A Vacant and Dysfunctional Trump HHS At The Worst Time: Public Health Project Newsletter

It officially happened, and the circumstances behind it were every bit as swampy and insidious as expected. FDA Commissioner Marty Makary was shoved out the door this week on the heels of reports that Trump was fuming at Makary for not approving harmful flavored vapes that prey on young Americans fast enough. Trump has deemed the gateway drug to life-long nicotine addiction and health problems for teens and even pre-teens just too important to “young MAGA voters” and to his generous vape industry donors. In fact, the New York Times revealed the wheels were set in motion for Makary’s ouster literally during Trump’s golf resort lunch with a group of ‘unhappy’ “tobacco executives and lobbyists”.

With Makary OUT and Don Jr.’s unqualified ‘hunting buddy’ IN as acting FDA director, the leadership crisis at the Trump-RFK Jr. HHS got even worse at a time there’s still no Surgeon General or permanent CDC director. No adults in the room at HHS is suboptimal at a time public health threats like Hantavirus and measles loom large and as the administration’s deep and dumb cuts to health emergency preparedness have left Americans more exposed to danger.

RFK Jr.’s $50M Anti-Vax Manhattan Project: A NYT expose revealed that RFK Jr. is orchestrating an “intense push, across health agencies under his purview, for government scientists and federal data contractors to examine his long-held theory that vaccines are helping to fuel an epidemic of chronic disease.” The effort amounts to a fishing expedition for any excuse to challenge the overwhelming peer-reviewed scientific consensus that vaccines are safe and effective. It’s like ordering career federal scientists to find proof the Earth is flat. And what will it cost taxpayers for Kennedy’s pet project designed to prop up lucrative lawsuits that enrich friends and family? A cool $40-$50 million at the CDC alone.

Vaccine-Misinformer-In-Chief: If anyone needed a reminder that Donald Trump and RFK Jr. are completely in synch on dangerous anti-vax policy, during a Sinclair interview Trump went all-in on debunked claims of an autism-vaccine link. As Protect Our Care’s Kayla Hancock notes: “There is no worse threat to trust in vaccine safety than the President of the United States himself projecting completely debunked anti-vax disinformation on the national stage.”

We Are NOT In Good Hands: CNN’s KFILE: “The health official who led the public response to the Hantavirus outbreak has little background in public health and previously was a penile implant specialist who hosted a podcast where he questioned the 2020 election and compared the Biden administration to Nazi Germany.” Another tidbit we wish we didn’t see: “He once hosted a YouTube show called “Erection Connection.”

RFK Jr. Ain’t Actually Accomplishing Anything: The Associated Press was brave enough to call out what some editorial boards won’t — that RFK Jr’s FDA playbook can be summed up with “Lots of media announcements but not much rulemaking.” The AP looks back at how Kennedy Jr. and “other health officials have repeatedly announced major changes before any new rules have been drafted.” Speaking of lip service and empty rhetoric, NBC News found RFK Jr.s much-touted food pyramid overhaul does not hold up to basic scrutiny when considering the time, cost and effort.

Thank RFK Jr.’s Allies For Unfounded Vitamin K Fears: RFK Jr. claims he has nothing to do with the dramatic increase in skepticism against the Vitamin K shot for newborns that’s credited with preventing thousands of fatal brain bleeds, even though his years of anti-vax propagandizing absolutely fueled it. But as Media Matters documented, RFK Jr.’s close media and influencer allies have taken a more direct approach to fear-mongering Vitamin K and encouraging more needless fatal incidents.

More and More Polls Show the Trump-RFK Jr. War on Health Care Is Political Poison for Republicans. As RFK Jr. oversees the largest cut to health care in U.S. history under the Trump-GOP Big Ugly Law, the resulting exposition of health care costs and numbers of uninsured are not sitting well with voters, the latest wave of polling continues to show.

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