RFK Jr.’s Resignation Long Past Due: Public Health Project Newsletter

We’ve been told over and over again that the White House put a leash on Trump health secretary RFK Jr. and his anti-vax agenda. In March, a federal judge gave the administration a golden opportunity to prove it when he halted the centerpiece of Kennedy’s war on vaccines: the unfounded and deadly downgrade of the child vaccine schedule. Had the Trump administration really seen the error of their ways in the face of overwhelming public disapproval, they would have breathed a sigh of political relief and accepted the ruling. Instead, this week, the administration formally appealed the decision, making crystal clear their intent to fully resuscitate RFK Jr.’s dangerous vaccine rollbacks. The good news is everyone can now stop pretending that anything has changed; the bad news is that this agenda is still threatening to harm a lot of American children.

The CDC’s reversal on recommending the life-saving Hepatitis B shot for newborns is among the court-frozen RFK Jr. moves. Studies published this week in JAMA Pediatrics found that RFK Jr. CDC’s “decision to drop the long-standing recommendation that newborns receive a hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours of birth will likely lead to hundreds of additional infections among children, along with more cases of liver cancer, deaths and millions in added health care costs.”

5-Alarm Measles Update: STAT News’ Helen Branswell breaks it down: “In the first 4 months of 2026, there have been 1,814 confirmed measles cases (& doubtless many more that were never confirmed). For context: That’s 79% of the total for the entirety of 2025 — but in 4 months, not 12.”

No word yet from Secretary Kennedy who declared during recent Congressional testimony no one on Earth is handling the measles crisis better than him, while also accepting no responsibility for his anti-vax rhetoric that contributed to it.

It gets worse. As stressed by the NYT editorial board: “The rise of measles may also be a harbinger of something even worse, public officials say. “Measles is basically a canary in the coal mine for our entire system,” says Dr. Scott Harris, the state health officer in Alabama’s Department of Public Health. “When it surges like this, it signals that our vaccination programs are starting to fail, and that other diseases won’t be far behind.”

It gets so much worse. A Washington Post expert op-ed this week notes: “A simulation model in JAMA projects an 83 percent probability that measles will become endemic again in the U.S. within 21 years at current vaccination rates. Under a 50 percent decline in childhood vaccination, the model projects up to 159,200 deaths over 25 years from measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases. Measles alone would account for 51.2 million projected cases.”

Going Global With Consequences of Trump Anti-Vax Agenda: Politico reports RFK Jr. is deliberately holding up $600 million in Congressionally approved and appropriated funds for international humanitarian group, Gavi that “provides vaccines for 20 diseases, including measles, malaria and polio, to more than 50 low-income countries across the globe” – obstruction that is projected to leave “tens of thousands” of people dead.

Must See TV on Big Food Fraud, RFK Jr.: A damning new expose from More Perfect Union details how RFK Jr.’s overhauled food pyramid was heavily influenced by corporate interests: “General Mills, Danone, the beef industry, and more had financial ties to the scientists writing the new dietary guidelines. RFK said he couldn’t be bought, then he let Big Food write the nutrition guidelines.”

Yet Another One Of RFK Jr.’s Myths Debunked: Bloomberg reports “Large-scale infant formula testing conducted by the [FDA] found that the overwhelming majority of samples weren’t contaminated with metals or pesticides …Trump health secretary] Kennedy previously voiced concerns about the presence of heavy metals in formula products based on earlier testing by an anti-pesticide group.” It wasn’t the first time RFK Jr. tripped over his own skis on baby formula, and likely won’t be his last. And it certainly wasn’t the first debunked myth for Kennedy who loves to throw out unsubstantiated claims and then bark insults when they prove false.

Study Finds RFK Jr. CDC’s Overhauled Messaging Is Destroying Trust in Vaccines: New research is confirming what we’ve long suspected: that public trust is eroding on vaccines as a direct result of the RFK Jr.’s CDC taking a hatchet to its longstanding public statement on vaccines and autism, replacing it with messaging that “without new scientific evidence, cast fresh doubt on their safety and resurfaced the disproven link between vaccines and autism.” According to the lead researcher, “This shift in CDC communication could indeed contribute to declining vaccine confidence and, ultimately, lower vaccination rates.”

Meanwhile, pediatricians are reporting that “selling” vaccination to patients has never felt more tiring or more critical. As The Cut notes: “Anti-vaccine sentiment isn’t new, but its proponents are more vociferous than ever. And as of last year, one of the most prolific vectors of pandemic misinformation, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is heading up the [HHS].”

IN: $400M Ballroom. OUT: Life-Saving Test Strips. While Donald Trump’s biggest cheerleaders in Congress are cooking up legislation to pay for Trump’s unpopular $400M White House ballroom with taxpayer money, the Trump-RFK Jr. HHS has suddenly abandoned its commitment to funding “test strips used to determine if illicit drugs contain deadly contaminants including fentanyl will no longer be covered by federal funding … leaving public health organizations worried that the U.S. will lose the progress it has made combatting fatal overdoses.” Letting Americans die over a $1 test strip but insisting a $400M ballroom is essential is crazy work even for this administration.

Casey Means’ Failed Surgeon General Nomination Says More About RFK Jr.’s Poor Judgment: Protect Our Care’s Kayla Hancock summed it up: “Donald Trump and RFK Jr. desperately wanted an unqualified, science-denying grifter to be the nation’s leading public health educator, perhaps after looking in the mirror. No one pushed harder for Means’ nomination than fellow anti-vax charlatan RFK Jr., which is more of a reflection of his own incompetence and lack of qualifications that have put public health at risk every day.”

RFK Jr. Doubles Down On Conflicts Of Interest Because It’s The Trump Administration Way: The Financial Times reports this week that RFK Jr.’s son William “Finn” Kennedy is “launching a fund to invest in healthcare companies, touting his ties to his father’s ‘Make America healthy Again’ movement (MAHA) and backing groups that could benefit from it.” It’s just the latest way an immediate family member of Kennedy’s is getting rich off his title, but it likely won’t cause much concern among Republicans in Congress who don’t care that Donald Trump and Commerce Secretary Lutnick’s sons have pocketed billions off the power of the White House.

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