RFK Jr. Shifts to ‘All Action, No Talk’ Strategy
Washington D.C. – New Bloomberg reporting reveals an internal White House memo is why Trump Health Secretary and aggressive anti-vaxxer RFK Jr. has suddenly stopped talking about vaccines in public ahead of the midterm elections, even when ‘goaded on’ in interviews. And yet, in practice, nothing has changed with the Trump administration’s hugely unpopular, exceedingly dangerous anti-vax agenda. Consider:
- Just today, the Washington Post reports the administration “delayed publication of a CDC report showing the covid-19 vaccine cut the likelihood of emergency department visits and hospitalizations for healthy adults last winter by about half”. Even though the “report had cleared the agency’s scientific-review process”, Trump’s acting CDC director raised “concerns about the methodology” despite the fact a report about flu vaccine “using the same methodology” was published a week earlier. Meanwhile, Trump still has not bothered to nominate a permanent CDC director that would take their job seriously and not hide positive vaccine news from the public.
- The administration reportedly “will likely appeal” U.S. District Court Judge Brian Murphy’s decision last month to grant a preliminary injunction against the Trump CDC’s reckless and likely “illegal” downgrade of the children vaccine schedule, with RFK Jr.’s chief spokesman declaring: “HHS looks forward to this judge’s decision being overturned.” If Trump and RFK Jr. had truly abandoned their anti-vax agenda, wouldn’t they drop the case stopping a central component of it?
- Meanwhile, RFK Jr. is actively working to skirt another element of Judge Murphy’s decision that froze Kennedy’s “distinctly unqualified” and mostly anti-vax picks for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and all of the committee’s decisions, including its dangerous vote to stop recommending the hepatitis B vaccine for newborns. Earlier this week, Kennedy quietly published a ‘Notice of Charter Renewal’ in a transparent effort to lower the legal standards for his next round of hand-picked, science-denying ACIP members.
- RFK Jr. has taken no known steps to squash a major new effort by his “longtime allies” to “repeal [state] laws that for decades have required children to be vaccinated against measles, polio and other diseases before they enter day care or kindergarten.” These are among the same close RFK Jr. associates that successfully rolled back Mississippi’s school vaccine rules in 2023, and today the Guardian reports the consequences of their efforts: “Whooping cough surged in Mississippi last year, ultimately claiming the life of a baby – the first whooping cough death in the state in 13 years.”
“Following Donald Trump’s midterm marching orders, RFK Jr. is now all action and no talk on their unwavering anti-vax agenda that continues to leave the public more vulnerable to preventable disease,” said Kayla Hancock, Director of Protect Our Care’s Public Health Project. “Watch what the administration is doing and not what they’re saying, from cooking up schemes to circumvent pro-vaccine court rulings, threatening to appeal their frozen child vaccine downgrade, letting RFK Jr’s close allies assail state-level vaccine guidance, to preventing positive data on vaccine efficacy from seeing the light of day.”
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