Over the last year plus, Trump Health Secretary RFK Jr. has seemingly been everywhere promoting his personal brand and greatest hits of evidence-free anti-science conspiracy theories – everywhere but communities impacted most by historic measles outbreaks or inside a congressional committee room.
That changes this month with Kennedy set to appear before not one, but six committees in the House and Senate where hopefully he’s asked things like: Are you embarrassed having the lowest public trust rating on health information in the country? Do you take any responsibility for the rapid spread of measles after contributing to lower vaccination rates by falsely smearing the MMR vaccine on numerous occasions? Why did you endorse Donald Trump’s executive order bringing back super harmful weedkiller ingredients you once claimed to oppose? And so many more public health failures he’ll finally get to answer for, maybe even from a Republican or two.
In other news…
- Budget Self-Sabotage Watch: To help pay for endless war, Donald Trump is reportedly expected to gut the National Institutes of Health by 20 percent in his fiscal 2027 budget plan expected this week, putting at risk thousands of research grants aimed at finding treatments and cures for cancer, Alzheimer’s, infectious diseases and many other illnesses – while deliberately shooting the economy in the foot.
- If Trump Stops Testing For Smallpox, Does It Cease to Exist? The NYT reports the CDC has stopped “testing for rabies and pox viruses, the family of viruses that includes smallpox and mpox” that, up until now, was used to “assist state and local public health laboratories that are not equipped to conduct them”. There’s literally no one left around to do it after “widespread layoffs, hiring freezes and resignations have shrunk the number of qualified scientists” under Trump’s anti-science agenda. What could possibly go wrong?
- Kennedy’s Conundrum: With promising new vaccine against Lyme disease vaccine being submitted for federal regulatory approval, CNN raises a good question: “RFK Jr. pledged to fight Lyme disease. Does that include supporting a vaccine?” Given his long history of trashing vaccine safety no matter how much the scientific data contradicts him, don’t hold your breath.
- Finally, A Message From Trump’s Former Surgeon General: Face The Nation: With measles cases rising in the U.S., former U.S. surgeon general Dr. Jerome Adams says that “normally, we’re able to control those outbreaks because of the CDC,” but “all of that has been cut.”
In The News:
RFK’s Disastrous Tenure At HHS
- Washington Post: RFK Jr.’s Return To Capitol Hill
- CNN: How RFK Jr.’s MAHA agenda keeps hitting roadblocks
Infectious Disease Outbreaks and Public Health Threats
- New York Times: C.D.C. Pauses Testing for Rabies and Pox Viruses
- New York Magazine: Slow-Walking Back Into an AIDS Nightmare
- Politico: RFK Jr.-favored farm linked to E. coli outbreak by FDA resists voluntary recall
Measles
- Texas Tribune: Measles spike in federal detention facility reaches the Texas public, records show
- MS Now: She once curbed a measles outbreak with vaccines. Experts call her new proposal ‘giving up.’
- KFF Health News: US Scientists Sequence 1,000 Genomes From Measles, a Disease Long Eliminated With Vaccines
The GOP War on Vaccines Will Have Deadly Consequences
- Bloomberg: RFK Jr. Ally Says Vaccines Now a ‘Losing Issue’ With White House
- CNN: RFK Jr. pledged to fight Lyme disease. Does that include supporting a vaccine?
ACIP
- Inside Health Policy: Anti-Vaccine Groups Seek To Propel, Reshape Stalled ACIP
- NBC: Covid and flu shots in limbo as Trump administration mulls appeal over vaccine panel
- New Vaccine Development
- NOTUS: The Vaccine Industry Is Troubleshooting Its Future Existence
Chaos At HHS
Casey Means
CDC
- Stat: 7 big challenges for the next CDC director
- The Week: The Center for Disease Control and Prevention is leaderless. That’s a problem for MAHA.
NIH
- Roll Call: Sources: White House to Propose 20 Percent Cut To NIH Funding
- Axios: Research advocates prepare for next NIH budget fight
- Stat: NIH director’s invocation of Vannevar Bush’s legacy to promote Trump science policies sparks pushback
- Philadelphia Inquirer: NIH director Jay Bhattacharya visits Penn to tout federally funded research
FDA
Make America Unhealthy Again: RFK Jr.’s Agenda
- New York Times: Heeding Kennedy’s Wishes, F.D.A. Is Expected to Lift Restriction on Peptides
- The Guardian (Editorial): The Guardian view on peptides: Robert F Kennedy Jr would leave public health policy to the hucksters
- BioCentury (David Beier): RFK Jr.’s peptide deregulation threatens the foundations of drug safety
- NPR: The wellness world is eager for RFK Jr.’s promised move on peptides
- NOTUS: To Sue or to Woo? The Medical Establishment Is Divided on MAHA
- The Bulwark: RFK Jr., Creature of the Tanning Salon, Throws the Industry a Bone
- Plastics News: MAHA wants Trump to halt new plastic plants, limit microplastics
- The Sick News: “Not a whole lot of substance”: HHS posts Long COVID website, six months after making big promises
- The Hill (David Riviera): Opinion – Is RFK Jr. trying to make the lives of autistic Americans as hard as possible?
Food Rhetoric
- Defector: RFK Jr.’s Offal Advice
- The Independent: The American Heart Association does not want you to follow RFK Jr’s diet
- Politico: RFK Jr. takes push to get junk food out of hospitals to Florida
RFK Jr Resistance
- The Guardian: ‘No kings, just vaccines!’: demonstrators gather at NIH headquarters to protest against cuts to medical research
- Politico: Senator vows to take on RFK Jr. and ‘polarized’ HHS
RFK, MAHA, and the 2026 Elections
- Politico: ‘We love you!’: The MAGA base gives RFK Jr. a rousing welcome
- Politico: Poll: The battle for MAHA that could sway the midterms
- The Atlantic: MAHA Has Been Given an Impossible Task
WHO And International Health
- New York Times: How U.S.A.I.D. Birth Control Meant for Africa Was Ruined
Other Headlines That Caught Our Eye
- NJ.com: RFK Jr. cut off raccoon’s penis while kids waited in car, he wrote in diary
- The Independent: RFK Jr claims that Trump talking about deaths of Russians and Ukrainians in Putin’s war proves he’s an ‘empath’
- Radar: RFK Jr. Claims Trump Drew ‘Perfect’ Middle East Map From Memory, Sparking Mockery Online — ‘He Absolutely Hallucinated That’
- Jezebel: RFK Jr. Is An Underrated Contender for the Saddest Trump Flunky
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