Skip to main content
Tag

Trump

ashoup
In News

Trump’s War on Health Care: Public Health Watch

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

Washington Post: NIH to terminate or limit grants related to vaccine hesitancy and uptake The National Institutes of Health will cancel or cut back dozens of grants for research on why some people are reluctant to be vaccinated and how to increase acceptance of vaccines, according to an internal email obtained by The Washington Post on Monday. The email, titled “required terminations — 3/10/25,” shows that on Monday morning, the agency “received a new list … of awards that need to be terminated, today. It has been determined they do not align with NIH funding priorities related to vaccine hesitancy and/or uptake.” Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the new secretary of NIH’s parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, has disparaged vaccines for years. He gained national notoriety over the past two decades by promoting misinformation about vaccines and a conjectured link to autism, drawing widespread condemnation from the scientific community. It is unclear if Kennedy had a role, directly or indirectly, in the move to cancel these grants. But his ascendancy to HHS leadership has caused a stir in the research community. Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, another part of HHS, was asked by the Trump administration to launch a study into a possible connection between vaccines and autism, despite repeated research that shows no link between the two.

Politico: HHS braces for a reorganization The Trump administration is readying to slash the Department of Health and Human Services workforce again, according to seven people familiar with the plans who were granted anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the changes. The announcement could come soon, three of the people said. HHS employees have braced for changes after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took over as health secretary in early February. In addition to Kennedy’s goals, the Trump administration has tasked him with downsizing key agencies and overhauling their policy priorities. As part of that, HHS agencies were asked to submit budgetary plans, including workforce reductions. Discussions of a reorganization come as the courts are pushing back on Trump’s initial attempts to shrink the federal government. On Thursday, federal district court Judge William Alsup in San Francisco ordered agencies to immediately rehire the tens of thousands of probationary employees fired in February under the Department of Government Efficiency initiative. It’s unclear whether Alsup’s decision would dissuade the administration, which is likely to appeal the decision, from making further cuts. Cuts are expected agency wide, according to the people. More specifically, job cuts could impact staff working with the assistant secretary for technology policy and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, according to four of the people, as well as the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Health Resources and Services Administration, and the Administration for Children and Families, three of the people said.

  • Stat: At NIH, ‘everyone is on edge’ as they brace for deep cuts and more centralized control With the National Institutes of Health facing deep workforce cuts and little information from agency leadership about how those cuts will be made, scientists, administrators, and other employees at the nation’s premier funder of biomedical research are reeling, afraid and confused.  “Nobody feels like their job is safe. Everyone is on edge,” said Kim Hasenkrug, an NIH scientist emeritus with knowledge of ongoing activities at Rocky Mountain Laboratories. “They’re trying to hide these numbers. Even the top people can’t keep track because they’re hiring and firing so much. Direct supervisors of those who were terminated didn’t even know that it was happening.” The pending cuts add to what has already been two months of stress, uncertainty, shifting policies around funding, communications and travel, firings and, in some cases, rehirings — all before President Trump’s nominee for NIH commissioner, Jay Bhattacharya, has been confirmed by the Senate.

New York Times: Federal Agency Dedicated to Mental Illness and Addiction Faces Huge Cuts Every day, Dora Dantzler-Wright and her colleagues distribute overdose reversal drugs on the streets of Chicago. They hold training sessions on using them and help people in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction return to their jobs and families. They work closely with the federal government through an agency that monitors their productivity, connects them with other like-minded groups and dispenses critical funds that keep their work going. But over the last few weeks, Ms. Wright’s phone calls and emails to Washington have gone unanswered. Federal advisers from the agency’s local office — who supervise her group, the Chicago Recovering Communities Coalition, as well as addiction programs throughout six Midwestern states and 34 tribes — are gone. “We just continue to do the work without any updates from the feds at all,” Ms. Wright said. “But we’re lost.” By the end of this week, the staff of the agency, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, could be cut by 50 percent, according to senior staff members at the agency and congressional aides who attended briefings by Trump officials. With just under 900 employees and a budget of $7.2 billion for large state grants and individual nonprofits that address addiction and mental illness, SAMHSA (pronounced SAM-sah) is relatively small. But it addresses two of the nation’s most urgent health problems and has generally had bipartisan support.

  • Stat: ‘Deliberate trauma’: SAMHSA employees detail a federal agency in shambles The new administration’s decision to fire a tenth of the workers at the federal government agency that oversees mental and behavioral health will imperil efforts to curb suicides and drug overdose deaths, according to current and former employees.  Roughly 100 employees of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration were let go according to insiders’ estimates. That’s more than 10% of the agency’s workforce, the 2025 fiscal report shows. The stories from former and current workers, who spoke with STAT on condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation, mirror similar news of chaos and confusion spilling out of other health agencies, as the Trump administration laid off probationary employees, mostly without notice and often under false allegations of poor performance. The actions, one employee said, were causing “deliberate trauma.”

HuffPost: Trump Administration Shutting Down HHS Legal Offices That Help Fight Fraud The Trump administration plans to shut down a half dozen regional offices at the Department of Health and Human Services that work on everything from violations of nursing home safety standards to fraudulent hospital billing. The regional offices are part of the Office of General Counsel, whose attorneys are basically the in-house lawyers for HHS. They advise the massive agency on how to write, publicize and enforce standards for a variety of federal health programs ― and what to do when a person, organization or business may be violating those standards.

Mother Jones: ‘Health Security Is At Risk’: Inside the Purge of HHS I spoke with five HHS workers over the past two days who are eligible for the buyouts, three of whom said they plan to try to take it. Two others said they will stay in their jobs. Each one characterizes the choice as a daunting one: Leave and lose income and abandon critical work, or stay and try to continue to make a difference in public health as officials at the highest levels of government seem hellbent on undermining them and imposing burdensome working conditions. “Somebody has to stay to help clean up the mess that they’re most likely going to make,” a public health advisor on infectious diseases at the CDC told me. “If you want to get rid of me, you’re basically going to drag me kicking and screaming out of here.”

ProPublica: National Cancer Institute Employees Can’t Publish Information on These Topics Without Special Approval Employees at the National Cancer Institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health, received internal guidance last week to flag manuscripts, presentations or other communications for scrutiny if they addressed “controversial, high profile, or sensitive” topics. Among the 23 hot-button issues, according to internal records reviewed by ProPublica: vaccines, fluoride, peanut allergies, autism. While it’s not uncommon for the cancer institute to outline a couple of administration priorities, the scope and scale of the list is unprecedented and highly unusual, said six employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly. All materials must be reviewed by an institute “clearance team,” according to the records, and could be examined by officials at the NIH or its umbrella agency, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Staffers and experts worried that the directive would delay or halt the publication of research. “This is micromanagement at the highest level,” said Dr. Georges C. Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. The list touches on the personal priorities of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist who has repeatedly promoted medical conspiracy theories and false claims.

Stat:  Former NIH director Francis Collins, once beloved in Washington, now worries for his safety there As Francis Collins, longtime director of the National Institutes of Health, took to the steps below the Lincoln Memorial on Friday for a sound check before speaking at the Stand Up for Science rally, he was confronted by an agitated protester who warned, “You’re going to prison.” The incident was witnessed by a reporter from STAT, and the man afterward identified himself only as “Jeff” and said he was there to protest Collins’ oversight of NIH, and specifically the agency’s funding of gain-of-function research at a lab in Wuhan, China, where some believe the SARS-CoV-2 virus may have originated. “He’s an indicted felon, he lied before Congress,’’ Jeff, baselessly, told the reporter. The confrontation was the latest public manifestation of the dramatically altered public image of Collins, from a near-legendary geneticist who led the Human Genome Project and was beloved by lawmakers on both sides of the aisle — and was asked to stay on by President Trump in his first term — to a target demonized by Trump’s Make America Great Again followers.  Collins told STAT he is so concerned for his personal safety that he has hired security at his home.

Chaotic Firings and Re-Hirings:

Cruel and Destructive Policy Changes:

RFK Jr. Is An Extreme Anti-Vaxxer Who’s Already Breaking His “Assurances” To Key Republicans To Get Confirmed

NBC: Kennedy spends first month as health secretary downplaying vaccines and targeting food additives A month into his new role as health and human services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is beginning to make his priorities for the country clear — and confirming some public health experts’ worst fears. Since Kennedy was sworn in Feb. 13, the agencies he leads have canceled or postponed meetings about flu shots and other vaccines and announced plans to investigate already debunked links between vaccines and autism. He has downplayed the importance of vaccination in the Texas measles outbreak while endorsing unproven remedies for the highly contagious disease. At the same time, Kennedy has begun to act on his long-standing concerns about the U.S. food system, directing the Food and Drug Administration to tighten a rule about the use of food additives and railing against seed oils in a Fox News interview. As a whole, these actions and statements indicate that Kennedy has not abandoned some of the fringe beliefs that made him a controversial pick. His early moves on vaccines have worried health experts, who fear he is sowing confusion that could ultimately lead to the spread of preventable diseases.

New York Times: Without Offering Proof, Kennedy Links Measles Outbreak to Poor Diet and Health In a sweeping interview, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary, outlined a strategy for containing the measles outbreak in West Texas that strayed far from mainstream science, relying heavily on fringe theories about prevention and treatments. He issued a muffled call for vaccinations in the affected community, but said the choice was a personal one. He suggested that measles vaccine injuries were more common than known, contrary to extensive research. He asserted that natural immunity to measles, gained through infection, somehow also protected against cancer and heart disease, a claim not supported by research. He cheered on questionable treatments like cod liver oil, and said that local doctors had achieved “almost miraculous and instantaneous” recoveries with steroids or antibiotics. The worsening measles outbreak, which has largely spread through a Mennonite community in Gaines County, has infected nearly 200 people and killed a child, the first such death in the United States in 10 years. Another suspected measles death has been reported in New Mexico, where cases have recently increased in a county that borders Gaines County.

Rolling Stone: RFK Jr. Reminds Everyone He’s Not a Huge Fan of Vaccines in Bonkers Fox Interview As a major measles outbreak spreads out of West Texas into other states, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continues to spread a confusing message about vaccine safety. In an interview with Fox News that aired on Tuesday, Kennedy touted the vaccine — but also suggested that the best way to get lifetime immunity from the measles is to simply become infected with measles, and that the measles vaccine is dangerous to those who take it.  “It used to be — when you and I were kids — that everybody got measles. And the measles gave you lifetime protection against measles infection. The vaccine doesn’t do that,” Kennedy told Sean Hannity from inside the Steak & Shake fast food restaurant where the interview was conducted. “The vaccine is effective for some people for life, for many people it wanes.”

New York Times: Keeping With Kennedy’s Advice, Measles Patients Turn to Unproven Treatments Struggling to contain a raging measles epidemic in West Texas, public health officials increasingly worry that residents are relying on unproven remedies endorsed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, and postponing doctor visits until the illness has worsened. Hospitals and officials sounded an alarm this week, issuing a notice explaining which measles symptoms warranted immediate medical attention and stressing the importance of timely treatment. “I’m worried we have kids and parents that are taking all of these other medications and then delaying care,” said Katherine Wells, director of public health in Lubbock, Texas, where many of the sickest children in this outbreak have been hospitalized. Some seriously ill children had been given alternative remedies like cod liver oil, she added. “If they’re so, so sick and have low oxygen levels, they should have been in the hospital a day or two earlier,” she said.

The Guardian: RFK Jr praises beef tallow on Fox News show with burger and fries Robert F Kennedy Jr, the health secretary, appeared with a cheeseburger and fries in a nationally televised interview on Fox News – a highly unusual move for a federal health official. The appearance, in which he endorsed the decision of the burger chain Steak ‘n Shake to cook its fries in beef tallow, comes as Kennedy has attacked seed oils and made claims about the measles vaccine that lack context. “We are poisoning ourselves and it’s coming principally from these ultra-processed foods,” said Kennedy, while seated at a table with the Fox News host Sean Hannity. “President Trump wants us to have radical transparency and incentivize companies like this one to switch traditional ingredients for beef tallow,” Kennedy added, before he was delivered a double cheeseburger and french fries at a restaurant location in Florida. Kennedy has moved to make the health department significantly less transparent using a little known provision called the “Richardson waiver”. In multiple interviews, Kennedy has claimed seed oils are harmful to health and that fats, such as beef tallow, are preferable. The advice contradicts that of the American Heart Association (AHA), the largest nation’s largest non-profit focused on heart disease. A 2017 review by the organization found replacing saturated fats such as beef tallow, lard and coconut oil with unsaturated vegetable oils could reduce cardiovascular disease at rates “similar to the reduction achieved by statin treatment”, according to clinical trials.

  • Washington Post: Steak ’n Shake was struggling. It turned to beef tallow — and MAGA.  Steak ’n Shake was looking for change. The Indianapolis-based fast food chain for burgers and milkshakes replaced its leadership after a lackluster 2024. In mid-January, it announced that all of its restaurants would switch to cooking their french fries with beef tallow. Executives said the move would make for tastier fries. It also aligned Steak ’n Shake with President Donald Trump’s top health official, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has made replacing seed oils a key plank of his plans to overhaul America’s food industry. Conservatives hailed Steak ’n Shake’s decision as a win for Trump’s controversial Cabinet pick. The company leaned in. “We RFK’ed our fries,” Steak ’n Shake COO Dan Edwards said in a February Fox News interview. Now, Steak ’n Shake’s X account posts images of Tesla-themed storefronts on Mars and slogans like “Make Frying Oil Tallow Again” printed on MAGA-esque red hats. The account reposted endorsements from conservative firebrands like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) and Laura Loomer, who snapped a picture of herself dining at the establishment.

NPR: RFK says most vaccine advisers have conflicts of interest. A report shows they don’t Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has pledged to purge conflicts of interest from the government agencies he’s now in charge of, alleging close ties between employees and the pharmaceutical industry. In his confirmation hearings for the role, he took aim at Centers for Disease Control and Prevention committee that plays a key role in setting policies around vaccine schedules and access, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP. Kennedy said on Jan. 29 of the committee: “I think 97% of the people on it had conflicts. I think we need to end those conflicts and make sure that scientists are doing unobstructed science.” He was citing an older government report on ethics disclosures, which he said came from a “government oversight investigation committee.” NPR tracked down that 2009 report, spoke with those involved with the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee at the time, and learned that Kennedy’s statement about it is inaccurate.

Stat: RFK Jr.’s ‘MAHA’ commission meets for the first time — behind closed doors An array of federal government officials and “Make America Healthy Again” moms met Tuesday in what was the first convening of a new commission led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The meeting, held in Washington on Tuesday afternoon, was not made public or announced before it occurred. It marked the start of a monthslong effort, birthed by President Donald Trump’s pen on Feb. 13, which aims to identify and then solve the nation’s chronic ills. The meeting was first reported by the New York Times. STAT independently verified that it took place.  Among those empaneled to the MAHA commission are domestic policy advisers, as well as Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who were both in attendance Tuesday. The leaders of the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and National Institutes of Health are also appointed to the commission. Trump’s picks for those roles — Marty Makary, Dave Weldon and Jay Bhattacharya — have yet to be confirmed.

Politico: Kennedy gives food company CEOs an ultimatum Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delivered a stark ultimatum to major food company CEOs in a closed-door meeting this week: Ban certain artificial dyes from your products or the government will do it for you. Kennedy on Monday pressed leaders of companies like PepsiCo, General Mills, Tyson Foods, Smucker’s, Kraft Heinz and Kellogg’s for commitments to reduce food additives, according to a readout of the meeting sent to industry stakeholders and viewed by POLITICO. It was the Health and Human Services secretary’s first major meeting with the very executives he’d spent months accusing of making Americans sick.

Disastrous, Dangerous Appointments

Rolling Stone: Dr. Oz Won’t Commit to Protecting Medicaid The Department of Health and Human Services is already headed by a vaccine skeptic, and the Trump administration would like to install a TV doctor to run the nation’s most vital health care systems.  Dr. Mehmet Oz sat today for a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee to discuss his nomination as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. When asked by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) an incredibly basic question — if he would oppose cuts to Medicaid — Oz declined to answer the question directly.  “I cherish Medicaid, and I’ve worked within the Medicaid environment quite extensively, as I highlighted, practicing at Columbia University,” Oz said. 

Wyden interjected, restating his request that Oz answer directly.   “I want to make sure that the patients today in the future have resources if they get ill, the way you protect Medicaid is by making sure that it’s viable at every level,” Oz replied, once again skirting the question. “Let the record show that I asked a witness, who said he cherishes this program, ‘will you agree to oppose cuts,’ and he would not answer a yes or no question,” Wyden told the committee.

Reuters: US Senate Memo says Dr. Oz, Trump Medicare nominee, may have underpaid taxes for 3 years Dr. Mehmet Oz, the celebrity physician nominated by President Donald Trump to oversee Medicare and Medicaid, appears to have underpaid his social security and Medicare taxes in recent years, according to a memo drafted by Democratic staffers on the Senate Finance Committee. “Dr. Oz may have significantly underpaid his Social Security and Medicare taxes in 2021, 2022, and 2023–with negligible Social Security or Medicare taxes paid in 2022 and no Social Security or Medicare taxes paid in 2023,” the memo, seen by Reuters, states.

Fortune: Health care for more than 100 million Americans is being turned over to a supplement salesman President Donald Trump’s health officials want you to take your vitamins. Mehmet Oz, the nominee to lead the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, has fed calves on camera to tout the health wonders of bovine colostrum on behalf of one purveyor in which he has a financial stake. Janette Nesheiwat, the potential surgeon general, sells her own line of supplements. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of Health and Human Services, said he takes more vitamins than he can count—and has suggested he’ll ease restrictions on vitamins, muscle-building peptides, and more. Their affection for supplements might lead to tangible consequences for Americans’ health regimens. Late in the 2024 campaign, Kennedy claimed the federal government was waging a “war on public health” by suppressing a vast array of alternative therapies—many of them supplements, like nutraceuticals and peptides. In February, Trump announced the “President’s Make America Healthy Again Commission” with Kennedy at the helm, calling for “fresh thinking” on nutrition, “healthy lifestyles,” and other pathways toward combating chronic disease. Spokespeople for Kennedy did not reply to multiple requests for comment. Supplements can be beneficial, particularly in aiding fetal development or warding off anemia, said Pieter Cohen, a general internist at the Cambridge Health Alliance, who researches supplements. “I recommend supplements routinely,” he said. Still, “the majority of use is not necessary to improve or maintain health,” and due to only light regulations, supplement makers may make claims about their benefits without sufficient evidence, Cohen said. “No supplement needs to get tested or vetted by the FDA before it’s sold.” Consumer watchdogs, regulators, and researchers have reported cases of finding traces of lead and other toxins in supplements. And a 2015 analysis from a team of federal health researchers attributed about 23,000 emergency department visits annually to supplement use. (The Council for Responsible Nutrition, the industry’s lobbying group, challenged the findings, arguing some visits were due to over-the-counter and homeopathic medicines that should not have been included.)

Washington Post: White House abruptly pulls Dave Weldon’s CDC nomination before hearing The White House has withdrawn the nomination of Dave Weldon, a former Florida congressman who questioned vaccine safety, to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention amid concerns he could not be confirmed by the Senate. The Senate health committee announced Weldon’s nomination had been pulled shortly before he was scheduled to testify Thursday morning before the panel. The pulling of Weldon marks a rare setback for a Trump administration nominee. The Senate has confirmed every controversial choice brought to a full vote on the floor to date. Weldon, a 71-year-old doctor who left Congress in 2009, drew scrutiny for his longtime promotion of the false claims that vaccines can cause autism. In a four-page statement, Weldon said a White House assistant called him Wednesday night to inform him his nomination was being withdrawn because he lacked the votes to be confirmed. Weldon said Republican senators concerned about his vaccine views doomed his nomination and that he suspected the pharmaceutical industry also played a role.

Public Health Threats

CNN: Measles outbreak holds higher risk for pregnant women, babies A newborn with measles is among the cases reported in the growing West Texas outbreak, Lubbock public health officials say. Experts say the case serves as a reminder that the disease can be especially dangerous for pregnant women and very young children. “This is how widespread this epidemic is, that it’s even showing up in unvaccinated pregnant women,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. At least two pregnant women have been infected in this outbreak, according to officials at Covenant Hospital in Lubbock. Eighty-one measles cases have been reported in children ages 4 and younger across Texas and New Mexico. This is part of the larger outbreak that now spans three states, including Oklahoma, and totals 258 reported cases. The infant, who has recovered, was born to an unvaccinated mother who was recently infected with the virus, according to Katherine Wells, director of Lubbock Public Health.

CNN: Three months into 2025, US measles cases surpass total for 2024 Three months into 2025, the United States has surpassed the total number of measles cases in the country for all of last year. The high number of cases is driven by a multistate outbreak that has reached nearly 300 cases. As of Friday, Texas has reported 259 cases this year, New Mexico has tallied 35 cases and Oklahoma reported two. Experts say this is probably a severe undercount. In 2024, there were 285 total measles cases reported in the US, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A CNN tally suggests that there have been at least 320 cases so far in 2025, including 296 associated with the multistate outbreak.

Stat: Why health experts fear the West Texas measles outbreak may be much larger than reported The growing measles outbreak centered in West Texas, with cases reaching into New Mexico and now Oklahoma, is the country’s largest in six years. But experts say that even with more than 250 cases reported across the three states, the outbreak is likely much larger. “My gut tells me there are cases that are unreported — you don’t have to come in and get tested for measles,” said Katherine Wells, the director of public health in Lubbock, a Texas city on the edge of the outbreak where some sick children have been taken to be hospitalized. “It’s going to be a long process to get everything measles-free again in this area, but I can’t tell you if that’s 500 cases or a thousand.”  Public health officials and other experts believe they are capturing only a fraction of cases for reasons that have to do with the epidemiology of the outbreak as well as reports of a lack of cooperation among some people in the areas where cases have been detected. But a large part of it is simple math.

Politico: States target mRNA shots as vaccine critic RFK Jr. takes charge in Washington A growing number of states are considering measures to limit or ban the use of messenger RNA vaccines — the latest manifestation of Covid-19 pandemic backlash. Republican policymakers in states from Florida to Idaho propose more roadblocks to the vaccines based on a mix of medical freedom rhetoric and incorrect assertions of how they work in the body. Several bills introduced in the Texas Legislature would ban the administration, manufacture or sale of mRNA vaccines there. Legislation in Kentucky would prohibit the use of mRNA vaccines in children under 18. In Idaho, a GOP state senator has proposed a 10-year moratorium on mRNA vaccine administration. While some efforts have already failed — and likely would be challenged in federal court if they succeeded — public health experts worry that their existence now could be a bellwether for the future.

Wall Street Journal: In Rural Texas, a Measles Outbreak Hasn’t Swayed Vaccine Skeptics The dusty plains of Gaines County stretch endlessly, peanut fields fading into cotton farms and oil fields, punctuated by signs touting God. This sprawling rural region is defined by oil, agriculture and a large Mennonite community—members of the Anabaptist family of churches that includes the Amish—who emigrated here from Mexico in the 1970s.  Now, it is also the epicenter of a measles outbreak that has spread across nine counties since late January, leading to nearly 200 documented infections, 23 hospitalizations and the nation’s first measles-related death in a decade. The same strain of the measles is responsible for 30 reported cases across the state line in Lea County, New Mexico, where a measles-related death is under investigation. Gaines County exemplifies pockets of America where antivaccine sentiment has surged, fueled by deepening distrust in the U.S. government after the pandemic. With many states making it easier to get vaccine exemptions for school-age children, what was once a rare exception has become common. “Personal choice” is a term I heard many times when talking to Gaines County area residents about the decision to get a vaccine, even among health officials. What has long been hailed by doctors as a critical lifesaving public-health tool is now considered optional. Even a measles outbreak and death isn’t enough to drive many residents into free vaccine clinics. While that is a personal choice, deeply entrenched vaccine skepticism affects us all.

Public Health Threats Around The World:  

Opinion and Commentary

ashoup
In News

STATEMENT: Donald Trump Greenlights GOP Plan to Cut Medicaid to Fund Tax Breaks for the Wealthy

Washington D.C. — Donald Trump has thrown his full support behind Congressional Republicans’ plan to slash Medicaid in order to fund his tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations. This comes despite his repeated promises to protect Medicaid and Medicare. Instead, Trump is putting Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security on the chopping block all to pave the way for more tax cuts for his billionaire friends. 

“Their plan is to gut the health care that Americans count on to give tax breaks to rich people,” said Brad Woodhouse of Protect Our Care. “It’s clear what they’re trying to do and even clearer that Americans don’t want it. Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress will make life cost more for working families so they can make life cost less for people like themselves. Trump’s empty promises have made one thing clear: his focus is on rewarding the rich, even if it means reneging on his promises and trampling on the needs of working families and the most vulnerable Americans.” 

Background:

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office recently confirmed that the GOP plan would require the largest cut to Medicaid in American history.

  • Washington Post: GOP must cut Medicaid or Medicare to achieve budget goals, CBO finds

Recent analysis has shown that those most hurt by these cuts to Medicaid would be Republicans and recent polling makes clear that even Republican voters don’t support cuts. 

  • CNN: House Republicans could face a major obstacle if they cut Medicaid: Their own districts’ health needs
  • Politico: Trump voters oppose Medicaid cuts, poll finds
ashoup
In News

FACT SHEET: No Matter What Trump Says Tonight, Republicans Are Waging War on Health Care

Tonight, in his address to Congress, President Trump will lie to the American people. No matter what he claims, the truth is that he and his Republican allies in Congress are waging a war on health care. Between passing a budget resolution that would enact the largest cuts to Medicaid in history to the reckless mass firings at the health agencies charged with developing lifesaving cures and treatments that keep us safe, Trump has put the health and well-being of every American in serious jeopardy.

Right now, President Trump and his Republican allies in Congress are working to kick millions of children, seniors, and people with disabilities off their Medicaid coverage and spike the cost of health care for the middle class, all to line the pockets of billionaires and large corporations with tax breaks. 

Here are four big ways he and his Republican allies in Congress are waging war on our nation’s health care:

1. Ripping Away Coverage From Millions of Americans By Slashing Medicaid. Even as Republicans have lied through their teeth about not cutting Medicare or Medicaid, they passed a budget resolution last week calling for massive cuts that would be impossible without slashing one or both health programs in order to fund tax breaks for billionaires and corporations. Slashing Medicaid could:

  • Put the care of over 8 million seniors at risk, including many of the 5.6 million who count on Medicaid for long-term care and 6 in 10 nursing home residents. 
  • Take away coverage for people with disabilities and mental illness, jeopardizing care for over 15 million adults with disabilities and kids with physical, mental, and developmental disabilities.
  • Take away health care from children. Almost half of all children in America have Medicaid, helping over 30 million children get the health care they need. 
  • Threaten health care for veterans. Nearly a million non-elderly veterans, many of whom suffer with chronic conditions, use Medicaid for all or part of their health care. 
  • Jeopardize health care for new mothers. Medicaid covers 4 in 10 births and is the largest share of maternity coverage. 
  • Force rural hospitals and clinics to close. Half of all children and 20% of adults in rural areas get their healthcare through Medicaid. 

2. Raising The Cost of Health Coverage For Middle Class Families. Republicans want to raise health care costs for over 24 million Americans. Republicans are refusing to extend tax credits that help working families afford health care, which will raise costs and rip away health care from millions of Americans at a time they cannot afford it. If Republicans take away these tax credits, they’ll be taking away health care. Costs will skyrocket by an average of $2,400 for millions of families, and 5 million people will lose their health care altogether. Without these credits, families will pay up to 90 percent more for their health care, while billionaires and CEOs will get another huge tax break. 

3. Hiking Prescription Drug Costs For Seniors. Republicans have introduced legislation to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act’s prescription drug provisions that are saving Americans thousands of dollars on health care. This includes ending the $35 monthly cap on insulin, stopping Medicare from negotiating lower drug prices, ending the $2,000 annual out-of-pocket cap on drug costs, and allowing drug companies to once again raise drug prices through the roof without penalty. They want to raise costs on the 53 million seniors with Part D prescription drug coverage while giving more tax breaks to drug companies and their CEOs. 

4. Destroying Medical Research, Endangering Public Health, and Bringing Back Vaccine Preventable Diseases. Under the second Trump administration, public health is under serious threat. Over the past month, his federal grant stoppages and cuts have upended the nation’s medical research infrastructure and thrown global efforts to stop the spread of deadly disease into chaos. Republicans’ confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the next Secretary of Health and Human Services has already begun to cost lives and undermine our nation’s most critical health institutions. His opposition to vaccines has already led to a deadly resurgence of measles across the Southwest, the cancellation of a scientific panel that meets to approve flu vaccines, and the halting of vaccine research. As vaccination rates across the country drop, it is only a matter of time before other once-eliminated childhood diseases, such as polio, make a comeback. Our country is now more at the mercy of infectious disease than ever in recent history.

If Republicans Enact Their Proposals:

  • GONE: Coverage for up to 36 million people because of the GOP’s onerous work reporting requirements. 
  • GONE: Federal funding for Medicaid expansion, putting coverage for 21 million Americans at risk. 
  • GONE: Protections and health care for over 30 million children currently covered through Medicaid.
  • GONE: Billions in federal state funding for Medicaid, as Republicans plan to cut federal funding for Medicaid and eliminate provider taxes to cut taxes for the rich.
  • GONE: Critical funding for rural hospitals through Medicaid. 

If Republicans Repeal The Affordable Care Act:

  • GONE: Protections for more than 100 million Americans with pre-existing conditions, including 54 million people with a pre-existing condition that would make them completely uninsurable.
  • GONE: Medicaid expansion, which covers over 21 million people. 
  • GONE: Quality, affordable coverage for over 24 million people who buy insurance on their own.
  • GONE: Premium tax credits that make premiums affordable for 93 percent of people who purchase health care on the marketplace.
  • GONE: 2.3 million adult children will no longer be able to stay on their parents’ insurance.
  • GONE: Ban on insurance companies having annual and lifetime caps on coverage.
  • GONE: Requirements that insurance companies cover prescription drugs and maternity care.

If Republicans Roll Back The Inflation Reduction Act:

  • GONE: $35 cap on monthly insulin costs for people with Medicare.
  • GONE: Medicare’s power to negotiate lower prices for the most popular and expensive prescription drugs. Over 9 million people take the first ten drugs and over 5 million people take the second 15 drugs selected for negotiation, which together account for over a third of Medicare Part D yearly spending. 
  • GONE: Prescription drug savings for people on Medicare, including the $2,000 annual out-of-pocket prescription drug cap and protections from drug company price hikes through inflation rebates. Nearly 19 million American seniors are expected to save an average of $400 per year, including 11 million who will save an average of $600 per year from the $2,000 out-of-pocket cap alone.
  • GONE: Free vaccines for 53 million people on Medicare, including for shingles and pneumonia.
  • GONE: Prescription drug savings for 4 million low-income seniors through the Medicare Part D Extra Help program.
ashoup
In News

Trump’s War on Health Care: Public Health Watch

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. 

Upcoming Events

March 4: President Trump will give an address to a joint session of Congress

March 5: The Senate HELP Committee will hold a confirmation hearing for Jay Bhattacharya as NIH Director

March 6: The Senate HELP Committee will hold a confirmation hearing for Marty Makary as FDA Commissioner 

What’s Happening In Public Health?

Catastrophic Cuts Are Creating Chaos And Endangering Americans’ Health And Scientific Innovation

The Atlantic: Inside the Collapse at the NIH For decades, the National Institutes of Health has had one core function: support health research in the United States. But for the past month, the agency has been doing very little of that, despite multiple separate orders from multiple federal judges blocking the Trump administration’s freeze on federal funding. For weeks on end, as other parts of the government have restarted funding, officials at the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the NIH, have pressed staff at the agency to ignore court orders, according to nearly a dozen former and current NIH officials I spoke with. Even advice from NIH lawyers to resume business as usual was dismissed by the agency’s acting director, those officials said. When NIH officials have fought back, they have been told to heed the administration’s wishes—or, in some cases, have simply been pushed out.

Stat: Medicare and Medicaid agency faces compromised functions and disruption from Trump’s firings The federal agency that oversees Medicare, Medicaid, and other major health care programs is facing employee firings, flagging morale, confusing messaging, and the specter of additional disruption — compromising its oversight and administration of key programs that finance care for half of Americans. Leaders at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services still haven’t formally received a list of who was fired in the initial round of cuts from the Trump administration, which focused on employees in their probationary periods. CMS leaders think at least 300 of the agency’s 6,700 employees have been let go, or a little under 5%, one senior CMS official told STAT. The Trump administration, guided by Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service, has cut thousands of people across federal health agencies, and more firings appear to be coming across departments, with plans due by March 13. An order for workers to return to their offices is also likely to contribute to attrition. However, some terminated CMS employees who are attorneys or work on Medicare Advantage have been asked to come back — a sign of the haphazard approach to the job cuts. Now, the administration is getting pushback. On Friday, Jeff Grant, a top career official who has been with CMS since 1993, retired from the agency. On his way out, Grant excoriated the federal human resources officer who carried out the firings and demanded that all terminated employees in his division, which oversees Affordable Care Act plans, get their jobs back.

Axios: Universities feel ripple effects of DOGE cuts to health As the battle over Elon Musk’s DOGE-directed cuts to federal medical research continues, institutions already are freezing hiring, cutting back on the number of Ph.D. students they’ll accept and making other contingencies. Why it matters: Capping how much the National Institutes of Health covers the schools’ overhead costs could lead to billions of dollars in cuts to scientific research funding and widespread economic fallout. Driving the news: An economic analysis by software company Implan on Tuesday estimates proposed cuts could lead to a loss of $6.1 billion in the nation’s gross domestic product, a $4.6 billion reduction in labor income and result in the loss of more than 46,000 jobs nationwide. This includes the direct effects of the research itself, with 17,000 expected job cuts, but also indirect effects through a slowing of business-to-business spending in the R&D supply chain that could support 14,000 more jobs.

Chaotic Firings and Re-Hirings:

Cruel and Destructive Policy Changes:

RFK Jr. Is An Extreme Anti-Vaxxer Who’s Already Breaking His “Assurances” To Key Republicans To Get Confirmed

New York Times: Federal Officials Underplaying Measles Vaccination, Experts Say In a first test of the Trump administration’s ability to respond to an infectious disease emergency, its top health official has shied away from one of the government’s most important tools, experts said on Sunday: loudly and directly encouraging parents to get their children vaccinated. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, was widely criticized as minimizing the measles outbreak in West Texas at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday. In a social media post on Friday, he took a new tact, saying that the outbreak was a “top priority” for his department, Health and Human Services. He noted various ways in which the department is aiding Texas, among them by funding the state’s immunization program and updating advice that doctors give children vitamin A. But on neither occasion did Mr. Kennedy himself advise Americans to make sure their children got the shots.

  • Axios: RFK Jr. urges people to get vaccinated amid deadly Texas outbreak Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke of the benefits of the MMR vaccine on Sunday in response to a growing measles outbreak in Texas. Why it matters: Kennedy has a long record of sowing skepticism about vaccines and last week appeared to downplay the situation in Texas when he described such outbreaks as “not unusual.” He has previously repeated debunked claims about vaccines and provided elusive answers to senators on his stance on vaccinations ahead of being confirmed. Driving the news: Kennedy wrote an op-ed for Fox News’ website on Sunday with the headline “Measles outbreak is call to action for all of us” and the subheading “MMR vaccine is crucial to avoiding potentially deadly disease.” Kennedy wrote that before the introduction of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine in the 1960s, “virtually every child in the United States contracted measles.” He noted that from 1953 to 1962, “on average there were 530,217 confirmed cases and 440 deaths,” with a fatality rate of 1 in 1,205 cases. “Vaccines not only protect individual children from measles, but also contribute to community immunity, protecting those who are unable to be vaccinated due to medical reasons,” Kennedy wrote. Yes, but: Kennedy emphasized that the decision to vaccinate is “a personal one.”
  • Boston Globe: After dismissing outbreak as ‘not unusual,’ RFK Jr. says ending measles in Texas is ‘top priority’ Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in an X post Friday that ending the major measles outbreak in Texas is a “top priority for me and my extraordinary team at HHS.” “I recognize the serious impact of this outbreak on families, children, and healthcare workers,” he wrote. The outbreak made headlines after an unvaccinated child in rural West Texas died from the virus Tuesday night, the first US death from the highly contagious respiratory disease since 2015. The following day, Kennedy described the situation as “not unusual.” He also appeared to misspeak at the Wednesday Cabinet meeting, claiming that two people had died from the virus. A federal agency spokesman later clarified that the CDC has confirmed only one death.
  • CNN: RFK Jr. said measles outbreaks are ‘not unusual’ in the US. Doctors say he’s wrong When Health and Human Services Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy answered questions during the first cabinet meeting of the new Trump administration, he incorrectly described the number of people who died in a West Texas measles outbreak and the reason people were hospitalized. Measles outbreaks are “not unusual,” Kennedy said. Doctors say that was wrong, too.

NBC: A measles crisis decades in the making: How RFK Jr. helped drive America to this moment A child in the United States has died from measles. Just two weeks after his confirmation as Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faces the public health crisis that experts have long warned would come. Little is known about the child, besides that they were school-age, unvaccinated and lived in an area of West Texas with a large Mennonite community, where vaccine refusal is among the highest in the country. In another administration, the death of this child, and the growing outbreak that has sickened more than 150 across Texas and New Mexico and hospitalized 20, would likely have been met with urgent calls from the president and health secretary for parents in Texas and beyond to vaccinate their children. The measles, mumps and rubella vaccine is safe, well studied and the only effective method of preventing an illness that can cause a high fever, pneumonia and, in rare cases, brain swelling that is disabling or fatal. But this is public health in the Kennedy era, where the secretary’s life’s work has been dismantling trust in the very vaccines that could have prevented this outbreak, and where the public official now in charge of the agencies that regulate and advise on vaccines wrote in a 2021 book that measles outbreaks had been “fabricated to create fear that in turn forces government officials to ‘do something.’” And so, at a Cabinet meeting Wednesday, Kennedy’s response to the child’s death offered something else entirely: an unconcerned and casual reply.

  • Washington Post: Amid West Texas measles outbreak, vaccine resistance hardens Texas’s worst measles eruption in three decades has surged to 146 known cases, with the true toll likely much higher, exposing how under-vaccinated communities are unnecessarily vulnerable to one of the world’s most contagious diseases, experts say. The first known victim was 6 and otherwise healthy, according to two individuals with knowledge of the case who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details that haven’t been publicly released. The life-threatening outbreak in West Texas starkly illustrates the stakes of slipping immunization rates and the ascension of vaccine skeptics, including Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to the highest levels of the public health establishment. And it has revealed how fear and the scientifically false claims of the anti-vaccine movement have seeped into communities like Gaines County, the epicenter of the outbreak, hardening attitudes about vaccines, pro and con, in the face of a dangerous, preventable disease. […] The outbreak spurred hundreds in the region to vaccinate themselves and their children as the threat of the virus became immediate. But it has made others dig in their heels, arguing that measles is no worse than chicken pox or the flu.

Stat: RFK Jr. moves to eliminate public comment in HHS decisions Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted a document Friday proposing to strip public participation from much of the business his department conducts. The move comes during a time of major upheaval across federal health agencies, and as the public waits to see how Kennedy will enact his pledge of “radical transparency” at the department. The statement, placed in the Federal Register, said HHS would rescind its longtime practice of giving members of the public a chance to comment on the agency’s plans. “This is a direct attack on the idea that HHS — a gigantic agency — should have to tell the public everything that it’s doing,” said Alex Howard, an open government advocate and former director of the Digital Democracy Project at Demand Progress Educational Fund. 

New York Times: F.D.A. Cancels Meeting of Vaccine Experts Scheduled to Advise on Flu Shots A panel of scientific experts that advises the Food and Drug Administration on vaccine policy — and that has been the target of criticism from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — learned on Wednesday that its upcoming meeting to discuss next year’s flu vaccines had been canceled. The F.D.A. sent an email to members of the panel, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, on Monday afternoon informing them of the cancellation, according to a senior official familiar with the decision. There was no reason given. The panel was to meet on March 13. One committee member, Dr. Paul Offit of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, an outspoken critic of Mr. Kennedy, confirmed the cancellation and warned that it could interfere with or delay production of flu vaccines.

Bloomberg: Trump Team Weighs Pulling Funding for Moderna Bird Flu Vaccine US health officials are reevaluating a $590 million contract for bird flu shots that the Biden administration awarded to Moderna Inc., people familiar with the matter said. The review is part of a government push to examine spending on messenger RNA-based vaccines, the technology that powered Moderna’s Covid vaccine. The bird flu shot contract was awarded to Moderna in the Biden administration’s final days, sending the company’s stock up 13% in the two days following the Jan. 17 announcement. The US is in the midst of a record-breaking bird flu outbreak that’s affected dozens of cattle herds along with poultry flocks nationwide, sending egg prices soaring. While human cases have been relatively rare, the virus has caused deaths in the past, and experts are concerned that it could become more transmissible and dangerous.

Fox News: Multimillion-dollar Biden-era COVID-19 vax project halted by Trump’s HHS Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has paused a multimillion-dollar contract from the Biden administration to create a new COVID-19 vaccine, Fox News Digital has learned. “While it is crucial that the Department [of] Health and Human Services (HHS) support pandemic preparedness, four years of the Biden administration’s failed oversight have made it necessary to review agreements for vaccine production, including Vaxart’s,” Kennedy said in comments provided to Fox News Digital on Tuesday. “I look forward to working with Vaxart and medical experts to ensure this work produces safe, effective, and fiscal-minded vaccine technology.” Kennedy issued a 90-day stop-work order on Friday related to the HHS contract with American biotech company Vaxart Inc., which is working to develop a new COVID-19 vaccine that can be taken orally. The stop-work order comes as 10,000 individuals were slated to begin clinical trials on Monday.

NOTUS: RFK Jr.-Tied ‘MAHA’ Group Has Hired One of QAnon’s Earliest Influencers A political advocacy group closely tied to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has enlisted one of the earliest promoters of the QAnon movement to help “Make America Healthy Again.” Tracy “Beanz” Diaz is a podcaster, YouTuber and writer and was one of the first people to discuss QAnon on social media, posting her first video on the topic only six days after “Q” posted on 4chan for the first time in 2017. Now, Diaz says she will be serving as editor-in-chief for MAHA Action, the 501(c)(4) affiliated with Kennedy’s super PAC, MAHA Alliance. MAHA Alliance was formed after Kennedy ended his own bid for the presidency and joined Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign. Its leadership includes former Kennedy campaign staffers, including campaign communications director Del Bigtree and Brigid Rasmussen, the chief of staff. While the Super PAC’s mission statement was originally to inspire Kennedy followers to vote for Trump, MAHA Action is now recruiting to help “reverse the chronic disease epidemic and restore America’s position as a global leader in public health outcomes.” With its close ties to the Health and Human Services secretary, the organization says it is seeking to transform public health.

Associated Press: CDC report adds to evidence that HPV vaccine is preventing cervical cancer in U.S. women A new government report adds to evidence that the HPV vaccine, once called dangerous by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is preventing cervical cancer in young women. The report comes after Kennedy pledged to give a family member any fees he might earn from HPV vaccine litigation. In a 2019 video posted on the anti-vaccine nonprofit Children’s Health Defense website, Kennedy called Gardasil “the most dangerous vaccine ever invented.” The new report found that from 2008 to 2022, rates for precancerous lesions decreased about 80% among 20- to 24-year-old women who were screened for cervical cancer. The estimates were published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

NOTUS: Bill Cassidy Is Already Pressing RFK Jr. on Vaccine Policy Two weeks into Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s tenure as health secretary, some of the Republican senators who voted for him already have questions about how he’s handling the nation’s health policy. “I just want to know what the rationale is,” Sen. Bill Cassidy told NOTUS when asked about the recent cancellation of a Food and Drug Administration committee meeting intended to pick which flu strains to use in next year’s flu shot. He said he plans to ask Kennedy during a scheduled call on Friday about the canceled meeting. During his hearings, Kennedy downplayed his history as an anti-vaccine advocate and said he would not interfere with the country’s vaccine infrastructure. Those commitments helped him win over Cassidy and other Republicans with reservations about his record. But his promises already seem to be wearing thin.

Axios: The businesses hoping to boom under an RFK Jr.-led HHS Supplement makers, practitioners of alternative medicine and others in the wellness movement are hoping to capitalize on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s tenure as the nation’s top health official. Why it matters: Kennedy’s interest in treating the root causes of chronic illnesses through lifestyle changes could elevate unregulated alternatives and risky pseudoscience while relegating diagnosis and treatment of disease to the back burner, critics warn. The question is how that will play with many Americans who are fed up with an increasingly corporate health care system and eager to take more direct control over their care. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer with no health background, has long railed against drug companies and other industries profiteering off people’s illnesses. “It’s sort of open season for grifters. There’s no doubt in my mind,” said Peter Lurie, executive director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

Vanity Fair: America’s Food Safety Is Now in the Hands of Don Jr.’s Hunting Buddy Late last week, amid mass purges of key personnel at the nation’s health agencies, a Florida attorney with a surprisingly slim résumé was named acting deputy commissioner for human foods at the Food and Drug Administration. The role, which is not subject to Senate approval, is an important one. In it, Kyle Diamantas, 37, will be responsible for ensuring the safety of roughly 80% of the nation’s food supply. The already-overtaxed division is vital to public health, responsible for everything from overseeing the complex manufacturing of infant formula to responding to deadly bacterial contamination and managing food supplies in the wake of hurricanes and floods. Diamantas’s LinkedIn profile is a study in brevity. He received a law degree from the University of Florida in 2013. He started his next-listed job, as an attorney at the law firm Jones Day in Miami, in 2021, ascending to partner last year. His now archived Jones Day bio described him as having “more than 10 years of experience advising food, cosmetic, dietary supplement, drug, and other life sciences and consumer goods clients on a wide range of regulatory, compliance, and enforcement matters.” Prior to that job, he worked as a senior associate at the Orlando office of the law firm Baker Donelson. Diamantas’s limited experience for such a major regulatory position, when compared with the experience of his predecessor, appears to have been offset by another significant qualification. The young attorney is a friend and hunting buddy of Donald Trump Jr., the president’s firstborn son, Vanity Fair has learned.

Public Health Threats

Washington Post: Texas child is first confirmed death in growing measles outbreak A child has died of measles here , the first confirmed fatality in Texas’s worst outbreak of the disease in three decades, state health officials said Wednesday. The unvaccinated school-age child was hospitalized last week, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. The death is the first known U.S. measles fatality since 2015. Officials have reported 124 cases in Texas, mostly in west Texas, since late January, and nine cases in a neighboring New Mexico county. Nearly 80 percent are children, who are more susceptible to the vaccine-preventable disease. “It’s heartbreaking,” said Katherine Wells, Lubbock’s director of public health. “My heart just goes out to the family. And I hope this will help people reconsider getting children vaccinated.”

  • Politico: Only one CDC employee is in Texas to help with the measles outbreak Only one CDC employee — a field officer who is usually based in Austin — is in Texas helping with the measles outbreak response, according to Lara M. Anton, a senior press officer for the Texas Department of State Health Services. The state has not asked for additional assistance from the federal agency — and the CDC can’t send personnel unless the state requests help — even as the measles case count has ballooned to 146 since late January and an unvaccinated child died. The epicenter of the outbreak is west Texas, where the one CDC employee is working.

New York Times: U.S. Terminates Funding for Polio, H.I.V., Malaria and Nutrition Programs Around the World Starting Wednesday afternoon, a wave of emails went out from the State Department in Washington around the world, landing in inboxes for refugee camps, tuberculosis clinics, polio vaccination projects and thousands of other organizations that received crucial funding from the United States for lifesaving work. “This award is being terminated for convenience and the interest of the U.S. government,” they began. The terse notes ended funding for some 5,800 projects that had been financed by the United States Agency for International Development, indicating that a tumultuous period when the Trump administration said it was freezing projects for ostensible review was over, and that any faint hope American assistance might continue had ended. Many were projects that had received a waiver from the freeze because the State Department previously identified its work as essential and lifesaving. “People will die,” said Dr. Catherine Kyobutungi, executive director of the African Population and Health Research Center, “but we will never know, because even the programs to count the dead are cut.” The projects terminated include H.I.V. treatment programs that had served millions of people, the main malaria control programs in the worst-affected African countries and global efforts to wipe out polio.

Wall Street Journal: Mystery Disease Linked to Bats Kills Scores in Congo A fast-spreading mystery illness linked to bats has killed scores of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with nearly half dying within 48 hours of showing symptoms, the World Health Organization said Thursday. The disease, which causes uncontrolled bleeding, vomiting, diarrhea and other symptoms of hemorrhagic fever, had infected 1,096 people and killed 60 as of Feb. 23, the WHO said.

Washington Post: Musk claims DOGE ‘restored’ Ebola prevention effort. Officials disagree. Elon Musk on Wednesday acknowledged that the U.S. DOGE Service “accidentally canceled” efforts by the U.S. Agency for International Development to prevent the spread of Ebola — but the billionaire entrepreneur insisted that the initiative was quickly restored. “We will make mistakes. We won’t be perfect. But when we make a mistake, we’ll fix it very quickly,” Musk said at a meeting of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet officials, defending his group’s fast-moving approach to canceling federal programs in a bid for cost savings. “So we restored the Ebola prevention immediately. And there was no interruption.” Yet current and former USAID officials said that Musk was wrong: USAID’s Ebola prevention efforts have been largely halted since Musk and his DOGE allies moved last month to gut the global-assistance agency and freeze its outgoing payments, they said. The teams and contractors that would be deployed to fight an Ebola outbreak have been dismantled, they added. While the Trump administration issued a waiver to allow USAID to respond to an Ebola outbreak in Uganda last month, partner organizations were not promptly paid for their work, and USAID’s own efforts were sharply curtailed compared to past efforts to fight Ebola outbreaks.

  • New York Times: A 4-Year-Old Boy Dies of Ebola in Uganda as U.S. Pulls Back on Help The Ebola outbreak in Uganda, which had seemed to be in retreat, has claimed a new victim: a 4-year-old boy who died on Monday, according to a State Department cable viewed by The New York Times. News of the child’s death comes even as the Trump administration has canceled at least four of the five contracts with organizations that helped manage the outbreak. It also placed the manager of the Ebola response at U.S.A.I.D. on administrative leave.

Opinion and Commentary

New York Post (Editorial): Hey, RFK: Go to Texas and prove you mean it on vaccines In seeking Senate approval to take his new job, Health Secretary Robert Kennedy insisted he’d come around on the safety and efficacy of (most) vaccines. Now he has a chance to prove he really meant it. The measles outbreak in Texas (and now New Mexico) just claimed its first life, an unvaccinated school-age child who’d been hospitalized in Lubbock last week. It was the first US measles death since 2015. More may be ahead: Most of the Texas cases are among the Mennonite faith community, where resistance to vaccinations is strong. Go to Texas, Mr. Secretary, and preach the truth as only a convert can: This vaccine is safe, and getting children jabbed is an act of love.

New York Times (Zeynep Tufecki): The Texas Measles Outbreak Is Even Scarier Than It Looks The news that an outbreak in Texas has caused the nation’s first confirmed measles death in a decade — an unvaccinated child — is as unsurprising as it is tragic. Spreading largely in rural Mennonite communities that typically have low vaccination rates, the outbreak has already grown to at least 146 cases since late January. Almost all of them are children. Parents whose children got infected but survived are no doubt grateful that their family was spared. But startling research about the virus unfortunately tells a new and very different story, recasting what was previously known about how measles works and making clear why the Trump administration’s approach to vaccines is nowhere even close to meeting the moment. That research, conducted over the past decade by the immunologist and medical doctor Michael Mina and others, revealed that measles destroys immune cells. Even people who recover from the virus lose much of their immune memory, and therefore the protection they had acquired from prior infections or vaccines to all the other childhood illnesses. This leaves survivors more vulnerable to many other diseases for years afterward. Worse, these victims may now face those childhood diseases, to which they lost immune protections, as older children, which puts them more at risk for complications.

The HIll (Tom Frieden): Postponing last week’s vaccine meeting endangers Americans’ health The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — a group of pediatricians, parents and public health specialists that provides vaccine recommendations to the FDA — was scheduled to meet last week. Instead, the meeting has been postponed indefinitely. The panel’s webpage says the meeting was “postponed to accommodate public comment in advance of the meeting.” But the Trump administration has had since Feb. 3 to open the comment period, and it still has not done so. This is the first time this committee’s meeting has been postponed since it was first established in 1964. This is concerning. But what’s more troubling is the possibility that this delay could be used to change the panel’s composition, for example by claiming conflicts of interest among its members.

ashoup
In News

Trump’s War on Health Care: Public Health Watch

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

Associated Press: Judge extends temporary block to huge cuts in National Institutes of Health research funding A federal judge on Friday again blocked the Trump administration’s drastic cuts in medical research funding that many scientists say will endanger patients and delay new lifesaving studies. The new National Institutes of Health policy would strip research groups of hundreds of millions of dollars to cover so-called indirect expenses of studying Alzheimer’s, cancer, heart disease and a host of other illnesses — anything from clinical trials of new treatments to basic lab research that is the foundation for discoveries. Separate lawsuits filed by a group of 22 states plus organizations representing universities, hospitals and research institutions nationwide sued to stop the cuts, saying they would cause “irreparable harm.”

  • New York Times: Trump Administration Stalls Scientific Research Despite Court Ruling The Trump administration has blocked key parts of the federal government’s apparatus for funding biomedical research, effectively halting progress on much of the country’s future work on illnesses like cancer and addiction despite a federal judge’s order to release grant money. The blockage, outlined in internal government memos, stems from an order forbidding health officials from giving public notice of upcoming grant review meetings. Those notices are an obscure but necessary cog in the grant-making machinery that delivers some $47 billion annually to research on Alzheimer’s, heart disease and other ailments. 

Talking Points Memo: CDC Shutters PRAMS Program on Maternal and Infant Health The Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) is a federal data collection system, run out of CDC, “designed to identify groups of women and infants at high risk for health problems, to monitor changes in health status, and to measure progress towards goals in improving the health of mothers and infants,” in the words of the program’s website. It has run continuously since 1988 and covers everything from the particulars of newborn health and morbidity to issues like post-partum depression in mothers. I can report that the Trump CDC has shuttered the program as part of its general clampdown on medical research and public health information.

Science: Ax falls on elite group of Ph.D.s training to lead U.S. public health labs Facing a furor after news reports last week that the prestigious corps of young epidemiologists being trained as “disease detectives” at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had been targeted for termination, the administration of President Donald Trump reversed course. The roughly 100 trainees at the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) were spared. But another outstanding group of young CDC trainees wasn’t so lucky. At least 15 of 21 fellows in CDC’s lesser known Laboratory Leadership Service (LLS) were axed last weekend. The ultracompetitive, 2-year program, which trains Ph.D. scientists in the intricacies of public health laboratory work, has spawned leaders at state and local labs from Milwaukee to Tennessee to New York City.

The New Republic: Oops: Trump-Musk Cuts Just Wrecked an NIH Org Championed by GOPers One downsizing just started attracting notice among insiders at the National Institutes of Health, because it seems particularly inexplicable: According to people familiar with the situation, approximately one-tenth of the workers have now been let go at the NIH’s Center for Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias, or CARD, including its incoming director, a highly regarded scientist credited with important innovations in the field. What makes this particularly jarring is that it could set back efforts to treat and develop cures for these awful afflictions, as these insiders and other experts fear. But it’s also that the potential for this center to do good—and the importance of the broader cause of battling Alzheimer’s—have both been championed by Republicans. Indeed, CARD’s full name—the Roy Blunt Center for Alzheimer’s and Related Dementias—honors former Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, an influential Republican who spoke glowingly about its potential to advance human progress when its opening was announced in 2022.

Stat: The lasting human impact of Trump funding freeze: An 86-year-old’s ride to dialysis now feels tenuous For Nancy Hastings, the face of the federal government is the young man who picks her up every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 5:45 a.m. to drive her to dialysis. She’s 86, and frail, and he stands behind her in the smoky half-light as she maneuvers down her front stairs. “If you happen to fall, don’t get scared,” he tells her. “Just fall on me, and I’ll shield you.” Then suddenly, in late January, word came that he was gone. With the Trump administration’s spending freeze, the five-person nonprofit where he’d worked didn’t have money to keep paying everyone, and he was among the three workers laid off. One of the two remaining employees called Hastings to let her know. “She said, ‘We’ll come and get you one way or the other,’” Hastings recalled — both a reassurance and a reminder of her own fragility. The staff calls her dialysis “life-sustaining,” which is a nice way of saying that if she doesn’t receive it, she’ll die. In President Trump’s description, the freeze “in no way affected Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or other entitlements that Americans depend on.” Rather, it targeted “big bureaucracy” and its “fraud and waste and abuse.” The words conjured a cartoon of box-checking, do-nothing functionaries, pushing paper for paper-pushing’s sake. But part of what government staffers do is distribute federal dollars, often to programs that Americans do indeed depend on, in red and blue states alike. Turn off the spigot, even briefly, and it’s felt far from Washington, D.C.

ProPublica: They Worked to Prevent Death. The Trump Administration Fired Them. Every day, they tackled complex issues with life-or-death stakes: A failure to get donor organs to critically ill patients. Tobacco products designed to appeal to kids. Maternal and infant death. They were hired after lawmakers and bureaucrats debated and negotiated and persuaded their colleagues — sometimes over the course of years — to make those problems someone’s job to solve. Then, this month, they were fired as part of President Donald Trump’s widespread purge of federal workers. Suddenly, the future of their public health missions was in question. The White House hasn’t released figures on how many have been fired, but news reports have begun to take stock: about 750 workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which plays a central role responding to pandemics; more than 1,000 staffers at the National Institutes of Health, which funds and conducts life-saving research; dozens at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which manages public health care and insurance programs; and scores of employees at the Food and Drug Administration, which oversees the safety of food, drugs and medical devices. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has vowed to gut the federal health centers, stating “entire departments” at the FDA should be cut. Neither the administration nor the federal agencies responded to ProPublica’s questions, but a White House spokesperson has previously said they were removing newer employees who were “not mission critical.”

Major Staff Departures: 

Chaotic Firings and Re-Hirings:

RFK Jr. Is An Extreme Anti-Vaxxer Who’s Already Breaking His “Assurances” To Key Republicans To Get Confirmed

Politico: Inside RFK Jr.’s health department takeover Robert F. Kennedy Jr. arrived at the headquarters of the Health and Human Services Department earlier this week with a request for his new employees: Drop your preconceived notions of what I’m going to do. The health secretary’s first days are testing that sentiment. Kennedy has taken control of the nation’s health apparatus amid a barrage of firings and abrupt policy shifts, marking the start of a tenure that allies and adversaries alike equate to a hostile takeover of the agencies he spent the last two decades maligning. An anti-vaccine activist widely dismissed as a fringe political figure just six months ago, Kennedy in his first week began steering the 80,000-person department in a radically new direction — preparing to dismiss key vaccine advisers, vowing to alter longstanding public health priorities and standing by as the Department of Government Efficiency gutted elements of the workforce at health agencies that he’s openly accused of “corruption.”

Stat: HHS orders CDC to halt some vaccine ads, saying RFK Jr. wants message focused on ‘informed consent’ The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was ordered to shelve promotions it developed for a variety of vaccines, including a “Wild to Mild” advertising campaign urging people to get vaccinated against flu, two sources familiar with the decision told STAT. The Department of Health and Human Services’ assistant secretary for public affairs informed the CDC that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wanted advertisements that promote the idea of “informed consent” in vaccine decision-making instead. Informed consent is the principle that people should be notified of all the risks, as well as benefits, of any medical intervention they receive or any drug they are prescribed. It is a cornerstone of health care delivery. Shifting the framing of advertising for vaccines that the CDC has long recommended — like flu shots — to more heavily focus on the risks of vaccines could undermine people’s willingness to get vaccinated, or to have their children immunized. 

Associated Press: Kennedy says panel will examine childhood vaccine schedule after promising not to change it

To earn the vote he needed to become the nation’s top health official, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made a special promise to a U.S. senator: He would not change the nation’s current vaccination schedule. But on Tuesday, speaking for the first time to thousands of U.S. Health and Human Services agency employees, he vowed to investigate the childhood vaccine schedule that prevents measles, polio and other dangerous diseases. “Nothing is going to be off limits,” Kennedy said, adding that pesticides, food additives, microplastics, antidepressants and the electromagnetic waves emitted by cellphones and microwaves also would be studied. Kennedy’s remarks, which circulated on social media, were delivered during a welcome ceremony for the new health secretary at the agency’s headquarters in Washington as a measles outbreak among mostly unvaccinated people raged in West Texas. The event was held after a weekend of mass firings of thousands of HHS employees. More dismissals are expected.

Politico: RFK Jr. prepares shake-up of vaccine advisers HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is preparing to remove members of the outside committees that advise the federal government on vaccine approvals and other key public health decisions, according to two people familiar with the planning. Kennedy plans to replace members who he perceives to have conflicts of interest, as part of a widespread effort to minimize what he’s criticized as undue industry influence over the nation’s health agencies, said one of the people, who were granted anonymity to speak freely. Kennedy has long argued that drugmakers have too much sway over the approval of their products.

Axios: HHS postpones first vaccine advisory meeting of RFK era The first CDC vaccine advisory committee meeting since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in as HHS secretary has been indefinitely postponed, the department confirmed. Why it matters: The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, offers guidance on vaccine approvals and influences which shots insurers cover. “The ACIP meeting will be postponed to accommodate public comment in advance of the meeting. The ACIP workgroups met as scheduled this month and will present at the upcoming ACIP meeting,” HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon wrote in an email The big picture: ACIP meetings have been rescheduled under previous administrations, but the delay throws into question whether the Trump administration will follow precedent with a leading vaccine critic at the helm of the federal health department.

Inside Health Policy:  Trump Orders Shutdown Of Long COVID Advisory Committee, Leaving Advocates Wanting Answers Long COVID advocates were left puzzled following the Trump administration’s order to terminate the Advisory Committee on Long COVID and wondering whether the White House solely views the committee’s annual funding as too steep or if it signals a broader shift away from supporting long COVID efforts. President Donald Trump signed an executive order late Wednesday (Feb. 19) directing the HHS secretary to terminate the Advisory Committee on Long COVID, which was established under the previous administration to boost research on the causes and treatments for Long COVID. 

  • PBS:  RFK Jr. commits to prioritizing funding for long COVID research Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., asked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to commit to directing funding for long COVID research toward potential treatments and diagnostics if he were to be confirmed as health and human services secretary. “Absolutely, senator, with enthusiasm,” Kennedy said in his hearing Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Finance.

Boston Globe: RFK Jr.’s campaign organization uses official health department seal in fund-raising solicitation Though Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is finally installed as President Trump’s health secretary, his longshot 2024 presidential campaign is still carrying nearly $2 million in debt, and it’s already using the trappings of his new office to help eliminate his cash burden. On Tuesday, Kennedy’s campaign organization — rebranded as the official arm of the “Make America Healthy Again Movement”— emailed supporters for donations. At the top of the email was a large photo of Kennedy, speaking in the Oval Office after being sworn in last week, with the official seal of the Department of Health and Human Services imposed prominently next to him. Using an official federal government seal for non-official purposes is prohibited under federal laws and rules, unless written authorization is obtained. “HHS emblems are for use by HHS employees conducting official HHS business,” reads an agency rule from 2014, which makes clear that violators would be subject to fines or other penalties.

Politico: Trump defends Obamacare at the Supreme Court — stressing RFK Jr.’s in charge now The Trump administration surprised groups across the political spectrum this week by taking the same side as President Joe Biden in a Supreme Court case that will decide whether a government task force can determine what health insurance companies have to cover. But the administration’s first brief since President Donald Trump inherited the case from Biden came with a big caveat: the argument that his new health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., can remake the independent panel of health experts in his image or overrule it.

Mother Jones: RFK Jr., Onetime Environmentalist, Kills NIH Climate Change Programs In 1999, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., then an environmental lawyer, was named by Time magazine as a “hero of the planet” for his pioneering work to clean up America’s waterways. On February 14 of this year, his second day as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, he ended HHS funding for climate change and health programs at the National Institutes of Health, a move that will likely terminate this work. 

New York Times: Citing ‘Biological Truth,’ Kennedy Issues Guidance Recognizing Only Two Sexes Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced on Wednesday that the Trump administration had adopted a set of official government “sex-based definitions” to give the public and federal agencies precise terms with which to describe categories including “male,” “female,” “woman” and “man.” The definitions are listed in a one-page “guidance” that is aimed, in part, at keeping transgender women and girls out of female sports, discouraging gender-affirming care for young people and fulfilling President Trump’s pledge that the federal government will recognize only two sexes: male and female. “This administration is bringing back common sense and restoring biological truth to the federal government,” Mr. Kennedy said in a statement. “The prior administration’s policy of trying to engineer gender ideology into every aspect of public life is over.”

Public Health Threats

Washington Post: Measles, once eliminated in the U.S., sickens 99 in Texas and New Mexico Nearly 100 people across Texas and New Mexico have contracted measles, state officials say, escalating anxiety over the spread of a potentially life-threatening illness that was declared eliminated in the United States more than two decades ago. Ninety cases of measles — the majority affecting children under 17 — were detected in Texas’s South Plains, a sprawling region in the state’s northwest, the Texas Department of State Health Services said Friday. The spread marks a significant jump from the 24 cases reported earlier this month. The DSHS said “additional cases are likely to occur in the outbreak area and the surrounding communities.”

The Guardian: Alarm as bird flu now ‘endemic in cows’ while Trump cuts staff and funding A newer variant of H5N1 bird flu has spilled over into dairy cows separately in Nevada and Arizona, prompting new theories about how the virus is spread and leading to questions about containing the ongoing outbreaks. The news comes amid a purge of experts at federal agencies, including employees who were responding to the highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the US Department of Agriculture.

The Hill: Trump moves hamper bird flu response as egg prices spike The Trump administration’s efforts to impose its will on the federal workforce through mass firings, funding freezes and communication blackouts is hampering the ability of public health professionals to respond to the growing threat of avian flu.  As egg prices continue to rise and more cases are detected, state and local health officials say there is no clear plan of action from the administration. Dozens of people in the U.S. have also contracted the disease, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reporting the first human death from H5N1 last month.

New York Times: Trump Administration Has Fired Health Inspectors at Some Border Stations At the nation’s borders, federal workers keep the country safe in many ways: Some investigate sick passengers. Some examine animals for dangerous pathogens. And some inspect plants for infestations that could spread in this country. Late last week, the Trump administration dispatched hundreds of those federal employees with the same message that colleagues at other agencies received: Their services were no longer needed. The absence of these federal officers at the borders leaves Americans vulnerable to pathogens carried by plants, animals and people, experts warned. The firings come even as the Trump administration is said to be readying plans to turn back migrants on the grounds that they might bring diseases like tuberculosis and measles into the country.

Washington Post: U.S. reverses plan to shut down free covid test program The Trump administration reversed a plan late Tuesday to shut down the government website that ships free coronavirus tests to households, after The Washington Post reported that the administration was preparing to end the program and was evaluating the costs of destroying or disposing of tens of millions of tests. The Post reported Tuesday afternoon that the administration was looking into the costs of destroying tests that would otherwise be provided free to Americans, citing two officials at a federal public health preparedness agency and internal documents reviewed by The Post. A half-hour before the planned shutdown, Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon sent a statement to The Post confirming that COVIDtests.gov would shut down at 8 p.m. Tuesday. But he said the tests would not be destroyed and “will remain in inventory until they meet their expiration date.”

Opinion and Commentary

Wall Street Journal (Editorial): RFK Jr. Makes His First Anti-Vaccine Move Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been Health and Human Services secretary for all of a week, but he’s already pressing what looks like an anti-vaccine agenda. Mr. Kennedy never did disavow his vaccine views in the runup to Senate confirmation. He merely said he wouldn’t take away anyone’s vaccines. But the HHS secretary has many tools to undermine vaccines, and his early moves are revealing.

New York Post (David Harsanyi): Misinformation alert — RFK Jr. keeps peddling his detestable autism lies Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has spread many detestable theories in his life, but none is more detestable than his scaremongering over autism and vaccines. It’s not merely that the new Health and Human Services secretary has convinced thousands of Americans that they’re partially responsible for their children’s autism — a trend he once compared to a “holocaust.” It’s that he’s ensuring thousands more will put their children in needless danger for absolutely no scientific or rational reason.

ashoup
In News

STATEMENT: Trump Endorses Congressional Republicans’ Plan To Gut Hundreds of Billions From Medicaid and Rip Away Health Care

Trump and Republicans’ Medicaid Cuts Would Threaten the Health Care of Over 70 Million Americans To Pay For Tax Cuts for Billionaires

Washington, D.C. — After making claims that Republicans would “not touch Medicaid,” Donald Trump endorsed the Republican plan to cut between $880 billion and $2 trillion from Medicaid — threatening health care for over 70 million Americans who rely on the program.

The consequences of cuts to Medicaid would touch nearly every household in America. Hart Research polling shows strong opposition across party lines to cutting Medicaid from a majority of voters, including Trump voters, who have a favorable view of Medicaid and see it as an important source of health care. In response, Protect Our Care Chair Leslie Dach issued the following statement:

“By endorsing this Republican proposal to slash hundreds of billions from the country’s largest health insurance program, Donald Trump is putting the health care of over 70 million Americans on the chopping block. Trump knows the damage these Medicaid cuts will do – he admitted it just last night – but he is joining Republicans in Congress in their quest to rip away coverage from those who need it most. Trump and Republicans’ plan all along has been to gut Medicaid, and they will stop at nothing to devastate millions of American families so they can give billionaires another tax cut.”

Protect Our Care’s eight-figure “Hands Off Medicaid” campaign is sounding the alarm on Republicans working to slash Medicaid funding to pay for another round of tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations. The campaign includes paid advertising, on-the-ground events, and organizing to make sure people understand the devastating consequences of Republican plans to cut health care.

Background

ashoup
In News

SHOT/CHASER/LIME: Trump Lies About His Own Support For Republican Plan to Cut Billions From Medicaid

Trump’s Republican Allies in Congress Are Proposing Up To $2 Trillion In Cuts To Medicaid That Would Threaten the Health Care of Over 70 Million Americans 

After doubling down on his empty promise that Republicans will not touch Medicaid, Donald Trump swiftly reversed course and endorsed the Republican plan to cut between $880 billion and $2 trillion from Medicaid — threatening health care for over 70 million Americans who rely on the program. Hart Research polling shows strong opposition across party lines to cutting Medicaid from a majority of voters, including Trump voters, who have a favorable view of Medicaid and see it as an important source of health care.

SHOT: Trump Says Medicaid Is “Not Going To Be Touched.” “Trump pledged that he would not touch Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid benefits as the GOP seeks to cut federal spending while enacting a roughly $5 trillion tax bill, doubling down on a campaign pledge that is going to make congressional Republicans’ push to extend the 2017 tax cuts much more difficult… Without cutting benefits for those programs, it would be nearly impossible for Republicans to accomplish their twin goals of massive tax cuts and spending cuts.” [Washington Post, 2/19/25]

CHASER: Looking To Slash Medicaid Funding, Republicans Consider Cutting Billions Of Dollars. “Republicans are weighing billions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid, threatening health care coverage for some of the 80 million U.S. adults and children enrolled in the safety net program. … Republicans, who are looking to slash federal spending and offer lucrative tax cuts to corporations and wealthier Americans, now see a big target ripe for trimming.” [Associated Press, 2/18/25]

LIME: Trump Endorses House Budget Plan With Medicaid Cuts. “President Donald Trump has finally picked a side in the standoff between House and Senate Republicans over how best to enact his agenda. … Trump announced in a social media post Wednesday he favors the House approach, which would combine border security, military funding and a sweeping package of tax cuts partially offset with major spending cuts ― including to Medicaid, a program Trump suggested this week he wouldn’t touch.” [HuffPost, 2/19/25]

ashoup
In News

PRESS CALL: Hart Research’s Geoff Garin Joins Protect Our Care to Discuss New Polling on Americans’ Attitudes About Health Care

***MEDIA ADVISORY FOR TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11 AT 11:30 AM ET***

Protect Our Care Will Release Key Findings From National Survey Focused on Trump and Republicans’ Agenda to Rip Away Health Care From Millions of Americans

Washington, D.C. — On Tuesday, February 11, 2025 at 11:30 AM ET, President of Hart Research Geoff Garin will join Protect Our Care for a virtual press call focused on newly completed survey research and message testing about health care conducted by Geoff Garin and the team at Hart Research for Protect Our Care. The survey looks at Americans’ attitudes on health care, especially the agenda of the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress. The survey is also focused on the health care views of Republicans and Trump voters.

While people are struggling to pay their bills, Republicans are trying to raise costs and take away the health care that millions of people count on, all while giving massive tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations. Republicans are breaking the promises they made to the American people to address the cost of living all so they can cut more taxes for the ultra-wealthy.

Meanwhile, Democrats have fought relentlessly to lower costs and improve care for Americans, and they know far too many families still lack access to affordable health care. Voters overwhelmingly support Democratic plans to expand affordable health care, protect Medicare and Medicaid, and lower drug prices. 

PRESS CALL:

WHO:
Protect Our Care
Geoff Garin, President of Hart Research

WHAT: Virtual Press Call

WHERE: Register for the Event Here

WHEN: Tuesday, February 11, 2025 at 11:30 AM ET

protectourcare
In News

The GOP Agenda: Worse Care, Higher Costs for Residents at Nursing Homes

Washington, DC — Ahead of the Senate Finance Committee’s hearing on nursing home neglect and abuse tomorrow, it’s important to remember just how the GOP’s health care policies have failed nursing home patients across America. Donald Trump and his Republicans in Congress worked to repeal the Affordable Care Act, block expansion and access to Medicaid, and fell into lock step with the nursing home industry to weaken penalties they may face for harming their own residents. The GOP Agenda has nothing to do with helping those in nursing homes and long-term care facilities–it only seeks to serve industry CEOs and gut access to care so many patients desperately need.

The GOP Agenda: Repeal the Affordable Care Act and Its Protections for People in Nursing Homes

The ACA Expanded Nursing Home Quality-Related Requirements for the First Time Since 1987. “The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is the first comprehensive legislation since the Nursing Home Reform Act, part of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987 (OBRA ’87), to expand quality of care-related requirements for nursing homes that participate in Medicare and Medicaid and improve federal and state oversight and enforcement…the ACA incorporates the Nursing Home Transparency and Improvement Act of 2009, introduced because complex ownership, management, and financing structures were inhibiting regulators’ ability to hold providers accountable for compliance with federal requirements. The ACA also incorporates the Elder Justice Act and the Patient Safety and Abuse Prevention Act, which include provisions to protect long-term care recipients from abuse and other crimes.” [Kaiser Family Foundation, 1/28/13]

The GOP Agenda: Cutting Access to Nursing Home Care by Slashing Medicaid

Medicaid Pays for Most of the 1.4 Million People in Nursing Homes. “Medicaid pays for most of the 1.4 million people in nursing homes… It covers 20 percent of all Americans and 40 percent of poor adults…A combination of longer life spans and spiraling health care costs has left an estimated 64 percent of the Americans in nursing homes dependent on Medicaid. In Alaska, Mississippi and West Virginia, Medicaid was the primary payer for three-quarters or more of nursing home residents in 2015, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.” [New York Times, 6/24/17]

Medicaid Covers 6 in 10 Nursing Home Residents, and Half of Seniors Using Medicaid Long-Term Care Services Were in Nursing Homes. [Kaiser Family Foundation, 6/20/17]

The Trump Administration and Republicans in Congress Pursued ACA Repeal Bill that Would Have Also Slashed Medicaid. “On Thursday, Senate Republicans joined their House colleagues in proposing steep cuts to Medicaid, part of the effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Conservatives hope to roll back what they see as an expanding and costly entitlement.” [New York Times, 6/24/17]

New York Times Headline: “Medicaid Cuts May Force Retirees Out of Nursing Homes” [New York Times, 6/24/17]

Associated Press Headline: “Medicaid cut in GOP health bill worries the nursing home set” [Associated Press, 7/8/17]

Senate GOP Repeal Bill Would Have Cut Medicaid by $2.6 Trillion by Second Decade. “The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the Senate Republican health bill’s Medicaid cuts would deepen significantly in the second decade, with the cuts growing from 26 percent in 2026 to 35 percent in 2036, relative to current law. Now, based on CBO estimates and data, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) estimates that the Senate bill would cut Medicaid by roughly $2.6 trillion over the second decade (2027-36), on top of Medicaid cuts of $772 billion in the first decade.” [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 7/11/17]

The Trump Administration is Looking for Ways to Bypass Congress to Enact Medicaid Block Grants. “The Trump administration is quietly devising a plan bypassing Congress to give block grants to states for Medicaid, achieving a longstanding conservative dream of reining in spending on the health care safety net for the poor…Capping spending could mean fewer low-income people getting covered, or state-designated cutbacks in health benefits.” [Politico, 1/11/19]

In 2018, the Trump Administration Proposed Cutting Medicaid by $1.4 Trillion. “The Administration is proposing to cap federal Medicaid payments to states and to cut federal Medicaid spending by $1.439 trillion – that is trillion with a “t” – over the ten year period 2019 – 2028. That is about 26% of what the Administration projects federal Medicaid spending would otherwise be, and within shouting distance of the $1.455 trillion cost of the tax cuts enacted in December.” [Georgetown Center for Children and Families, 2/12/18]

The GOP Agenda: The Trump Administration Weakened Penalties Against Nursing Homes that Harm Patients at the Request of the Nursing Home Industry

The Trump Administration Scaled Back Fines Against Nursing Homes that Harm Residents, at the Request of the Nursing Home Industry. “The Trump administration is scaling back the use of fines against nursing homes that harm residents or place them in grave risk of injury, part of a broader relaxation of regulations under the president. The shift in the Medicare program’s penalty protocols was requested by the nursing home industry…The new guidelines discourage regulators from levying fines in some situations, even when they have resulted in a resident’s death. The guidelines will also probably result in lower fines for many facilities. [New York Times, 12/24/17]

New Guidelines Intended to Discourage Regulators from Levying Fines, Even When Violations Resulted in Resident’s Death. “The new guidelines discourage regulators from levying fines in some situations, even when they have resulted in a resident’s death. The guidelines will also probably result in lower fines for many facilities.” [Kaiser Health News, 12/31/17]

In November 2017, The Trump Administration Exempted Nursing Homes Violating Certain Rules from Penalties for 18 Months. “In November, the Trump administration exempted nursing homes that violate eight new safety rules from penalties for 18 months. Homes must still follow the rules, which are intended, among other things, to reduce the overuse of psychotropic drugs and to ensure that every home has adequate resources to assist residents with major psychological problems.” [New York Times, 12/24/17]

In October 2017, the Trump Administration Discouraged CMS Regional Offices from Levying Fines if the Error was a “One-Time Mistake.” “In October, CMS discouraged its regional offices from levying fines, even in the most serious health violations, if the error was a ‘one-time mistake.’ The centers said that intentional disregard for residents’ health and safety or systemic errors should still merit fines.” [Kaiser Health News, 12/31/17]
The Trump Administration Rolled Back Obama Administration Rule Making it Easier for Nursing Home Residents to Sue for Negligence or Abuse. “Another Obama-era regulation is on the Trump administration’s chopping block — this one about nursing homes. The Obama administration’s rule would’ve made it easier for nursing home residents to sue for negligence or abuse. But the Trump administration is proposing to replace that rule. And the new one could make it almost impossible for nursing home residents to get their day in court. That is because new nursing home residents are frequently handed an agreement to go to arbitration instead of suing if something goes wrong.” [NPR, 8/21/17]

protectourcare
In News

Protect Our Care and Sen. Sherrod Brown Oppose Trump Judicial Nominees Working to Strip Health Care from Americans

Washington, DC–Today, Protect Our Care partnered with Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio on a press call to highlight why Chad Readler and Eric Murphy ’s nominations to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals would be disastrous for not only Ohioans, but all Americans’ health care. Readler attacked the Affordable Care Act by signing a legal brief refusing to defend the law at the Department of Justice in support of the Texas lawsuit, which would strip millions of their coverage and deny pre-existing condition protections enshrined in the ACA.

“No American should be denied health care because of a pre-existing condition, or because they’re a woman, or because they cannot afford it,” Senator Brown said. “I cannot support nominees who have actively worked to strip Ohioans of their health care rights. Special interests already have armies of lobbyists and lawyers on their side, they don’t need judges in their pockets.”

“Chad Readler wants to go back to the days where insurance companies could deny, drop or charge more for coverage and end protections for millions of people with pre-existing conditions,” said Brad Woodhouse, executive director of Protect Our Care. “Simply put, a vote for Chad Readler is a vote for full repeal of the Affordable Care Act. Readler tried to sabotage the ACA from within the administration, and if we put him on the court, he will be able to sabotage your care from the bench.The Senate must protect the American people’s health care by denying Chad Readler a lifetime appointment.”

Full press call audio here

Background on Chad Readler:

Readler filed the Trump administration’s brief in Texas V. United States, and his nomination for a judicial seat was announced the same day he filed the brief calling for the ACA’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions to be overturned.

If the Texas ruling is not overturned:

  • 4.8 million Ohioans with pre-existing conditions could lose their coverage
  • Ohioans over age 50 could face a $3,329 age tax
  • 151,026 Ohioans would lose tax credits and have to pay more for coverage in the marketplace
  • 214,338 Ohio seniors would have to pay more for their prescription drugs
  • 717,100 Ohioans could lose their health care due to possible repeal of Medicaid expansion
Close Menu