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
Wall Street Journal: FDA Official Steps Down, Sued by Drugmaker A Food and Drug Administration official who resigned on Sunday was sued by a Canadian pharmaceutical company, which accused him of soliciting a bribe and tanking its stock with false statements as part of a revenge campaign against a former colleague. Dr. George Tidmarsh was hired in July by FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary to lead the agency’s drug division, a top role regulating much of the country’s pharmaceutical industry that gave Tidmarsh a prominent perch in the Department of Health and Human Services headed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Stat: Under Vinay Prasad, employees at a key FDA center fear speaking out, look for the exits A slow-boiling feud between Vinay Prasad and his staff at the Food and Drug Administration is threatening the future of the center that regulates the nation’s vaccines, biological products, and blood supply. Dozens of scientists are considering leaving the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, where Prasad serves as director, to escape a work environment that eight agency officials described to STAT as rife with mistrust and paranoia. These officials said staffers are terrified of pushing back on Prasad, lest they face retaliation. The fear has been fueled by Prasad pushing at least seven senior leaders out of their positions, employees told STAT, and offering no public explanations to staff or the leaders’ supervisors. Some of his workers are fed up, and are attempting to transfer to the FDA’s drug center. Prasad has tried to block these transfers in apparent recognition that CBER can’t afford to lose many more employees. The center has lost hundreds of employees since the start of this year to retirements, layoffs, and resignations, and hiring conditions are difficult. CBER employees are concerned that the exodus of employees and the worsening morale problems will affect the functioning of the center, which ensures the safety and efficacy of vaccines and helps speed potentially lifesaving therapies to rare disease patients.
Stat: Scientists had to change more than 700 grant titles to receive NIH funding. Health disparities researchers fear what’s next For months, Vanderbilt sociologist Tara McKay had waited for the notice that her grant had been renewed for another year, a signoff that had always been routine. Instead, while sick at home, she got a panicked phone call from her program officer at the National Institutes of Health that she had 24 hours to alter the language of her grant title — otherwise it would be at risk of not being funded. McKay is familiar with the notion that partisan politics can have a deep impact on science and health. The grant, after all, was tracking the ripple effects of the decision by Tennessee’s Republican governor to reject nearly $9 million in federal funding for HIV prevention. It was initially titled “A Multimethod Assessment of the Clinical, Economic & Social Impact of the Rejection of Federal HIV Prevention Funds in Tennessee.” Now she and her collaborator felt compelled to remove mention of the governor’s decision and describe their work as evaluating the “Impact of Evolving HIV Prevention and Care Strategies in Tennessee.” While wording changes may seem trivial amid the Trump administration’s broad upheaval of federally funded research, such compromises can alter the course of projects and the questions scientists address. They can also be demoralizing. To McKay, that new title “de-partisans” the rejecting of funding — reframing the political decision to turn away HIV funds. But she felt it was better than losing the grant. “If that project ended, basically the state gets a free pass, right?” she said in an interview. McKay’s is one of more than 700 multiyear grants that changed their titles from 2024 to 2025, according to an analysis of NIH Reporter data by Jeremy Berg, who previously led one of the NIH’s institutes and has been a vocal critic of the administration’s moves at the agency. While some changes were clerical — fixing capitalization, punctuation, or spelling — the vast majority were to remove words and phrases that have become anathema to the administration. Nearly 100 grants have removed “equity” from their title, dozens removed references to “disparities,” and many others removed references to specific racial groups and gender minorities.
New York Times: Steven Hatfill, Covid Vaccine Critic, Is Ousted From H.H.S. Steven J. Hatfill, a biosecurity expert whose views helped form the basis for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to cancel funding for mRNA vaccine research, was fired over the weekend from his job as a senior adviser at the Department of Health and Human Services, he and a senior department official said. The official said Dr. Hatfill was let go because he had misrepresented himself as the “chief medical officer” for the assistant secretary for preparedness and response, and was “not coordinating policy-making with leadership.” In a brief telephone interview on Tuesday, Dr. Hatfill said that was not true. He said he was ousted as part of “a coup to overthrow Mr. Kennedy” that he claimed was being organized by Matt Buckham, Mr. Kennedy’s chief of staff. But he did not explain why his ouster was evidence of the effort. Dr. Hatfill said that Mr. Buckham had told him that the secretary wanted “to go in a different direction” and had asked him to resign.
New York Times: Calley Means, a Kennedy Adviser, Has Left the White House Calley Means, an influential adviser to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the brother of President Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, quietly departed the White House at the end of his term as a special government employee about a month ago, he said in an interview on Wednesday night. For much of the last six months, Mr. Means has acted as the health secretary’s right hand, coordinating a major presidential commission report on what it described as the dire state of children’s health and sparring on television and online with vaccine scientists and doctors who objected to Mr. Kennedy’s campaign to remake American medicine. He also drew criticism from Democratic members of Congress for the financial advantages he stood to gain from changes to the health care system being pursued by the “Make America Healthy Again” movement and its Trump administration backers.
Politico: Casey Means is having a baby, postponing her confirmation hearing The Senate health committee has postponed a confirmation hearing for President Donald Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, Casey Means, because she went into labor, a committee spokesperson confirmed to POLITICO. Means was scheduled to testify at the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee five months after she was tapped for the role. Her nomination came after the White House pulled its initial nominee, Janette Nesheiwat, due to concerns about her credentials.
RFK Jr.’s War on Vaccines Will Have Deadly Consequences
The Hill: RFK Jr. says no ‘sufficient’ evidence Tylenol definitively causes autism Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said there is not “sufficient” evidence that Tylenol causes autism, softening warnings he and President Trump have repeatedly made to discourage the medicine’s use by pregnant women and young children. During a press conference Wednesday, Kennedy reiterated that pregnant women should use Tylenol only when “absolutely necessary.” “We’ve all said from the beginning that the causative association between Tylenol given in pregnancy … is not sufficient to say it definitely caused autism, but it is very suggestive,” Kennedy said. “And so there should be a cautious approach to it, and that’s why our message to patients, to mothers, to people who are pregnant, the mothers of young children, is consult your physician, and we have asked physicians to minimize the use to one that’s absolutely necessary,” Kennedy added. The secretary’s comments came more than a month after he and Trump held a press conference in September to specifically warn pregnant women against taking the medication, without citing any scientific evidence. Trump at the time repeatedly told women to “tough it out” rather than take Tylenol for fever or pain during pregnancy.
Washington Post: Texas AG Paxton files Tylenol lawsuit, taking cues from Trump, Kennedy Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit Tuesday against Tylenol maker Kenvue and its former parent company, Johnson & Johnson, alleging the companies deceptively sold the painkiller despite knowing it could cause autism. The suit, filed in a Texas state court, comes barely a month after President Donald Trump repeatedly warned pregnant women not to take Tylenol — despite a lack of evidence, acknowledged by his own health officials, that the over-the-counter drug causes the neurodevelopmental disorder. Texas is the first state to file such a case. Paxton, a firebrand Republican running for U.S. Senate, directly invoked the “Make America Healthy Again” movement led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in filing the suit.
MSNBC: Meet the anti-vaccine activist who could lead the response to the next pandemic At the heart of Operation Warp Speed — the program that produced the Covid-19 vaccines that saved millions of lives — was a little-known federal agency that coordinates the government’s responses to public health crises and maintains the nation’s medical stockpile. Historically led by doctors, military officers or career public health officials, the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (or ASPR, pronounced “Asper”) is now being directed instead by John Knox, a firefighter turned anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist with no background in management or public health. Six current and former senior Health and Human Services Department officials told MSNBC that in elevating Knox, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has placed an unqualified activist atop one of the federal government’s most critical health agencies. Most of them spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation for themselves or their colleagues, or were not authorized to speak publicly about the agency. Those HHS veterans described ASPR under Knox as adrift: Experienced scientists and senior staff members have left or been pushed out; key roles in the agency have been filled with conspiracy theorists and advocates of false Covid treatments; and hundreds of millions of dollars in mRNA research contracts have been canceled, without good reason. Most concerning, those officials said, is what could happen when a Covid denialist and anti-vaccine activist leads the very agency created to defend the country from the next pandemic.
New York Times: Vaccine Skepticism Comes for Pet Owners, Too In the four years since she opened her own veterinary practice, Dr. Kelly McGuire has seen her fair share of heartbreaking cases. There was the dog whose kidneys shut down after it contracted leptospirosis, a bacterial disease often carried by rodents. Several of her canine patients had come down with such severe cases of parvovirus that they died after “sloughing their guts to the point of dehydration and malnutrition,” said Dr. McGuire, who owns Wildflower Veterinary Hospital in Brighton, Colo. And, after she was unable to rule out rabies, she had been forced to euthanize a 20-week-old puppy that was having seizures. The deaths were wrenching, especially because they were preventable: Those pets would likely have survived had they received all their recommended vaccines. For most of her career, vaccination was a routine, unremarkable part of Dr. McGuire’s work as a small animal veterinarian. But after the Covid-19 pandemic hit, she found herself having long, sometimes adversarial discussions with pet owners about the safety and necessity of vaccines. Clients accused her of pushing the vaccines to line her own pockets. And, increasingly, pet owners insisted on spacing out shots or refused vaccines altogether, including for deadly and incurable viruses like rabies.
Other Dangerous MAHA Initiatives
Bloomberg: RFK Jr. Orders CDC to Study Alleged Harms of Offshore Wind Farms Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. directed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention staff to probe the potential harms of offshore wind farms, according to people familiar with the matter, as President Donald Trump marshals his administration to thwart the clean energy source he loathes. In late summer, HHS instructed CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to prepare research about wind farms’ impact on fishing businesses, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. Kennedy has personally met with NIOSH director John Howard about the issue and listed particular experts for Howard’s team to contact. The office of the US surgeon general has also been involved in the initiative, which HHS leadership — prior to the ongoing government shutdown — had aimed to have completed within a couple months. Among the offshore wind health impacts that HHS staff have investigated is the electric magnetic frequency generated from undersea cables used to connect power from the machines to the electric grid, one of the people said. Wind proponents say they aren’t harmful. HHS spokespeople didn’t respond to inquiries. The push reflects how Kennedy has swiftly reordered the CDC’s priorities, and underscores the Trump administration’s antipathy towards the renewable energy source. Trump has ordered a broad government review of offshore wind farms and enlisted agencies including Environmental Protection Agency and the departments of Energy, Defense and Commerce to be part of a “inter-departmental coalition team,” Kennedy said in August.
CNN: FDA moves to restrict fluoride supplements as part of MAHA agenda The US Food and Drug Administration said Friday that it is taking action to restrict the use of prescription fluoride supplements, following a directive from the government’s Make American Healthy Again Commission to assess the risks and benefits of the products. The FDA says it sent notices to four companies “outlining the agency’s intention to take enforcement action against those marketing unapproved fluoride-containing ingestible drugs labeled for use in children under age 3 or older children at low or moderate risk for tooth decay.” The agency also sent letters to health care professionals recommending against the use of fluoride supplements for these groups. Fluoride has faced heavy scrutiny from the Trump administration after recent research reignited debate about the health risks associated with exposure to high levels of fluoride. But experts broadly emphasize the safety and benefits of fluoride.
Politico: In his battle with doctors, RFK Jr.’s got GOP lawmakers on his side Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s tenure as health secretary is straining Republicans’ relationship with the medical establishment to what’s looking like a breaking point. Doctors and their professional associations, such as the American Medical Association and American Academy of Pediatrics, have clashed with the GOP over health policy changes, but Kennedy has given them a leftward shove by deriding them as pharma flunkeys and progressive ideologues. In recent months, Kennedy has sparred with the groups over vaccine guidance, transgender care, the handling of the pandemic and whether pregnant women are putting their children at risk of autism if they take Tylenol. The groups have long been considered nonpartisan and have many conservative members. But Republicans in Congress are piling on, potentially risking the medical profession’s evolution into a Democratic-leaning interest group. In turn, that would winnow doctors’ influence on policy issues when Republicans are in power, and prompt big shifts in public health guidance when Democrats are.
MAHA in the States
ABC: Doctors muffled as Florida moves to end decades of childhood vaccination mandates Florida plans to end nearly a half-century of required childhood immunizations against diseases that have killed and maimed millions of children. Many critics of the decision, including doctors, are afraid to speak up against it. With the support of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo on Sept. 3 announced his plan to end all school-age vaccination mandates in the state. “Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery,” he told a cheering crowd of vaccination foes in Tallahassee. “Who am I, as a government or anyone else,” he said, “to tell you what you should put in your body?” History shows that mandates increase the use of vaccines. Lower vaccination rates will mean increased rates of diseases like measles, hepatitis, meningitis, and pneumonia — and even the return of diphtheria and polio. Many of these diseases threaten not just the unvaccinated but also those they come in contact with, including babies and older people with weakened immunity. But that scientific fact is being left unsaid in Florida. Health officials have largely been silent in the face of Ladapo’s campaign — and not because they agree with him. The University of Florida muzzled infectious disease experts, said emeritus professor Doug Barrett, formerly the university’s chief of pediatrics and senior vice president for health affairs. “They’re told not to speak to anyone without permission from supervisors,” he said. University spokespeople didn’t respond to requests for comment. County-level Department of Health officials across the state got the same message, said John Sinnott, a retired professor at the University of South Florida who is friends with one of the county health leaders.
Stat: In Texas, the nation’s MAHA capital, many are frustrated with the status quo in health care California has long been considered a kind of political fortuneteller, offering a preview of the policies that later emerge elsewhere in the country, and in Washington. But in the age of Trump 2.0 and the Make America Healthy Again movement, Texas is the place to look. With its diverse population, a political establishment eager to please the Trump administration, and a cabal of prominent MAHA converts, the state has become a testing ground for a spate of health-related legislative efforts in recent months. Those moves center on everything from looser school vaccine requirements to bans on fluoridated drinking water, mandatory nutrition courses for doctors, new food labels — and beyond. It’s a good place to see where rubber meets the road, too. In Texas, the second-largest state by size and population, MAHA dreams are up against big-state complications, including industry interests and inequities in access to quality health care and food.