. Just outside a pair of large wooden doors, protesters waved signs and chanted, their calls audible.
“This isn’t a usual top-down, one-size-fits-all public health agenda. We’re focused on root causes, transparent information and real results,” Braun, a Republican, added.
But when questioning turned to measles, it prompted unproven claims of a “leaky” vaccine.
“People get measles because they don’t vaccinate; they get measles because the vaccine wanes … about 4.8% per year,” Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist, told reporters. “So, you know, it’s a leaky vaccine, and that problem is always going to be around.”
Health experts, however, say that’s incorrect. A full, two-dose course of the attenuated live virus vaccine is 97% effective — for life.
“You can’t rely simply on the vaccine,” Kennedy continued. He said medical professionals must know how to “treat” it. But there is no treatment for the virus — only supportive care for the symptoms and life-threatening complications like pneumonia.
Protest chants could be heard throughout a “Make Indiana Healthy Again” event at the Indiana State Library on Tuesday, April 15, 2025. Above, a protester holds a sign promoting the measles vaccine. (Leslie Bonilla Muñiz/Indiana Capital Chronicle)
Indiana Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith seized on the topic later, in comments to reporters.
“We have an underlying root cause in the United States that is … disrupting our national security, and that’s the health of our people. And it’s in our food. It’s in our vaccines,” Beckwith said. “There’s things that are happening that are that we need to figure out the ‘why.'”
Beckwith pointed to rising rates of autism, adding, “That wasn’t happening 50 years ago. So what is the root cause? That’s what I love about Sec. Kennedy, and he’s going to get to the bottom of that with President Trump. Gov. Braun and myself are standing (in) lockstep.”
The Indiana Department of Health has confirmed six cases of the measles virus, all in Allen County and largely among unvaccinated children. Because measles is so easily spread, even a single case is considered an outbreak.
Taking aim at food aid
Oz dubbed Tuesday “a monumental day, not just in Indiana, but for this great nation,” noting the nine Hoosier orders exceed actions from other states.
Braun’s orders deal primarily with the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), an anti-hunger strategy aiding low- and no-income people. Benefits are federally funded, but states distribute them and shoulder some administrative costs.
One order would add Hoosiers exempt from SNAP work requirements to an existing but “underutilized” state employment and training program. About 175,000 enrollees aren’t subject to work requirements under a federal exemption for able-bodied adults 55-59 years old or raising dependent children.
“SNAP is intended to help our neighbors who have fallen on hard times, though we also need to encourage their long-term self-sufficiency so that they can thrive,” Braun told the crowd.
Another order seeks federal approval to exclude soft drinks and sweets from Indiana’s SNAP. The waiver will be filed Tuesday, according to a news release, in accordance with Kennedy’s “call for states to file such waivers.”
“More SNAP money is spent on sugary drinks and candy than on fruits and vegetables. That changes today,” Braun said, to claps and cheers.
The American Beverage Association, however, argued that restricting SNAP purchases “won’t make anyone healthier,” calling the changes “punitive policies that leverage fear-mongering and misinformation while taking decisions away from Hoosiers and giving them to government.”
“The outcome? Empty grocery store shelves, increased prices and cashiers forced to be the food police,” the group said in a news release.
Another pair of SNAP-related orders tighten asset eligibility tests and scrutinize the program’s efficacy.
Diet, fitness and reactions from across the political spectrum
Braun also directed an evaluation of food dyes and additives, a study of “diet-related chronic disease,” a review of Hoosier access to locally produced foods and development of school fitness programming. A final order takes aim at Medicaid eligibility.
“It turns out that about the most patriotic thing you can do these days is to get healthy,” Oz said.
Braun spokesman Griffin Reid said the orders were “the first part” of the Make Indiana Healthy Again initiative, “kicking off a new way of governing that is focused on long-term health outcomes.”
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita called the orders “the definition of Hoosier common sense” in an X post Tuesday.
“We owe it to our children, our most precious assets, to give them access to nutritious foods and we owe parents transparency to empower them to make healthy choices,” Rokita, a Republican, wrote.
A top Indiana Democrat, however, dubbed it a “headline strategy.”
“This is about a state government that sees working people not as neighbors to support, but as problems to regulate,” Senate Minority Leader Shelli Yoder, of Bloomington, said in a news release.
She accused Braun’s administration of cutting local public health funding, ignoring an existing report on chronic illness prevention and using fraud “to justify cruelty.” She called instead for greater investment into maternal care, mental health access and addiction treatment.