“We Are Flying Blind” – RFK Jr.’s Unprecedented Effort To Dismantle America’s Health Care System Continues
Welcome to Public Health Watch, a weekly roundup from Protect Our Care tracking catastrophic activity as part of Donald Trump’s sweeping war on health care. From installing anti-vaccine zealot RFK Jr. as Secretary of HHS to empowering Elon Musk to make indiscriminate cuts to our public health infrastructure, including the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control, Donald Trump is endangering the lives of millions of Americans. Protect Our Care’s Public Health Watch will shine a spotlight on the worst of the Trump/RFK/Musk war on vaccines, science and public health and serve as a resource for the press, public and advocacy groups to hold them accountable.
What’s Happening In Public Health?
Catastrophic Cuts Are Creating Chaos And Endangering Americans’ Health And Scientific Innovation
Politico: RFK Jr. vowed to upend American health care. It’s happening faster than expected. Shortly after Donald Trump picked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead his health department, a group of pharmaceutical executives traveled to Mar-a-Lago to personally express their reservations about the man who the president promised would “go wild” on health care. But Trump, confronted with their concerns about his history of anti-vaccine work and lack of government experience, waved the executives off, according to two people briefed on the conversation. Don’t worry about Bobby, he assured them. I’ll keep Kennedy under control. Five months later, federal health officials, industry executives and the public health community say they’re more worried than ever. Kennedy in his first seven weeks atop the Department and Health and Human Services has dramatically reshaped the U.S. health apparatus, eliminating entire agency divisions, abruptly shifting policy priorities and leaving the sprawling department in what six current and former employees described as an unprecedented state of upheaval.
Stat: Inside U.S. health agencies, workers confront chaos and questions as operations come unglued Beyond the thousands of workers laid off and programs shuttered, the Trump administration’s remaking of the Department of Health and Human Services — in a matter of weeks — is now sparking basic questions about how parts of the agency and those it oversees can continue to function. The chaos that NIH investigators are facing — which echoes reports seeping out of other HHS agencies under health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — suggests a major reckoning playing out inside the heart of the federal government’s health infrastructure. Collectively, when compounded across the $1.8 trillion enterprise, it points to a fundamental reshaping of how the department operates, and of what science and public health will look like in this country going forward. In more than two dozen interviews with employees across HHS and its subagencies, staff described grappling with challenges that they say are more dire than a mere downsizing of the workforce might suggest. Many said they were unsure how long before the fraying of certain initiatives could turn fatal, risking programs that operate largely unseen by the public but that they insist protect lives.
Politico: ‘We are flying blind’: RFK Jr.’s cuts halt data collection on abortion, cancer, HIV and more The federal teams that count public health problems are disappearing — putting efforts to solve those problems in jeopardy. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s purge of tens of thousands of federal workers has halted efforts to collect data on everything from cancer rates in firefighters to mother-to-baby transmission of HIV and syphilis to outbreaks of drug-resistant gonorrhea to cases of carbon monoxide poisoning. The cuts threaten to obscure the severity of pressing health threats and whether they’re getting better or worse, leaving officials clueless on how to respond. They could also make it difficult, if not impossible, to assess the impact of the administration’s spending and policies. Both outside experts and impacted employees argue the layoffs will cost the government more money in the long run by eliminating information on whether programs are effective or wasteful, and by allowing preventable problems to fester.
Associated Press: CDC officials plan for the agency’s splintering, but questions remain A top Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official told staff this week to start planning for the agency’s splintering. Several parts of CDC — mostly those devoted to health threats that aren’t infectious — are being spun off into the soon-to-be-created Administration for a Healthy America, the agency official told senior leaders in calls and meetings. The directive came from Dr. Debra Houry, the agency’s chief medical officer, according to three CDC officials who were in attendance. They declined to be identified because they weren’t authorized to talk about the plans and fear being fired if they were identified. Asked to comment, Houry referred The Associated Press to CDC media relations representatives. CDC spokesperson Jason McDonald acknowledged the agency is planning for possible changes but that “none of the items discussed at the meeting have been finalized, and are subject to change.”
CBS: RFK Jr. says he’s “not familiar” with all health program cuts in exclusive interview Since his appointment in February, Kennedy has facilitated sweeping cuts affecting a wide range of programs and employees. When asked by LaPook if he personally approved the more than $11 billion proposed in cuts to local and state programs that address infectious disease, mental health, addiction and childhood vaccination, Kennedy said, “No I’m not familiar with those cuts. We’d have to go … the cuts were mainly DEI cuts, which the president ordered.” LaPook provided Kennedy with an example of a $750,000 University of Michigan grant focused on adolescent diabetes, which was eliminated. “I didn’t know that, and that’s something that we’ll look at,” Kennedy said. He added that he could not speak to if it should be considered a DOGE cut. “I just, I’m not familiar with that particular study. But there’s a number of studies that were cut that came to our attention and that did not deserve to be cut, and we reinstated them. Our purpose is not to reduce any level of scientific research that’s important.”
- Politico: What HHS told House staff about RFK Jr.’s overhaul of the agency Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is expected to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on his agency’s budget in the coming weeks, but HHS officials told committee staffers that he might not be able to speak on his department’s sweeping overhaul, a Democratic aide for the panel said Friday. According to the aide, granted anonymity to share details of a private meeting, the agency officials argued in a closed-door briefing that because of the sweeping reduction in force — which aims to cut 10,000 of the department’s workers — Kennedy won’t be able to discuss the matter for 60 days. Those officials cited U.S. Office of Personnel Management statutes.
- Stat: RFK Jr.’s Senate hearing on health department cuts to be delayed for weeks Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will likely delay his appearance before the Senate’s health committee by several weeks, even as he makes historic changes to the Department of Health and Human Services and contends with a surging measles outbreak. Senate health committee Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and ranking member Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) publicly asked the secretary to appear on April 10. They made the request on April 1, the same day that Kennedy executed major cuts to the federal health workforce. Kennedy’s team confirmed receipt of the request but did not confirm attendance, according to committee staff. Typically, hearings have to be scheduled at least seven days in advance, though that requirement can be waived in certain cases. After this week, the Senate is taking a two-week break and is due to return April 28. Asked if Kennedy had a date set to appear before the committee, an HHS spokesperson declined to comment. A Cassidy spokesperson said Monday there was no update on the timing of the hearing but previously said it’s “not uncommon for the proposed date to be negotiated to accommodate schedules.”
New York Times: As Kennedy Champions Chronic Disease Prevention, Key Research Is Cut Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has spoken of an “existential threat” that he said can destroy the nation. “We have the highest chronic disease burden of any country in the world,” Mr. Kennedy said at a hearing in January before the Senate confirmed him as the secretary of Health and Human Services. And on Monday he is starting a tour in the Southwest to promote a program to combat chronic illness, emphasizing nutrition and lifestyle. But since Mr. Kennedy assumed his post, key grants and contracts that directly address these diseases, including obesity, diabetes and dementia, which experts agree are among the nation’s leading health problems, are being eliminated. These programs range in scale and expense. Researchers warn that their demise could mean lost opportunities to address an aspect of public health that Mr. Kennedy has said is his priority. “This is a huge mistake,” said Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the co-director of the Healthcare Transformation Institute at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.
- Associated Press: RFK Jr. wants to target chronic disease in US tribes. A key program to do that was gutted Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent time in tribal communities in Arizona and New Mexico this week highlighting ways they are trying to prevent chronic disease among Native Americans and Alaska Natives, something he has said is one of his top priorities. But Kennedy didn’t appear to publicly address a Native health program using traditional medicine and foods to tackle disproportionate rates of conditions like diabetes and liver disease. The program, called Healthy Tribes, was gutted in this month’s federal health layoffs. Some Native leaders say they are having trouble grasping the dissonance between Kennedy’s words and his actions. With little information, they wonder if Healthy Tribes is part of the Trump administration’s push to end diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. There also is confusion about what and who is left at the 11-year-old program, which was part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, under Kennedy’s agency, and doled out $32.5 million a year.
Health Impacts:
Local Impacts:
Chaotic Firings and Re-Hirings:
Cruel and Destructive Policy Changes:
RFK Jr. Is An Extreme MAGA Anti-Vaxxer Who’s Breaking His “Assurances” To Key Republicans To Get Confirmed And Mis-Managing HHS
New York Times: The Many Ways Kennedy Is Already Undermining Vaccines During his Senate confirmation hearings to be health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. presented himself as a supporter of vaccines. But in office, he and the agencies he leads have taken far-reaching, sometimes subtle steps to undermine confidence in vaccine efficacy and safety. The National Institutes of Health halted funding for researchers who study vaccine hesitancy and hoped to find ways to overcome it. It also canceled programs intended to discover new vaccines to prevent future pandemics. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shelved an advertising campaign for the flu shot. Mr. Kennedy has said inaccurately that the scientists who advise the C.D.C. on vaccines have “severe, severe conflicts of interest” in promoting the products and cannot be trusted. The Health and Human Services Department cut billions of dollars to state health agencies, including funds needed to modernize state programs for childhood immunization. Mr. Kennedy said in a televised interview on Wednesday that he was unaware of this widely reported development. The Food and Drug Administration canceled an open meeting on flu vaccines with scientific advisers, later holding it behind closed doors. A top official paused the agency’s review of Novavax’s Covid vaccine. In a televised interview last week, Mr. Kennedy said falsely that similarly created vaccines don’t work against respiratory viruses. Some scientists said they saw a pattern: an effort to erode support for routine vaccination, and for the scientists who have long held it up as a public health goal
Associated Press: RFK Jr. says HHS will determine the cause of autism by September The nation’s top health agency will undertake a “massive testing and research effort” to determine the cause of autism, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced. Kennedy, a longtime vaccine critic who has pushed a discredited theory that routine childhood shots cause the developmental disability, said Thursday that the effort will be completed by September and involve hundreds of scientists. He shared the plans with President Donald Trump during a televised Cabinet meeting. Trump suggested that vaccines could be to blame for autism rates, although decades of research have concluded there is no link between the two. “There’s got to be something artificial out there that’s doing this,” Trump told Kennedy. “If you can come up with that answer, where you stop taking something, eating something, or maybe it’s a shot. But something’s causing it.”
Washington Post: RFK Jr.: If you eat doughnuts or smoke, should society pay for your health care? Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asked whether society should pay for the health care of Americans who eat doughnuts or smoke when they know those habits can contribute to poor health outcomes. “If you’re smoking three packs of cigarettes a day, should you expect society to pay when you get sick?” the nation’s top health official asked in an interview released Wednesday with CBS News chief medical correspondent, physician Jon LaPook. Kennedy went on to say that it is an American’s choice to “eat doughnuts all day” or drink sodas, and he promised not to take those choices away. “But in terms of, should you then expect society to care for you when you predictably get very sick at the same level as somebody who was born with a congenital illness?” he asked. “The best answer to that is to realign our incentives so that the economic incentives, the individuals and the industry align with the public health outcomes that we desire.”
Politico: RFK Jr. says Deep State ‘is real,’ called FDA employees ‘sock puppet’ of industry HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s visit to the FDA Friday was supposed to introduce him as a trusted leader to agency employees. It did anything but. Over the course of 40 minutes, Kennedy, in largely off-the-cuff remarks, asserted that the “Deep State” is real, referenced past CIA experiments on human mind control and accused the employees he was speaking to of becoming a “sock puppet” of the industries they regulate.
Stat: Health secretary RFK Jr. declares certain vaccines have ‘never worked,’ flummoxing scientists Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has expressed another unorthodox view on vaccines, with the long-time vaccine critic declaring that vaccines for respiratory bugs that target a sole part of the pathogen they are meant to protect against do not work. The claim was dismissed as erroneous by vaccine experts, who were befuddled by the secretary’s theory, espoused during an interview with CBS News. Kennedy made the claim in explaining a controversial recent decision by political appointees at the Food and Drug Administration to delay granting a full license to Novavax’s Covid-19 vaccine, which is still given under an emergency use authorization or EUA. “It is a single antigen vaccine. And for respiratory illnesses, the single antigen vaccines have never worked,” Kennedy said when asked by CBS’s chief medical correspondent, Jonathan LaPook, why the decision was delayed.
- Stat: RFK Jr. suggests some vaccines are risky or ineffective, downplays measles threat Facing a growing outbreak of measles that could test his leadership, health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. this week is sowing doubt about the safety and efficacy of some vaccines — beyond the measles shot — and arguing the government shouldn’t mandate their use. He also raised questions about what killed an 8-year-old girl whose death was attributed to measles by health officials, his latest remarks that downplay the threat of the virus. In an interview with CBS News that aired Wednesday, the nation’s top health official said that “people should get the measles vaccine,” a more direct assertion than has been typical from Kennedy, who has a long history of questioning vaccine safety. At the same time, however, he appeared to minimize the threat of a growing outbreak centered in Texas and New Mexico and sent mixed signals about vaccines, saying many vaccines “aren’t safety tested.” He went on to argue they’re not tested against placebo groups or only over short periods of time. Public health officials across independent bodies have repeatedly approved vaccines based on their safety and efficacy evidence, including placebo-controlled trials and long-term studies. “When I say they’re not safety tested, what I mean is that they’re not adequately [tested],” he said.
The Atlantic: What RFK Jr. Told Grieving Texas Families About the Measles Vaccine On Sunday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. met with the families of two girls who had died from measles in West Texas—and raised doubts about the safety of vaccines. “He said, ‘You don’t know what’s in the vaccine anymore,’” Peter Hildebrand, whose 8-year-old daughter, Daisy’s, funeral had been held just hours earlier, told me. “I actually asked him about it.” The secretary of Health and Human Services had traveled to the small, remote city of Seminole, where 1,000 mourners for Daisy filled the wooden pews of an unmarked Mennonite church. After the service, coffee and homemade bread were served at a traditional gathering known as a faspa. Kennedy was there, he wrote on X that afternoon, to “console the families and to be with the community in their moment of grief.” The slow-brewing crisis, in which more than 600 people have been infected with measles and three have died—America’s first deaths from the disease in a decade—has left Kennedy in an awkward position. For many years, he has been the country’s most prominent anti-vaccine activist. Americans “have been misled by the pharmaceutical industry and their captured government agency allies into believing that measles is a deadly disease and that measles vaccines are necessary, safe, and effective,” he wrote in a foreword to a 2021 book. Since taking office, though, he has moderated his tone, at times endorsing the shots’ importance to public health. In his public post from Seminole, Kennedy did so once again, describing his department’s efforts to supply Texas pharmacies and clinics with “needed MMR vaccines,” which he called “the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles.” Yet there’s ample reason to believe that Kennedy hasn’t really changed his views: “I have worked with Bobby for many years, and I can confidently say that he has a heart that is incapable of compromise,” Del Bigtree, the communications director for Kennedy’s independent presidential campaign, said on X, in an effort to reassure some angry and confused supporters. “He is at a poker table with the slyest serpents in the world,” he added; “we should not ask him to show his cards.” (Bigtree also called the MMR vaccine “one of the most effective ways to cause autism,” despite the fact that study after study has disproved the link.) Indeed, when I spoke with Hildebrand by phone on Monday, I learned that Kennedy was questioning vaccines behind the scenes, even in the midst of his condolence trip to Texas.
- The Guardian: RFK Jr stayed silent on vaccine, says father of child who died from measles A Texas man who buried his eight-year-old daughter on Sunday after the unvaccinated child died with measles says Robert F Kennedy Jr “never said anything” about the vaccine against the illness or its proven efficacy while visiting the girl’s family and community for her funeral. “He did not say that the vaccine was effective,” Pete Hildebrand, the father of Daisy Hildebrand, said in reference to Kennedy during a brief interview on Monday. “I had supper with the guy … and he never said anything about that.”
Bloomberg: RFK Jr.’s Inconsistent Measles Messages Alarm Health Officials Health officials across the US are increasingly concerned that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., head of the federal health department, is sowing confusion about the effectiveness of the measles vaccine amid an outbreak that has left two unvaccinated children in Texas dead. On Sunday, in a post on X disclosing the latest death, Kennedy wrote that “the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine,” marking his clearest endorsement of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to date. Hours later, Kennedy posted photos with two Texas doctors he claimed had “healed” about 300 children with measles by using a steroid treatment and an antibiotic. Neither has proved to treat measles, which is a virus and thus not susceptible to antibiotics. To public health experts, such statements from the secretary of Health and Human Services risk misleading people into thinking unproven treatments are a viable alternative to the measles vaccine, which is more than 90% effective at preventing infection.
- NBC: Kennedy draws from misinformation playbook by touting an inhaled steroid to treat measles The measles outbreak in West Texas has reignited familiar anti-vaccine tactics: claiming there are readily available treatments for the disease while sowing doubt in the safety of vaccines. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Sunday touted two particular medications that have not been shown to work as first-line treatments for measles: the steroid budesonide and the antibiotic clarithromycin. Although experts say there are no specific treatments proven to help people recover faster from measles, Kennedy claimed on X that the medications had been instrumental in treating around 300 children in Texas, and told Fox News that doctors prescribing them had seen “very, very good results.” Kennedy has been sharply criticized by medical experts for weeks for spreading misinformation about the measles vaccine and failing to encourage parents to vaccinate their children.
- Washington Post: Trump has faced measles before. The difference this time is RFK Jr. Six years ago, as measles outbreaks cropped up across the country, President Donald Trump was asked what parents should do. “They have to get the shots,” he said. “The vaccinations are so important.” On Sunday, Trump was asked about the growing measles outbreak in Texas and New Mexico. “It’s so far a fairly small number of people,” he said, though the outbreaks were similar in size at the time of both interviews. “This is not something new.” Two children have died of measles-related complications, and a third death has been linked to the infection so far this year. No one died in the 2019 outbreaks. Public health experts and former officials are bemoaning the current lack of action, noting the clear difference between the government’s response then and now. With Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health and human services secretary and increasing public hesitancy over vaccines, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been muzzled, messaging has been muddled, and public health funding has been slashed.
CBS: RFK Jr. calls for end of fluoride in water, after Utah ban Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called Monday for the end of community water fluoridation, praising Utah’s move to ban the addition of fluoride to the water supply. “It makes no sense to have it in our water supply. And I’m very, very proud of this state for being the first state to ban it. And I hope many more will come,” Kennedy told reporters in Utah. It comes as the Environmental Protection Agency says it has now launched a new review of fluoride’s health effects, working with Kennedy’s department as it weighs whether to tighten federal restrictions on its addition to drinking water. Kennedy will also be reconvening his department’s Community Preventive Services Task Force to make a new recommendation on water fluoridation, an HHS official said. The federal task force previously recommended water fluoridation after a review in 2013, citing “strong evidence” of its public health benefits to reduce cavities outweighing its costs.
- Axios: EPA “prepared to act” on RFK’s request to remove fluoride from drinking water The Trump administration is formally taking on fluoride in drinking water, with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy planning to tell the CDC to end its longtime recommendation for the practice. EPA head Lee Zeldin also said his agency is “ready to act. Why it matters: Public health and dental experts have warned ending the addition of fluoride to drinking water will harm children’s teeth. Driving the news: Zeldin and Kennedy joined Utah lawmakers in a Monday media event to praise the state’s first-in-the-nation ban on fluoride in public water systems. Kennedy later told the AP he planned to assemble a task force to examine the mineral in drinking water and tell the CDC to stop recommending it.
Associated Press: Ex-official says he was forced out of FDA after trying to protect vaccine safety data from RFK Jr. Shortly before he was forced to resign, the nation’s top vaccine regulator says he refused to grant Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s team unrestricted access to a tightly held vaccine safety database, fearing that the information might be manipulated or even deleted. In an interview with The Associated Press, former Food and Drug Administration vaccine chief Dr. Peter Marks discussed his efforts to “make nice” with Kennedy and address his longstanding concerns about vaccine safety, including by developing a “vaccine transparency action plan.” Marks agreed to give Kennedy’s associates the ability to read thousands of reports of potential vaccine-related issues sent to the government’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS. But he would not allow them to directly edit the data. “Why wouldn’t we? Because frankly we don’t trust (them),” he said, using a profanity. “They’d write over it or erase the whole database.”
Other MAHA Activities:
Court Battles
Stat: HHS firings could face legal challenges over inaccuracies, process used to make cuts A week after widespread cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services, many workers are left wondering: Was that legal? Some lawyers and labor experts say errors in termination notices and the swift speed and scale of the firings raise legal questions. The reduction-in-force, or RIF, brought the toll at HHS to 20,000 workers, according to government estimates. Some agencies, like the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are believed to have lost nearly one-fifth of their workforce, impeding basic functions. Lawyers and others who have watched the RIFs unfold say it’s not clear if government officials followed the specific rules and processes required by law. A few key issues raise their eyebrows: The kinds of workers who were cut, the way the government drew the boundaries, and the drama unfolding at a critical appeals board. Workers across HHS have reported that whole offices and programs were slashed, forcing out both newer employees and some with decades of experience. That is unconventional, experts told STAT. Typically in a RIF, the government first draws a boundary around a certain function or program that it wants to make leaner. Then, officials must make what’s called a retention register. This list, which ranks workers by many factors — including seniority, tenure, veteran status, and job performance — is used to rank personnel.
Disastrous, Dangerous Appointments
Wired: Dr. Oz Pushed for AI Health Care in First Medicare Agency Town Hall Dr. Mehmet Oz, the new administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), spent much of his first all-staff meeting on Monday promoting the use of artificial intelligence at the agency and praising Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again Initiative,” sources tell WIRED. During the meeting, Oz discussed possibly prioritizing AI avatars over frontline health care workers. Oz claimed that if a patient went to a doctor for a diabetes diagnosis, it would be $100 per hour, while an appointment with an AI avatar would cost considerably less, at just $2 an hour. Oz also claimed that patients have rated the care they’ve received from an AI avatar as equal to or better than a human doctor. (Research suggests patients are actually more skeptical of medical advice given by AI.) Because of technologies like machine learning and AI, Oz claimed, it is now possible to scale “good ideas” in an affordable and fast way.
Washington Post: Trump health nominee called for ‘corrective care’ for trans youth President Donald Trump’s pick for a top health post has called for transgender youth to undergo “corrective care” instead of transitioning and has repeated conspiracy theories about the covid-19 pandemic, according to a Washington Post review of his podcast and radio appearances. Brian Christine, a 61-year-old Alabama urologist, would succeed former U.S. assistant secretary for health Rachel Levine, who made history during the Biden administration when she became the highest ranking openly transgender federal government official.
Public Health Threats
CBS: Weekly measles cases top 90 in U.S. for first time in years The number of measles cases reported in the U.S. in a single week has topped 90 for the first time since a record wave in 2019, according to figures published Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Ninety-one cases of measles were reported with rashes that began the week of March 23, with Arkansas, Hawaii and Indiana joining the list of two dozen states with confirmed measles cases. For the week of March 30, 81 cases were reported, and another 21 cases were reported for the following week. But those figures are expected to rise as more cases are confirmed. So far this year, at least 712 measles cases have been confirmed in the U.S. — the second-highest number of cases reported in a single year since the 1990s. Nearly 30,000 measles cases were reported in 1990, largely due to gaps in vaccination. In 2019, there were 1,274 confirmed measles cases.
Associated Press: Measles exploded in Texas after stagnant vaccine funding. New cuts threaten the same across the US The measles outbreak in West Texas didn’t happen just by chance. The easily preventable disease, declared eliminated in the U.S. in 2000, ripped through communities sprawling across more than 20 Texas counties in part because health departments were starved of the funding needed to run vaccine programs, officials say. “We haven’t had a strong immunization program that can really do a lot of boots-on-the-ground work for years,” said Katherine Wells, the health director in Lubbock, a 90-minute drive from the outbreak’s epicenter. Immunization programs nationwide have been left brittle by years of stagnant funding by federal, state and local governments. In Texas and elsewhere, this helped set the stage for the measles outbreak and fueled its spread. Now cuts to federal funding threaten efforts to prevent more cases and outbreaks.
- CBS: Extra measles vaccine shot recommended for some travelers to Texas, other areas with outbreaks, CDC says The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now backing an additional measles vaccine shot for some travelers within the United States, multiple health officials tell CBS News, in response to record outbreaks of the highly contagious virus this year. In a letter shared with health departments on April 8, the CDC said it would now be recommending that visitors to areas affected by measles outbreaks within the United States follow stepped up vaccination guidance issued by local authorities. Most adults still do not need an additional dose of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, the CDC says. But for “people going to or living in areas in the United States with ongoing community-wide measles transmission,” the CDC says doctors should “reassess need” for vaccination.
- Texas Tribune: Push for Texas to weaken vaccine mandates persists as measles surge As measles tears through West Texas — infecting hundreds, hospitalizing dozens and claiming the lives of two children — some lawmakers in Austin are pushing bills to roll back vaccine requirements and expand access to exemptions under the banner of “choice.” Measles, a highly contagious disease that was declared eliminated from the U.S. in 2000, has swept through West Texas communities with lower-than-average vaccination rates, turning Texas into the epicenter of a possible national epidemic with 505 cases identified since late January, including 57 hospitalizations and two deaths. Two shots of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, which has been administered for decades, is the safest and most effective way to build immunity to the virus. Still, Texas lawmakers have introduced bills to weaken vaccine mandates and make it easier for parents to obtain exemptions for their children — and there’s little indication that the state’s worst outbreak in three decades has changed their thinking.
ProPublica: Why You Should Also Worry About Whooping Cough Amid Measles Outbreak In the past six months, two babies in Louisiana have died of pertussis, the disease commonly known as whooping cough. Washington state recently announced its first confirmed death from pertussis in more than a decade. Idaho and South Dakota each reported a death this year, and Oregon last year reported two as well as its highest number of cases since 1950. While much of the country is focused on the spiraling measles outbreak concentrated in the small, dusty towns of West Texas, cases of pertussis have skyrocketed by more than 1,500% nationwide since hitting a recent low in 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Deaths tied to the disease are also up, hitting 10 last year, compared with about two to four in previous years. Cases are on track to exceed that total this year. Doctors, researchers and public health experts warn that the measles outbreak, which has grown to more than 600 cases, may just be the beginning. They say outbreaks of preventable diseases could get much worse with falling vaccination rates and the Trump administration slashing spending on the country’s public health infrastructure. National rates for four major vaccines, which had held relatively steady in the years before the COVID-19 pandemic, have fallen significantly since, according to a ProPublica analysis of the most recent federal kindergarten vaccination data. Not only have vaccination rates for measles, mumps and rubella fallen, but federal data shows that so have those for pertussis, diphtheria, tetanus, hepatitis B and polio.
ABC: Trump’s Immigration Tactics Obstruct Efforts To Avert Bird Flu Pandemic, Researchers Say Aggressive deportation tactics have terrorized farmworkers at the center of the nation’s bird flu strategy, public health workers say. Dairy and poultry workers have accounted for most cases of the bird flu in the U.S. — and preventing and detecting cases among them is key to averting a pandemic. But public health specialists say they’re struggling to reach farmworkers because many are terrified to talk with strangers or to leave home. “People are very scared to go out, even to get groceries,” said Rosa Yanez, an outreach worker at Strangers No Longer, a Detroit-based Catholic organization that supports immigrants and refugees in Michigan with legal and health problems, including the bird flu. “People are worried about losing their kids, or about their kids losing their parents.” “I used to tell people about the bird flu, and workers were happy to have that information,” Yanez said. “But now people just want to know their rights.”
Reuters: U.S. fentanyl deaths have been plunging. Enter Trump Federal spending cuts instigated by the White House threaten to reverse a steep decline in American overdose deaths and are jeopardizing other gains in the battle against synthetic opioids, people on the front lines of the anti-narcotics fight say. Government drug researchers have been sacked. One of the nation’s premier narcotics testing labs has furloughed chemists who test the potency of illicit drugs. A Pennsylvania outreach center that distributed thousands of doses of lifesaving overdose-reversal medication has closed its doors. An Illinois nonprofit that works to reduce overdose deaths in communities of color is slated to lose grants worth 60% of its budget. The office of federal workers who conduct the nation’s only annual survey on drug use has been gutted. To piece together how the Trump administration’s actions could affect the nation’s overdose crisis, Reuters spoke with more than three dozen current and former U.S. health officials, public health experts, community-level harm reduction advocates and recently fired federal workers. Their warning was stark: Layoffs and funding cuts are dismantling the carefully constructed health infrastructure that drove the number of overdose deaths down by tens of thousands last year.
Bloomberg: Idaho Governor Approves Ban on School, Business Vaccine Mandates Idaho will soon prohibit vaccine and other medical intervention requirements for employees and students under a law set to take effect this summer. The ban is part of legislation (SB 1210) Idaho Gov. Brad Little (R) quietly signed into law April 4 stating that entities in the state may not require a “medical procedure, treatment, device, drug, injection, medication, or medical action” as a condition for employment or school attendance.
Public Health Threats Around The World:
Opinion and Commentary
