Trump-RFK Jr. Double Down On Rejected Anti-Vax Agenda: Public Health Project Newsletter

Story after story has been written in recent weeks about how the Trump White House is desperate to distance themselves from RFK Jr.’s politically toxic anti-vax agenda as preventable diseases like measles continue to spread “like wildfire.” This week, Trump got a golden opportunity to reverse course on a major component of that agenda in the best interest of our kids’ health. But all signs point to more of the same.

On Monday, a U.S. District Court Judge granted a preliminary injunction against the Trump-RFK Jr. CDC’s reckless and “likely illegal” move in January to gut the Child Vaccine Schedule down to 11 from 17, eliminating guidance for life-saving shots for children including against influenza, Rotavirus, Hepatitis A and B. The ruling also stayed all moves made by the administration’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) after RFK Jr. improperly fired all its members and replaced them with unqualified anti-vax quacks.

If the administration has really seen the error of their ways after endangering the lives of so many American children, you might expect them to accept the judge’s ruling, breathe a sign of relief and drop the case. Except, they aren’t.

RFK’s chief spokesman offered an immediate and defiant response to the ruling: “HHS looks forward to this judge’s decision being overturned.” And the department is now reportedly scheming ways to get around the court’s crack down of ACIP.

So despite legal setbacks, Trump and Kennedy will almost certainly press ahead unflinchingly with their anti-science policies even as yet another wave of reporting shows the absolute disaster it portends for our public health:

ProPublica dropped a bombshell piece on how the Trump-RFK Jr. ‘Vaccine Agenda Risks a Resurgence of Deadly Childhood Plagues.’
Reuters reports that “Vaccination rates among young children in Michigan dropped sharply during the first year of the Trump administration … providing an early indication of how vaccine-skeptic Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is influencing immunization practices in the United States.”

And what a shock, this week Michigan “state officials have identified a measles outbreak in Washtenaw County.”
The New York Times reports that while the administration’s dangerous downgrade of the child vaccine schedule is stalled in court, doctors and researchers say the “ruling can’t undo Trump and RFK’s vaccine damage” as the “mistrust and fear they have stoked may last for years.”
The vast majority of health policy experts in a new survey agree that RFK Jr.’s threats to weaken vaccine liability protections “would increase prices and reduce innovation.”
When You’ve Lost Fox News: Stuart Varney: “There are 1,362 confirmed measles cases reported across the country. I think vaccine skepticism is to blame here. People want strong guidance on vaccines, not skepticism.”

Also this week, The Root detailed findings from Protect Our Care and the American Public Health Association (APHA) that the administration’s cuts to vital health programs and attacks on vaccines have disproportionately undermined the health of people of color.

Case in point: Hammer & Hope additionally reports that Black women have been fired from the federal work force since Elon Musk’s rampage more than any other group … They comprise 6 percent of the overall U.S. labor force and 12 percent of the federal labor force. But of the almost 300,000 federal jobs slashed in 2025, Black women were a stunning 33 percent of those cuts,” with HHS “among the hardest-hit agencies.”

What War On Women? RFK Jr’s HHS is keeping up its PR distraction campaign from the administration’s war on women with a new op-ed — penned by one of the few women left at the department — claiming Trump and RFK Jr. are getting serious on “invisible illnesses” that inflict many women like Lyme disease. An admirable initiative if you ignore the reality that the largest health care cuts in U.S. history passed in Trump’s Big Ugly law are shuttering rural hospitals and maternity wards across the country and putting the lives of expectant mothers and their babies in needless danger. Who will be left to listen to these women when Trump’s health cuts take full effect?

RFK Jr’s ‘eat real food’ rhetoric is still proving it’s all sizzle and no steak. The AP reports that while Kennedy “makes food sound like a miracle drug”, experts say it’s often overstated, “part of a pattern in which he cherry-picks and misrepresents scientific research, a tendency that he has regularly applied to vaccine science, enraging doctors.” Meanwhile, the latest Producer Price Index shows the cost of fresh vegetables is up a staggering 48 percent compared to a year ago, which will inevitably be passed onto families in the grocery line, big time. Eating real food may be good advice for the few who can afford it in the Trump economy, but what about everyone else?

Who Needs NIH Grants Anyways? Also this week, Trump’s “ineffectual” simultaneous NIH and CDC head Jay Bhattacharya faced tough questions from Congress on why NIH’s “grantmaking is well behind schedule” this year after over 2,000 NIH grants were cancelled or frozen in 2025, touching every area of science and medicine.

Bhattacharya offered empty promises to finally do his job. Meanwhile, ProPublica reports “RFK Jr. promised to identify the causes of autism but has eliminated parts of his agency actively investigating them and has cut millions in funding for autism research.” And STAT surveyed researchers funded by NIH who detail the unfolding consequences of the administration’s belligerent grant cuts including labs shutting down and data going unanalyzed.

As always, it is prudent to watch what the administration actually does, not what they say in the moment to dodge accountability when pressed.

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RFK’s Disastrous Tenure At HHS