BLACK ROCK CITY, Nev. — In what officials are calling an unprecedented experiment in interagency collaboration, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has reportedly brought the heads of several federal health agencies to Burning Man this week in an effort to help them “access a shared group flow state.”
According to sources familiar with the initiative, the delegation includes senior officials from the FDA, CDC, NIH and other agencies who have been instructed to temporarily suspend their usual bureaucratic rivalries and “just vibe.”
“We’ve spent years trying to coordinate through traditional means of diplomacy,” Kennedy reportedly told the group while standing beneath a 40-foot blacklight mushroom installation on the playa. “But what if we simply took various research chemicals and danced together until the regulatory differences dissolved?”
The delegation’s first exercise, sources said, involved forming a circle and collectively contemplating the question: What if public health were less about institutions and more about vibes?
The experiment has already produced mixed results.
One FDA official reportedly achieved a breakthrough after dosing himself on an advance sample of Compass Pathways’ proprietary crystalline polymorph psilocybin formulation, but had to re-evaluate the reason for the breakthrough after factoring in the altered state caused by sleep deprivation and potential heat stroke.
Meanwhile, a CDC administrator allegedly attempted to conduct contact tracing after being exposed to severe levels of entitlement and smugness on the playa.
NIH officials are said to be developing a randomized controlled trial to determine whether group flow state can be replicated in controlled laboratory conditions.
Kennedy, however, remains optimistic.
“If we can get these agencies into flow together,” he said, “maybe we can finally unlock the greatest public-health intervention of all: complete uniformity.”
Officials confirmed that the group’s next exercise will involve trekking to the trash fence to see Daft Punk wearing only clothing borrowed from strangers along the way.