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 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?
Dangerous Chaos At The HHS and the CDC
Wired: A Quarter of the CDC Is Gone After the latest round of mass firings at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over the weekend, the union that represents agency employees estimates that around 3,000 people this year—about a quarter of the agency’s workforce—have departed the agency. That number includes workers affected by layoffs earlier this year, as well those who have accepted the Trump administration’s “Fork in the Road” buyout program. The most recent cuts came down amid the ongoing government shutdown. On October 10, more than 1,300 CDC employees received termination notices. Soon after, however, about 700 of those people were told via email that they were mistakenly terminated and were not in fact subject to the reduction in force. An estimated 600 people remain terminated. An additional 1,300 CDC employees are, according to the union, on administrative leave and being paid but not working.
Stat: Former NIH leaders lament ‘constant chaos’ at the agency, and caution it’s not over Jeremy Berg walked on stage sporting a curious look: a red tie patterned with a word cloud drawn from the applications of 197 researchers who vied to be part of a National Institutes of Health initiative aimed at accelerating junior scientists’ academic careers. The MOSAIC program, which provided researchers seed funding to start their own labs, was eliminated months ago after the federal government deprioritized and cut funding for scientific research the Trump administration deemed as promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion. The former director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences wore the tie — featuring words such as “CELL,” “DISEASE,” and “EPIGENETICS — to draw attention to research areas affected by months of turmoil. “It’s been like living in a washing machine, it’s been constant chaos,” said Berg, speaking Thursday on a STAT Summit panel of former NIH leaders and a researcher documenting the impact of funding cuts. The chaos is not confined to a single program, said the panelists. And the worst may be yet to come.
New York Times: Trump Administration Decimates Birth Control Office in Layoffs The Trump administration has targeted a federal office that oversees a $300 million family planning program for layoffs, raising fears that it is effectively ending an initiative that provides contraception for millions of low-income women, according to three people with knowledge of the events. The decimation of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Population Affairs — part of a larger effort by President Trump to fire federal employees during the government shutdown — threatens a program that has existed for over 50 years and also offers testing for sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy, as well as basic infertility care. The layoffs targeting the office represent one of the most striking examples yet of Mr. Trump’s vow to fire people in an effort to purge the government of what he has called “Democrat programs” during the shutdown, a stark departure from past practice that has raised major legal and constitutional questions.
Axios: CDC cuts put injury tracking and prevention in limbo The job of tracking the ravages of the opioid crisis may come down to a bare-bones team of about 150 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention workers whose overdose division survived a mass firing that took out much of the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control last week. Why it matters: The injury center is a microcosm of the fractured landscape at the CDC, which has lost about a quarter of its employees this year through successive Trump administration force reductions.
NOTUS: ‘A Kick in the Mouth’: Trump Administration Makes Staffing Cuts to CDC’s Safety Office Months After Shooting The Trump administration laid off staff in the office that oversees safety and security at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention just months after a deadly shooting at the agency’s Atlanta headquarters, agency employees and union members told NOTUS. The cuts were made late last week as part of the administration’s move to reduce the federal workforce in response to the government shutdown. Staff at the CDC’s Office of Safety, Security and Asset Management — including those working within the WorkLife Wellness Office and the Occupational Health and Safety Office — were among those swept up in the RIFS, a spokesperson for AFGE 2883, a union which represents workers at the CDC’s headquarters, told NOTUS.
Stat: CDC team running top survey on health and nutrition is laid off Protecting the nation’s public health demands data, whether it be new measles cases, a surge in ER visits, or shifting patterns in obesity. The most recent job cuts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention threaten the mostly unseen foundation of that research enterprise. The CDC division within the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) that directs the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) — a bellwether of the country’s health — lost all its planners in last weekend’s firings. Unlike the 600 out of 1,300 employees eliminated across disciplines but reinstated within 24 hours, the people in the branch that plans and disseminates the research informing public health policies from food to oral health to environmental exposures got no reprieve.
RFK Jr.’s War on Vaccines Will Have Deadly Consequences
Wall Street Journal: Blue States Are Setting Up a Shadow Public-Health Alliance to Counter RFK Jr. The public-health resistance to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is growing.
Governors across 15 states including New York, California and North Carolina are forming a new public-health alliance to detect and respond to disease threats, saying federal-funding cuts and policy changes by the Trump administration are putting their citizens at risk and forcing them to find alternatives. The state leaders, all Democrats, will join forces to help one another prepare for pandemics, track infectious diseases, write public-health guidelines, share expertise on preventive care and buy vaccines and supplies in bulk. “In light of the assaults on science and medicine coming out of Washington, governors have to step up and lead,” said Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York. “We really have no choice.” The Governors Public Health Alliance is the latest and so far the largest move to create an alternative public-health universe outside the federal government. More doctors, policymakers and state leaders are alarmed by cuts in federal funding for global and domestic health programs, as well as public-health expertise at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many have grown wary of changes to federal health guidance since Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, became health and human services secretary.
RFK Jr. Is A Political Liability For Trump And Republicans
Axios: Axios-Ipsos poll: Trump, RFK Jr. lose America’s trust on health care Americans who say the U.S. is less healthy under the leadership of President Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. now outnumber believers 2-to-1, per the latest Axios-Ipsos American Health Index. The big picture: Skepticism over child vaccine requirements has ticked up since Trump took office in January, while Americans’ trust in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration is declining. Driving the news: Confusion, suspicion and partisan cues are creating a deep divide between the public and the medical establishment, driven by the Trump administration’s proposed changes to childhood vaccination schedules and promotion of an unproven link between Tylenol and autism. “It should be easier to make sense of how we live healthy lives — there’s agreement across the board on that,” said Mallory Newall, Ipsos vice president for U.S. public affairs “There certainly is an erosion of trust, primarily driven by Democrats, but Republicans are not immune. The intrigue: The survey finds about 1 in 5 Americans buy Trump’s recent claim about Tylenol and autism, but it also hasn’t landed with his base.
Other Dangerous MAHA Initiatives
Wall Street Journal: Steak, Butter and Ice Cream: MAHA Sets Up Fight Over Saturated Fat Get ready for a fight over how much steak, butter and ice cream you should eat. These beloved foods—not to mention pizza, cookies and many sandwiches—all contain saturated fat. For decades, the federal government has told Americans to reduce their consumption of this type of fat, citing its link to heart disease. The government’s advice may be changing soon. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in July that the government would issue “new dietary guidelines that are common sense that stress the need to eat saturated fats, dairy, good meat, fresh meat and vegetables.” Kennedy last month released the Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” strategy, which calls for bringing back to schools full-fat dairy products like whole milk. Kennedy told Fox News in August that he follows a carnivore diet of mainly meat, yogurt and fermented vegetables like kimchi. He has lauded food companies for using beef tallow. Many scientists are alarmed, including members of a committee that advised the U.S. Agriculture and Health and Human Services departments on the latest update to the federal dietary guidelines. “The science is actually pretty clear. Exposure to unhealthy saturated fats, butter, full-fat dairy, fatty red meats, these things raise LDL cholesterol and contribute to heart disease,” said Cheryl A.M. Anderson, a professor at UC San Diego Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and member of the committee.
Kaiser Health News: It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s a Chemtrail? New Conspiracy Theory Takes Wing at Kennedy’s HHS While plowing a wheat field in rural Washington state in the 1990s, William Wallace spotted a gray plane overhead that he believed was releasing chemicals to make him sick. The rancher began to suspect that all white vapor trails from aircraft might be dangerous. He shared his concern with reporters, acknowledging it sounded a little like “The X Files,” a science fiction television show. Academics cite Wallace’s story as one of the catalysts behind a fringe concept that has spread among adherents to the Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, movement and is gaining traction at the highest levels of the federal government. Its treatment as a serious issue underscores that under President Donald Trump, unscientific ideas have unusual power to take hold and shape public health policy. The concept posits that airplane vapor trails, or contrails, are really “chemtrails” containing toxic substances that poison people and the terrain. Another version alleges planes or devices are being deployed by the federal government, private companies, or researchers to trigger big weather changes, such as hurricanes, or to alter the Earth’s climate, emitting hazardous chemicals in the process. Several GOP lawmakers and leaders in the Trump administration remain convinced the concepts are legitimate, though scientists have sought to discredit such claims. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is planning to investigate climate and weather control, and is expected to create a task force that will recommend possible federal action, according to a former agency official, an internal agency memo obtained by KFF Health News, and a consultant who helped with the memo. The plans, along with comments by top GOP lawmakers, show how rumors and conspiracy theories can gain an air of legitimacy due to social media and a political climate infused with falsehoods, some political scientists and researchers say.
Politico: Meet the man who built RFK Jr.’s kitchen cabinet If Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ends up finding the cause of autism, convincing parents vaccinating their kids is optional and turning conservatives into advocates of using government to combat chronic disease, he can thank Jeffrey Tucker. In founding the Brownstone Institute, Tucker, a 61-year-old libertarian activist who brought leading opponents of Covid lockdowns into the health secretary’s orbit, has carved out a splinter faction that’s promoting Kennedy and his Make America Healthy Again movement from the right. “MAHA is a genuinely new intellectual and political force,” Tucker told POLITICO in explaining why he’s joined Kennedy’s following. “They break through all the taboos. They are so brave.” If it weren’t for Tucker, the Great Barrington Declaration, the manifesto that spurred a movement against lockdowns, would never have been written. Two of its authors, recruited by Tucker, are now top Kennedy advisers.
Public Health Threats
Texas Tribune: More Texas kindergarteners are coming to school without measles vaccination proof or exemptions Before the pandemic helped fuel the growth of vaccine politicization across the country, less than 1% of Austin school district’s kindergarteners in the fall of 2019 failed to comply with the state’s vaccine reporting requirements. Five years later, Austin ISD had some of the state’s highest number of kindergarteners who neglected those state requirements — about 1 in 5 kindergarteners had not proven they were fully vaccinated against measles and did not file an exemption. A Texas Tribune analysis has found that this explosion of vaccine non-compliance has played out across many school districts in the state in recent years, helping to push Texas’ measles vaccine coverage to the lowest it’s been since at least 2011.
Associated Press: The tiny African nation of Lesotho had victories in its HIV fight. Then, the US aid cuts came This Lesotho was unimaginable months ago, residents, health workers and experts say. The small landlocked nation in southern Africa long had the world’s second-highest rate of HIV infections. But over years, with nearly $1 billion in aid from the United States, Lesotho patched together a health network efficient enough to slow the spread of the epidemic, one of the deadliest in modern history. Then On Jan. 20, the first day of U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term, he signed an executive order freezing foreign aid. Within weeks, Trump had slashed overseas assistance and dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development. Confusion followed in nearly all the 130 countries with USAID-supported programs. Nine months later in Lesotho, there’s still little clarity. With the single stroke of a distant president’s pen, much of a system credited with saving hundreds of thousands of lives was dismantled.
New York Times: W.H.O. Warns of Sharp Increase in Drug-Resistant Infections Across the world, the spread of dangerous infections that do not respond to antibiotics has been increasing by as much as 15 percent a year, affecting treatment for urinary tract infections, gonorrhea, E. coli and other pathogens that kill millions of people annually, according to a report released Monday by the World Health Organization. The report documents how countries are grappling with the challenge of so-called antimicrobial resistance. It found that one in six infections in 2023 was resistant to the current roster of antibiotic drugs. The drug resistance involves 40 percent of the most common antibiotics used against these infections.