The US Department of Health and Human Services has reversed an obscure requirement called the Richardson Waiver, which requires a period of notice and an opportunity for public comment on a wide range of decisions related to “agency management or personnel or to public property,

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is seeking to eliminate public participation in many of his department's policy decisions, a move that appears to contradict his pledge to Congress of "radical transparency.

(Reuters) - Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is proposing to end public comment on decisions made by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, a document from the health agency showed on Friday.

The move comes during a time of major upheaval across federal health agencies, and as the public waits to see how Kennedy will enact his pledge of “radical transparency” at the department.

The Department of Health and Human Services is reversing a decades-old policy of soliciting public comment before it issues regulations affecting government benefits and grants, including NIH funding.