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Trump’s War on Health Care: Public Health Watch

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August 11, 2025
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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 And Cruel Policies Are Creating Chaos And Endangering Americans’ Health And Scientific Innovation

Stat: Trump executive order seeks to centralize control of grantmaking under political appointees A sweeping new executive order seeks to transform how the federal government awards billions of dollars in research grants by giving President Trump’s political appointees unprecedented power over the projects agencies fund.   The order issued Thursday night, titled “Improving Oversight Of Federal Grantmaking,” aims to fundamentally rewrite the rules that for decades have guided grant decisions. Instead of experts and career civil servants setting funding decisions and priorities, the order places that authority with presidential appointees who, in coordination with the White House, are directed to use their “independent judgment” and “advance the President’s policy priorities.” The executive power grab, which experts expect to be challenged in court, is likely to have massive and immediate impacts on the daily operations of American science. The text of the order states that any announcement of funding opportunities now needs to be reviewed by a senior appointee or someone they designate. It also instructs agencies to create a formal path for canceling previously awarded grants at any time, and adds layers of political control to the process of distributing federal funds. Taken together, it promises to diminish the importance of peer review by scientific experts, shrink the influence of traditional academic research powerhouses, and erect new bureaucratic barriers around federally supported science.

CBS: Patient numbers at NIH hospital have dropped under Trump, jeopardizing care The number of people receiving treatment at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center — the renowned research hospital that cares for patients with rare or life-threatening diseases — has tumbled under the second Trump administration, according to government documents and interviews with current and former NIH employees. NIH documents viewed by KFF Health News show a pronounced decline in patients at the 200-bed hospital from February through April, a time that coincides with the Department of Health and Human Services’ mass firings of government employees, the gutting of scientific research, and the administration’s broad crackdown on immigration. The average number of patients being treated daily during that time hovered between 60 and 80, with the April numbers falling to the lower end of that range. By contrast, in October, about 80 patients per day on average were at the hospital. The number of cancer clinical trial participants at the hospital as of July was down about 20% from last year, one NIH cancer scientist said. KFF Health News agreed not to identify the scientist and others who participated in this article who were not authorized to speak to the press and feared retaliation.

  • Washington Post: Patient seeking care at NIH hospital detained by ICE Federal immigration authorities detained a woman seeking medical care at the National Institutes of Health’s flagship research hospital, according to an internal document and an NIH official briefed on the situation. The woman, an existing patient, drew scrutiny at a security station to enter the campus of the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, when she handed over a state driver’s license that failed to meet new federal security ID standards. That prompted NIH officials to check for warrants and discover she had an order for removal. They then called U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The woman was to receive care through the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, according to the official and the document.

Politico: Watchdog agency says Trump broke the law by withholding NIH funding The investigative arm of Congress has found that the National Institutes of Health has illegally withheld funds lawmakers required it to spend. A Tuesday report from the Government Accountability Office says that the Trump administration failed to adhere to the requirements of a 1974 law, the Impoundment Control Act, which determines when a president can cancel federal funding appropriated by Congress. In implementing a communications pause this winter at the NIH’s parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, and in complying with President Donald Trump’s various executive orders, the “NIH withheld funds from obligation and expenditure,” the reports says. Trump’s orders included directives to cancel NIH grants, contracts and other funding related to diversity, equity and inclusion. In doing so, the agency terminated more than 1,800 grants between February and June, and did not publish grant review meeting notices between late January and early March, effectively freezing funding.

  • The Atlantic: How Many Times Can Science Funding Be Canceled? Last week, the National Institutes of Health finally got some good news. A Senate subcommittee voted, with support from both parties, to increase the agency’s $48 billion budget—a direct rebuke to the Trump administration’s proposed budget, which would have slashed the agency’s funding some 40 percent. After the administration spent months battering the NIH with funding freezes, mass firings, and waves of grant terminations, that Senate vote was one of the only clear signals since January that at least some leaders in the U.S. government were committed to preserving the NIH’s status as the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research. But inside the agency, officials could not wholeheartedly celebrate. Its political leadership has shredded the NIH playbook so thoroughly, current and former NIH officials told me, that even at current funding levels they are unable to perform their core work of vetting and powering some of the best scientific research around the world. One official told me many of their co-workers are worried that “even if we get the money, we won’t be allowed to spend it somehow.”

Stat: Vinay Prasad returns to the FDA, weeks after his ouster Vinay Prasad is returning to the Food and Drug Administration to resume his role overseeing vaccine, gene therapy, and blood product regulation.  “At the FDA’s request, Dr. Vinay Prasad is resuming leadership of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research,” Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon told STAT on Saturday. It is not clear whether Prasad will also still serve as the FDA’s chief medical and scientific officer. He left the agency a mere two weeks ago, amid escalating tensions related to a gene therapy product for Duchenne’s muscular dystrophy made by Sarepta Therapeutics and a campaign launched by right-wing influencer Laura Loomer, in which she criticized Prasad’s previous posts describing himself as liberal.

Dismantling Key Agencies:

RFK Jr.’s War on Vaccines Will Have Deadly Consequences

Associated Press: RFK Jr. Cancels $500 Million In Funding For Vaccine Development The Department of Health and Human Services will cancel contracts and pull funding for some vaccines that are being developed to fight respiratory viruses like COVID-19 and the flu. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in a statement Tuesday that 22 projects, totaling $500 million, to develop vaccines using mRNA technology will be halted. Kennedy’s decision to terminate the projects is the latest in a string of decisions that have put the longtime vaccine critic’s doubts about shots into full effect at the nation’s health department. Kennedy has pulled back recommendations around the COVID-19 shots, fired the panel that makes vaccine recommendations, and refused to offer a vigorous endorsement of vaccinations as a measles outbreak worsened. The health secretary criticized mRNA vaccines in a video on his social media accounts, explaining the decision to cancel projects being led by the nation’s leading pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer and Moderna, that offer protection against viruses like the flu, COVID-19 and H5N1. “To replace the troubled mRNA programs, we’re prioritizing the development of safer, broader vaccine strategies, like whole-virus vaccines and novel platforms that don’t collapse when viruses mutate,” Kennedy said in the video.

New York Times: On Vaccines, Kennedy Has Broken Sharply With the Mainstream Even before Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took office in February as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, some public health experts worried he might use his influence to carry out an anti-vaccine agenda he’d spent decades promoting. In the worst-case scenario, they said, he might dismiss experts on whom the government relies to make sound decisions about immunizations and enact policies restricting access. He might cancel important research that would be needed in a future pandemic. In less than six months, Mr. Kennedy has done all that and more. The health secretary has expressed doubts about childhood vaccines, including those against polio and measles, that have been the mainstay of childhood immunizations for decades. He has described the Covid shot as “the deadliest vaccine ever made.” Under his leadership, the Food and Drug Administration restricted access to the Covid vaccines for healthy pregnant women and children. And on Tuesday, he canceled nearly $500 million of grants and contracts for work on mRNA vaccines, the technology that helped turn the tide against the coronavirus.

Axios: RFK Jr.’s vaccine pullback stokes fears of lost medical breakthroughs Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to cut federal funding for mRNA vaccine research is the latest in a series of moves that have the potential to crush future medical breakthroughs and accelerate a brain drain. Why it matters: America has historically led the world in scientific innovation — driving economic growth, strengthening national security, and attracting global talent. But scientists, including some who served in Trump’s first administration, warn that lead is slipping away. The mRNA divestment “risks stalling progress in some of the most promising areas of modern medicine,” Jerome Adams, surgeon general during the first Trump administration and now a professor at Purdue University, told Axios. “Walking away from this technology now would be like pulling funding from antibiotics after penicillin or from computers after the microchip. It’s short-sighted and puts us at a disadvantage globally.”

  • Stat: As mRNA falls out of favor for HHS, are cancer vaccines next? One of the most promising avenues toward new cancer treatments is vaccines, therapies designed to prompt an immune response against a patient’s tumors. Many rely on the same mRNA technology that built the Covid-19 vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech. So when the federal government announced it was ending major funding of mRNA vaccines, cancer researchers and patients began to wonder what that might mean for them. The Tuesday evening announcement by the Health and Human Services Department said the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) was terminating nearly $500 million in grants supporting development of mRNA vaccines for flu, Covid, or other infectious diseases. STAT spoke with several cancer vaccine experts, all of whom said that the cancellations didn’t appear to extend to oncology research or development. But they expressed concern that if the Trump administration takes a hostile posture towards mRNA broadly as a technology, other applications like cancer therapy may eventually be hindered as well.

New York Times: Kennedy’s Next Target: the Federal Vaccine Court For nearly 40 years, a special federal court system has compensated Americans who prove they were harmed by vaccines while also protecting the manufacturers from litigation. Even the staunchest defenders of the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program agree it needs reform. It is slow, understaffed and can feel adversarial to families legitimately in need. Now Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to overhaul the program, saying he will make it more efficient and speedier for Americans seeking payment. He said in a social media post last month that the vaccine court had “devolved into a morass of inefficiency, favoritism and outright corruption.” Parents who believe their children were injured by vaccines are “facing the monumental power and bottomless pockets of the U.S. government,” he said. Mr. Kennedy has also claimed, falsely, that the compensation program prevents families from suing vaccine makers in traditional courts. And he has claimed that the vaccine court punishes and intimidates expert witnesses and petitioners’ attorneys. Experts fear that some of the changes Mr. Kennedy has hinted at could lead to an onslaught of lawsuits, jeopardizing the manufacture of vaccines and undermining their use.

The Guardian: Pfizer Covid vaccine for young children may not be renewed by FDA Pfizer’s Covid vaccine for young children may not be renewed by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) this fall, prompting Moderna to fill possible gaps in supply, according to an email obtained by the Guardian. The move would pull the only remaining Covid vaccine for all children under five from the market. The Moderna vaccine is only approved for children with one or more health conditions, and the pediatric Covid vaccine from Novavax is only available for children aged 12 and up with health conditions. “It certainly would create a hole in the availability of vaccines,” said Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association. “And to do it this late in the season – I think clearly it’s inappropriate.”

USA Today: Trump admin orders federal agencies to scrub all worker COVID vaccination records The Trump administration has ordered all federal agencies to scrub any records related to workers’ COVID-19 vaccination status and other compliance with pandemic mandates. The order rescinding vaccine record retention requirements was announced in an Aug. 8 memorandum by Scott Kupor, the director of the Office of Personnel Management, in a memo to all federal department and agency heads. They have until Sept. 8 “to report their compliance,” Kupor wrote. “Effective immediately, federal agencies may not use an individual’s COVID-19 vaccine status, history of noncompliance with prior COVID-19 vaccine mandates, or requests for exemptions from such mandates in any employment-related decisions, including but not limited to hiring, promotion, discipline, or termination,” Kupor wrote in the official memorandum to all heads and acting heads of federal departments and agencies.

More vaccine reaction:

Last Week’s Deadly Shooting Attack on the CDC Was Fueled By Vaccine Misinformation

MSNBC: After a deadly shooting at the CDC, shaken scientists demand answers from RFK Jr. A shooting outside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Atlanta headquarters on Friday left a police officer dead and officials and scientists at the nation’s premier public health agency shaken. Many are now demanding answers from their health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long vilified the CDC and contributed to a culture of misinformation that they say makes them targets. Citing a senior law enforcement official, The New York Times reported the shooter, identified as 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White, was fixated on the Covid vaccine, which he blamed for his health problems. In response to the shooting and reports of White’s motivations, newly appointed CDC Director Susan Monarez convened an online all-hands meeting of the agency division that focuses on vaccines — the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

Axios: CDC union demands Trump officials condemn disinformation after shooting A union representing Centers for Disease Control workers is calling on the Trump administration to condemn vaccine disinformation after the CDC headquarters was targeted in a shooting that killed a police officer in Atlanta, Georgia. The big picture: The suspect, named as Patrick Joseph White, 30, of Kennesaw, Ga., who died during Friday’s shooting, had reportedly blamed the COVID vaccine for his health issues. A local division of the American Federation of Government Employees union said the incident “is not random and it compounds months of mistreatment, neglect, and vilification that CDC staff have endured.” Zoom in: There must be a “clear and unequivocal stance in condemning vaccine disinformation” by the leadership of the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services, which is led by vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the AFGE Local 2883 said in its statement to members.

New York Times: After Years of Anger Directed at C.D.C., Shooting Manifests Worst Fears The day after a lone gunman opened fire on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, killing a police officer and shattering windows across the agency’s campus, employees were reeling from shock, fear and rage. “We’re mad this has happened,” Dr. Debra Houry, the C.D.C.’s chief medical officer, said in a large group call Saturday morning with Susan Monarez, the agency’s newly confirmed director, who tried to reassure them. Another employee on the call, a recording of which was obtained by The New York Times, asked Dr. Monarez: “Are you able to speak to the misinformation, the disinformation that caused this issue? And what your plan forward is to ensure this doesn’t happen again?” The investigation into the shooting and the gunman’s potential motives was still in early stages on Saturday. But law enforcement officials said that the suspect identified in the shooting had become fixated with the coronavirus vaccine, believing that it was the cause of his physical ailments. Inside the C.D.C., the shooting was viewed as part of a pattern in which health workers have been targets of political, verbal and physical assaults on them and their workplaces.

Associated Press:  CDC shooter believed COVID vaccine made him suicidal, his father tells police A Georgia man who opened fire on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters, shooting dozens of rounds into the sprawling complex and killing a police officer, had blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Saturday. The 30-year-old shooter also tried to get into the CDC’s headquarters in Atlanta but was stopped by guards before driving to a pharmacy across the street and opening fire late Friday afternoon, the official said. He was armed with five guns, including at least one long gun, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the investigation.

Other Dangerous MAHA Initiatives

The New Republic: RFK’s War on Antidepressants Will Hit Pregnant Patients Hard Postpartum depression and anxiety are common in moms, with about 20 percent of perinatal women suffering from each. There is well-documented evidence that antidepressants—specifically selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, a newer generation of antidepressants that includes Prozac and Lexapro—are indicated and safe for use in pregnancy and postpartum for people with moderate to severe depression and anxiety. […] Now Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Department of Health and Human Services is sowing more doubt about this evidence-based treatment on a national stage. Alongside making vaccines more difficult to get and cutting research funding for them, RFK Jr. has made reducing use of psychotropic medications a policy priority. He has suggested that people who take antidepressants—some 11 percent of the population—should instead be sent to government “wellness farms” to wean themselves off, and claimed that people taking these meds are more likely to develop addiction or become school shooters. Late last month, RFK Jr. took his first major step toward this policy priority. On July 21, the Food and Drug Administration convened a hearing to discuss the safety of SSRI use during pregnancy. Most of the panel’s participants, a mix of researchers and psychologists, presented clear biases and lacked basic knowledge about reproductive psychiatry, according to Dr. Osborne. Some of the panelists wrongly claimed that using SSRIs in pregnancy can lead to higher rates of autism and birth defects.

Politico: MAHA gets frustrated with Kennedy ahead of new policy report Make America Healthy Again advocates have grown increasingly concerned their emissary to the White House, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is falling short — even as he prepares to release a roadmap for how to improve the nation’s health outcomes. MAHA advocates are frustrated Kennedy, as health secretary, has done little to hold vaccine makers accountable in instances when patients experience adverse reactions and that he hasn’t pushed harder to restrict or ban pesticide use. Some of them are threatening to primary Republicans in the midterms if they don’t get the commitments they want. They’re eagerly awaiting Kennedy’s new report, which is due Tuesday and is expected to widely impact the food, farm and pharmaceutical industries. The document comes from the MAHA Commission, which Kennedy chairs, and will outline the Trump administration’s priorities for policy to overhaul the food supply and address the chronic disease crisis.

Talking Points Memo: HHS Has Revived a Failed Program to Scrape Americans’ Data and Track Autism, Senate Suggests Last week, the Senate Appropriations Committee released a report on the country’s federal labor, health, human services, and education agencies in which staffers buried a small note of concern.  It has to do with a case of duplication.  Under director Jay Bhattacharya, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) appears to be repurposing a project that Congress shot down last year, the note says. That project, which NIH abandoned amid pressure from Congress, would have amassed huge amounts of personal data from Americans with little oversight. NIH had planned, through contractors, to vacuum up information from phone providers, wearable device companies, health insurers, medical records keepers, and government agencies in order to create a “real-world data platform” for monitoring Alzheimer’s disease. Though ambitious, the project was poorly managed, according to a 2024 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a legislative branch watchdog agency. It was at risk of failing to manage appropriately hundreds of millions of dollars in spending, per the report, and it raised a host of privacy concerns around the protection of government-collected data.  In part because of the findings of that GAO report, Congress expressed “serious reservations” about the NIH effort, according to the Appropriations Committee document released last week. NIH would eventually shut down the project. In last week’s little-noticed note, which was buried 150 pages into a document laying out the health agencies’ funding for the coming fiscal year, Senate Appropriations Committee staffers expressed a fresh concern: NIH is reviving the same program under a different name, despite Congress’ earlier objections. This time, it’s to study autism, the report said. 

Other MAHA Activity:

Public Health Threats

CBS: Florida officials warn about risks of drinking raw milk after 21 people sickened The Florida Department of Health is warning about the risks of drinking raw, unpasteurized milk after 21 people, including six children under the age of 10, were sickened by E. coli and campylobacter bacteria linked to raw milk from the same farm. Seven people have been hospitalized, and two have developed severe complications. “Sanitation practices in this farm are of particular concern due to the number of cases,” the department said in a news release. Officials did not identify the farm, but indicated its products were available in Northeast and Central Florida.  The health department told CBS News it continues to investigate the reported infections, and said it “does not comment on ongoing or active epidemiological investigations.” Although it is illegal to sell raw milk for human consumption in Florida, it can be sold in the state if it’s labeled as a pet food. Raw milk has been promoted by online wellness influencers and raw food advocates, boosting sales in recent years, but public health officials say it can be risky.

Axios: What to know about rising COVID-19 cases and the surging “stratus” variant COVID-19 cases are rising again in the United States, and the “stratus” variant might be to blame. The big picture: A summer outbreak of COVID-19 cases isn’t a shocker. But it’s arriving before children head back to school, where the virus could spread even more. The risk of a summertime COVID-19 wave comes after Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. unilaterally changed federal COVID vaccine recommendations, causing confusion over who should get the shots.

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