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
Stat: NIH details how Trump budget would cut support for grants, training, and research centers President Trump’s 2026 budget proposes slashing the National Institutes of Health’s central function, supporting research by awarding grants to universities, academic medical centers, and other institutions, by 43% compared to 2025 levels. New documents released by the agency show an $11.6 billion cut in this funding, to $15.1 billion, which would both reduce the number of new grants awarded as well as existing grants for ongoing research. At many of the agency’s institutes and centers, grant applicants’ odds of securing new awards would plummet. Support for the next generation of scientists would drop as well, with $655 million going to awards that support researcher training, $359 million less than in 2025. And the agency’s internal research wouldn’t be spared either, as the budget would set aside $3.6 billion for NIH’s own work, $1.3 billion less than current levels. These details and others released this week as part of the agency’s Congressional Budget Justification shed new light on the administration’s plan to reduce NIH’s budget to $27.9 billion, a nearly 40% drop, and to restructure the agency’s 27 institutes and centers into eight. That plan must be approved by Congress, and NIH has historically enjoyed bipartisan support. But the new figures nonetheless triggered genuine concern and pushback from researchers and leaders of scientific organizations.
Stat: mRNA, once lauded as a scientific marvel, is now a government target mRNA, a Nobel-winning technology harnessed by Trump officials to create Covid shots in record time, is becoming a political reject as the nation’s leaders openly embrace vaccine skepticism. Republican lawmakers and federal health officials alike are shunning messenger RNA, a basic building block of biology that proved its value during Covid, and that holds promise for combating the next pandemic and unlocking new cancer treatments. Public health experts and biotech companies are watching in horror as the government cuts its investments in the technology, and as officials like health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. foment deep distrust of mRNA vaccines. On Wednesday, the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed it was canceling more than $700 million worth of contracts with Moderna to develop, test, and license mRNA vaccines for flu strains that could cause future pandemics, including the H5N1 bird flu virus. “The reality is that mRNA technology remains under-tested, and we are not going to spend taxpayer dollars repeating the mistakes of the last administration, which concealed legitimate safety concerns from the public,” HHS communications director Andrew Nixon said of the Moderna contracts. The White House did not respond to STAT’s request for comment.
Associated Press: NIH scientists publish declaration criticizing Trump’s deep cuts in public health research In his confirmation hearings to lead the National Institutes of Health, Jay Bhattacharya pledged his openness to views that might conflict with his own. “Dissent,” he said, ”is the very essence of science.” That commitment is being put to the test. On Monday, scores of scientists at the agency sent their Trump-appointed leader a letter titled the Bethesda Declaration, challenging “policies that undermine the NIH mission, waste public resources, and harm the health of Americans and people across the globe.” It says: “We dissent.” In a capital where insiders often insist on anonymity to say such things publicly, 92 NIH researchers, program directors, branch chiefs and scientific review officers put their signatures on the letter — and their careers on the line. Another 250 of their colleagues across the agency endorsed the declaration without using their names.
Health Impacts:
Chaos at the CDC Is Putting America’s Public Health At Risk
Stat: With U.S. vaccine policy in flux, four members of CDC advisory panel receive termination notices Four members of the 19-person expert panel that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccination policy have been informed that their status as special government employees has been terminated — a development that throws into question their ability to continue to work on the body, STAT has learned. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has been in the crosshairs of health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who recently pre-empted the group’s plan to revise guidance on use of Covid-19 vaccines at its next scheduled meeting in late June by issuing his own recommendations — which was unprecedented. It is not clear whether the terminations are the result of political machinations, or of a bureaucratic slip-up due to cuts to the number of staff in the offices that handle the issuance of special government employee contracts. Though members of ACIP are appointed to four-year terms, their SGE contracts must be renewed annually. In the past, those renewals were routine affairs, people familiar with the process said.
CBS: CDC official overseeing COVID-19 vaccine recommendations resigns A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official said Tuesday she was resigning from her role overseeing updates to the agency’s COVID-19 vaccine recommendations, following an order by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to force an update to the agency’s guidance. “My career in public health and vaccinology started with a deep-seated desire to help the most vulnerable members of our population, and that is not something I am able to continue doing in this role,” Dr. Lakshmi Panagiotakopoulos wrote in an email to the COVID-19 vaccines work group in the agency’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). Panagiotakopoulos had served as one of the leads of this ACIP work group. She sent an email to members of the group early Tuesday morning to say she was resigning, multiple people who received the email confirmed to CBS News.
Axios: Questions swirl over who’s running the CDC Confusion over shifting Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID-19 vaccine recommendations are reigniting questions in the public health community over who’s running the agency. The answer: no single person. Why it matters: Almost six months into the Trump administration, the vaunted health agency is staring down threats like respiratory viruses, avian flu and foodborne diseases without a bona fide public health official or designated point person at the helm. That’s left some decisions flowing straight up to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
New York Times: Palantir’s Collection of Disease Data at C.D.C. Stirs Privacy Concerns The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s plans to consolidate data on diseases like measles and polio are raising concerns about patient privacy, delays in spotting long-term trends and ways the Trump administration may use the information. The agency told state officials earlier this week that it would shift disease information to a new system managed by Palantir, the data analysis and technology firm co-founded by Peter Thiel. The change is not entirely unexpected. The Covid pandemic revealed that the C.D.C.’s data systems were antiquated, hobbling the country’s response in the crucial early months. A plan to modernize and consolidate the agency’s data systems began during the Biden administration. But news that the Trump administration has expanded Palantir’s work across the federal government in recent months, allowing it to compile detailed information about Americans, has introduced a new layer of anxiety and mistrust among state and local officials about sharing data with the C.D.C.
Stat: Dismantling CDC’s chronic disease center ‘looks pretty devastating’ to public health experts Chronic disease isn’t going away, but a national center devoted to its prevention may be, a prospect that is alarming agency insiders and public health officials across the country. The Department of Health and Human Services’ budget for 2026, released Friday, proposed $14 billion in discretionary funding for programs that aim to reverse the chronic disease epidemic, but it would also abolish the CDC’s National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. “If this center is eliminated, state and local departments lose core prevention funds. And they lose the workforce for schools, chronic disease prevention, data collection, surveillance systems,” a senior official at the CDC chronic disease center told STAT on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. “If folks care about kids, schools rely on this.”
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: Kennedy Says ‘Charlatans’ Are No Reason to Block Unproven Stem Cell Treatments Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently declared that he wanted to expand access to experimental therapies but conceded that they could be risky or fraudulent. In a podcast with Gary Brecka, who describes himself as a longevity expert, Mr. Kennedy vowed to end what he called the Food and Drug Administration’s war with alternative medicine. He said that would include stem cells, vitamins, peptides and chelation therapy, which involves removing heavy metals from the blood. “If you want to take an experimental drug — you can do that, you ought to be able to do that,” Mr. Kennedy said. “And of course you’re going to get a lot of charlatans, and you’re going to get people who have bad results,” he added. “And ultimately, you can’t prevent that either way. Leaving the whole thing in the hands of pharma is not working for us.” Mr. Kennedy cited his own experience at a clinic in Antigua, where he said he received a stem cell treatment that “enormously” eased his neurological condition, spasmodic dysphonia, which affects his voice and has few treatment options. If Mr. Kennedy does permit broader use of unauthorized or experimental therapies, he would be reversing longstanding efforts by the F.D.A. to monitor and sometimes police the emerging field. Experts, including some who support alternative medicine, worry that without safeguards, an expansion of such treatments could undermine legitimate development of new therapies.
Pew: More Americans disapprove than approve of the job Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is doing as U.S. health secretary U.S. adults have mixed views of the job that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is doing as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. But their views lean more negative than positive: A diverging bar chart showing that Americans tend to view Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s job performance more negatively than positively: 43% say they strongly or somewhat disapprove of how Kennedy is handling his job. 36% say they strongly or somewhat approve. 21% aren’t sure. Strong disapproval of Kennedy’s job performance also exceeds strong approval. Three-in-ten Americans strongly disapprove of how Kennedy is handling his job, while 16% strongly approve.
Stat: Rewriting of Covid vaccine recommendations has doctors and other experts worried Delivering Covid vaccinations has never been an easy job. But health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s rewriting of government recommendations will make the effort to get vaccine doses into arms exponentially more difficult, experts say. The changes will complicate discussions between pediatricians and parents, obstetricians and pregnant patients, and both groups and their insurers, these experts say. They will also likely result in Covid shots being harder to access, with fewer doctors choosing to stock them and fewer pharmacies willing to administer them, for both economic and liability reasons, the experts said. “I think it’s going to create confusion for doctors and for patients,” said Linda Eckert, a professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and global health at University of Washington in Seattle, and a member of the immunization work group of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
- Stat: FDA commissioner evades questions on Covid shot, calls CDC panel a ‘kangaroo court’ In an interview meant to clarify the federal government’s position on Covid-19 vaccines, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary had few answers. Instead, he urged Americans to consult with their doctors. In a Sunday appearance on CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” Makary said the data on Covid shots in healthy children and pregnant people are mixed, and said the decision on whether to get vaccinated should be between patients and their doctors. He also called the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s independent vaccine advisory panel a “kangaroo court” that “rubber-stamps” every vaccine. The Trump administration has made several moves to restrict Covid vaccine access in recent weeks, with the FDA planning to limit use of the vaccines to people 65 and older or those with risk factors, and health secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. unilaterally pulling a CDC recommendation that healthy children and pregnant people should get Covid shots. Although other countries, including many in Europe, have stopped recommending the vaccines for healthy children, the U.S. decisions on children and other populations bypassed normal regulatory processes that involve input from the public and from outside experts. The moves don’t make the shots entirely unavailable, but may affect whether insurers pick up the bill.
NBC: How measles tore through a remote West Texas city n a Saturday in mid-March, Dr. Ben Edwards put on his scrubs and drove to a sheet metal building in this tiny West Texas city to treat children with measles. Red spots mottled his face; Edwards was sick with measles, too. An outbreak of the disease was swelling in Gaines County, a rural community with one of the lowest childhood vaccination rates in the country. For two weeks, lines of families had snaked around the building’s dusty parking lot, almost all belonging to the area’s Mennonite community, a religious group known to speak Low German and keep to themselves, mostly sending their children to church-run schools. The parents were concerned by the illness that had speckled their children’s bodies and weakened their breathing, but their distrust of vaccines and hospitals ran deeper. Edwards’ alternatives seemed a safer bet. Hastily repurposed from general store to clinic, the space Edwards worked in held little besides folding tables, plastic chairs and boxes of vitamins and supplements flown in by private plane. Feverish children coughed and whimpered. A flushed baby lay in his mother’s arms. Another child curled under a blanket on her mother’s lap. A crew from the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense documented it all.
Disastrous, Dangerous Appointments
The Hill: Dr. Oz on Medicaid cuts: People should ‘prove that you matter’ Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz defended President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” over criticism that millions of people could lose health coverage, saying those who would face new work requirements should “prove that you matter.” Oz made the comments during an interview Wednesday on Fox Business, arguing that when Medicaid was created in the 1960s lawmakers did not include work requirements because it “never dawned on anybody that able-bodied people who work would be on Medicaid.” “We’re asking that able-bodied individuals who are able to go back to work at least try to get a job or at least volunteer or take care of loved-one who needs help or go back to school,” he said. “Do something that shows you have agency over your future.” If Americans are willing to do that, he added, they should be able to be enrolled or stay enrolled in Medicaid. “But if you are not willing to do those things, we are going to ask you to do something else. Go on the exchange, or get a job and get onto regular commercial insurance. But we are not going to continue to pay for Medicaid for those audiences.”
GOP State Policymakers Are Following RFK Jr.’s Lead Attacking Vaccines And Proven Public Health Measures
The Guardian: Eight US states seek to outlaw chemtrails – even though they aren’t real olitical leaders love an empty statement or proclamation, but when Louisiana’s state house of representatives moved against “chemtrails” last week, they were literally seeking to combat something that does not exist. It was an act of political symbolism that delved deep into the sort of anti-government conspiracy theories that have flourished under Donald Trump and are taking rooting in some US legislative chambers across the US. Known to less conspiratorially minded as aircraft contrails, or the white vaporous lines streaming out of an airplane’s engines at altitude, chemtrails are a longstanding conspiracy theory. Believers in chemtrails hold that the aircraft vapor trails that criss-cross skies across the globe every day are deliberately laden with toxins that are using commercial aircraft to spray them on people below, perhaps to enslave them to big pharma, or exert mind control, or sterilize people or even control the weather for nefarious motives. Despite the outlandishness of the belief and the complete absence of evidence, a 2016 study showed that the idea is held to be “completely true” by 10% of Americans and “somewhat true” by a further 20%-30% of Americans. At least eight states, including Florida and Tennessee, have now introduced chemtrail-coded legislation to prohibit “geo-engineering” or “weather modification”. Louisiana’s bill, which must pass through the senate before reaching Governor Jeff Landry’s desk, orders the department of environmental quality to record reported chemtrail sightings and pass complaints on to the Louisiana air national guard.
Public Health Threats
Time: Measles Vaccination Rates Are Plummeting Across the U.S. Childhood vaccination rates against measles, mumps, and rubella have been declining in much of the U.S. since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new study has found. The study, which was published in JAMA on June 2, analyzed measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccination rates by county where data were available. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University collected county-level data on MMR vaccination rates for kindergarteners from each state’s health department website for the school years before the pandemic (2017-2018) and after (2023-2024). In states where that data were not available, researchers analyzed the most comparable data instead.
CNN: Salmonella outbreak linked to eggs sickens dozens of people across 7 states More than 70 people across seven states have been sickened due to a salmonella outbreak linked to eggs recalled by a California-based egg distributor, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. On Friday, the August Egg Company recalled 1.7 million dozen brown cage-free and brown certified organic eggs, sold under multiple brand names, that have the “potential to be contaminated,” according to a recall notice from the US Food and Drug Administration. Of the 79 people sickened, 21 people have been hospitalized and no deaths have been reported, the CDC said. The eggs were sold to restaurants and retailers in Arizona, California, Illinois, Indiana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Nevada, Washington and Wyoming, according to the CDC. They were distributed at retail locations including Walmart, Save Mart, FoodMaxx, Lucky, Smart & Final, Safeway, Raleys, Food 4 Less and Ralphs.
ABC: In axing mRNA contract, Trump delivers another blow to US biosecurity, former officials say The Trump administration’s cancellation of $766 million in contracts to develop mRNA vaccines against potential pandemic flu viruses is the latest blow to national defense, former health security officials said. They warned that the U.S. could be at the mercy of other countries in the next pandemic. “The administration’s actions are gutting our deterrence from biological threats,” said Beth Cameron, a senior adviser to the Brown University Pandemic Center and a former director at the White House National Security Council. “Canceling this investment is a signal that we are changing our posture on pandemic preparedness,” she added, “and that is not good for the American people.” Flu pandemics killed up to 103 million people worldwide last century, researchers estimate.
Global Public Health Threats:
