Washington D.C. – This week, the Trump-RFK Jr. CDC rushed ahead with its radical child vaccine schedule rollback without consulting with leading outside medical experts in the field or even the agency’s own vaccine advisory panel, who were “blindsided”. And while Donald Trump reportedly “appears thrilled with how it’s going” under the direction of vaccine-safety misinformer of the century HHS Secretary Kennedy, top former health officials in the previous Trump administration are warning RFK Jr’s anti-vaccine rhetoric coupled with reduced CDC recommendations are a recipe for a dangerous uptick in child sickness and disease.
Dr. Scott Gottlieb, Former Trump Commissioner of the FDA, warned earlier this week: “We’re going to have to build new pediatric hospitals” if we switch to [the] Danish immunization schedule, because so many more kids will become seriously ill.”
And now Dr. Jerome Adams, U.S. Surgeon General during the first Trump administration (2017-21), is raising further concern with a new op-ed, “One year in, the war on vaccination is undoing the Trump administration’s health agenda.”
“Donald Trump and Secretary Kennedy are on an island alone pushing a dangerous anti-vax agenda over the objections of the larger medical community, the CDC’s own vaccine advisory panel, and even top former Trump health officials. But ignoring and silencing the experts won’t stop the looming consequences of their actions,” said Kayla Hancock, Director of Public Health Watch, a project of Protect Our Care. “RFK Jr. has abused his power by ignoring scientific evidence and spreading baseless anti-vaccine propaganda, which had already led to fewer parents getting safe and effective, life-saving vaccines for their children. Vaccine rates will only continue to fall for the shots that the Trump-RFK Jr. CDC suddenly stopped recommending. Look no further than the current measles outbreak, worsening by the day, that followed Kennedy’s fear-mongering over its vaccine. Congress needs to step up and hold RFK Jr. accountable for his recklessness and threats to our public health before it’s too late.”
Key excerpts from Former Trump Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams’s op-ed in Forbes this week:
Nine in 10 voters want guidance from trained physicians, and 85% of Trump voters support continued vaccine innovation. Yet many of RFK Jr ‘s actions this year have directly contradicted that mandate.
In June, the Health Secretary’s “clean sweep” of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) — the independent panel responsible for delivering vaccine guidance — included firing the 17 vetted experts and replacing them with handpicked skeptics. Relying on cherry-picked numbers and anecdotes, the current members have since rescinded recommendations for some flu vaccines and changed long-standing hepatitis B vaccination guidance. And they may soon exact broader changes to the childhood schedule.
RFK Jr has also cancelled $500 million in mRNA contracts — which would have built on President Trump’s landmark achievement with Operation Warp Speed — further undermining efforts to drive breakthroughs in vaccines for cancer, Alzheimer’s, and other critical diseases.
And the Secretary has fueled the misinformation surrounding vaccine safety and guidance that has become all too common. One in three adults in 2025 reported hearing the false claim that measles vaccine is more dangerous than the virus itself. That’s up from less than 20% in 2024, and it’s sparking understandable confusion among Americans.
Of course, vaccine evaluation and monitoring should be constant, particularly for those administered to children, to ensure safety and efficacy. But the simple fact is that vaccines are among the greatest feats of modern medicine. Routine shots are expected to prevent about 508 million cases of illness and well over a million deaths among children born between 1994 and 2023.
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Anti-vaccine rhetoric and policies have caused childhood vaccination rates to decrease. Since 2019, almost 80% of counties and jurisdictions across the U.S. have reported “notable declines in childhood vaccination rates.”
The drop has been most pronounced for measles. Before the pandemic, the vaccination rate among kindergartners was 95%. It has now decreased to about 92.5%. While that may not seem like a large shift, it puts the vaccination rate below the threshold needed to stop the disease from spreading.
In 2025, the U.S. recorded over 1,900 measles cases, the most in over three decades. One outbreak that began in West Texas in January killed three people, including two young girls, and infected over 860.
This month, the U.S. will almost certainly lose its measles elimination status — which it gained in 2000 thanks to widespread vaccination — after reaching a full year of continuous disease spread.
[…] We all want to ensure kids are healthy. But this year, a course correction is essential. The country’s well-being is multi-faceted — in addition to better nutrition and exercise, it depends on access to, and evidence-based information about, the shots that have been protecting people for decades.
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