A Senate hearing for President Donald Trump’s surgeon general pick, Dr. Casey Means, has been postponed because she went into labor. The news from a Senate health committee spokesperson Thursday morning comes just hours before Means was set to appear virtually before the committee for her confirmation hearing. Means, a Stanford-educated physician and wellness influencer, was expected to present her vision for tackling chronic disease by addressing root causes, aligning with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s agenda.

More than 420 anti-science bills attacking longstanding public health protections – vaccines, milk safety, and fluoride – have been introduced in statehouses across the U.S. this year, part of an organized, politically savvy campaign to enshrine a conspiracy theory-driven agenda into law. An Associated Press investigation found that the wave of legislation has cropped up in most states, pushed by people with close ties to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The effort would strip away protections that have been built over a century and are integral to American lives and society.

Powerful anti-vaccine advocates and people selling potentially harmful goods such as raw milk are profiting from the push to write anti-science policies into law across the U.S. They portray the Make America Healthy Again movement as grassroots, but it’s fueled by a web of well-funded national groups led by people who’ve profited – financially and otherwise – from sowing distrust of medicine and science. The Associated Press found state legislation that includes language in the text or public testimony that explicitly spells out that a reason to change the law is to make money or increase sales for dairy farmers.

For its investigation on anti-science legislation, The Associated Press examined more than 1,000 bills that had been introduced in states across the nation. Reporters identified the bills using the bill-tracking software Plural and a database maintained by the National Conference of State Legislatures. AP focused on bills related to vaccines, fluoride and raw, unpasteurized milk, and analyzed each bill for whether it undermined science-based protections for human health. Reporters also examined national advocacy groups connected to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., capturing bills they supported or opposed and any reasoning they provided for doing so.