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: E. coli outbreak sickened more than 80 people, but details didn’t surface Colton George felt sick. The 9-year-old Indiana boy told his parents his stomach hurt. He kept running to the bathroom and felt too ill to finish a basketball game. Days later, he lay in a hospital bed, fighting for his life. He had eaten tainted salad, according to a lawsuit against the lettuce grower filed by his parents on April 17 in federal court for the Southern District of Indiana. The E. coli bacteria that ravaged Colton’s kidneys was a genetic match to the strain that killed one person and sickened nearly 90 people in 15 states last fall. Federal health agencies investigated the cases and linked them to a farm that grew romaine lettuce. But most people have never heard about this outbreak, which a Feb. 11 internal Food and Drug Administration memo linked to a single lettuce processor and ranch as the source of the contamination. In what many experts said was a break with common practice, officials never issued public communications after the investigation or identified the grower who produced the lettuce. From failing to publicize a major outbreak to scaling back safety alert specialists and rules, the Trump administration’s anti-regulatory and cost-cutting push risks unraveling a critical system that helps ensure the safety of the U.S. food supply, according to consumer advocates, researchers and former employees at the FDA and U.S. Department of Agriculture.
New York Times: Trump Has Cut Science Funding to Its Lowest Level in Decades The National Science Foundation, which funds much of the fundamental scientific research at American universities, is awarding new grants at the slowest pace in at least 35 years. The funding decreases touch virtually every area of science — extending far beyond the diversity programs and other “woke” targets that the Trump administration says it wants to cut. That means less support for early-stage research that underpins future technological advancements — and American competitiveness — in areas like computer science and engineering; physics and chemistry; climate science and weather forecasting; and materials and manufacturing innovations. It also means less money for undergraduate and graduate students, postdoctoral researchers and early-career professors — potentially disrupting the nation’s future scientific work force. Economists have warned that cutting federal funding for scientific research could, in the long run, damage the U.S. economy by an amount equivalent to a major recession.
NPR: Diseases are spreading. The CDC isn’t warning the public like it was months ago To accomplish its mission of increasing the health security of the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that it “conducts critical science and provides health information” to protect the nation. But since President Trump’s administration assumed power in January, many of the platforms the CDC used to communicate with the public have gone silent, an NPR analysis found. Many of the CDC’s newsletters have stopped being distributed, workers at the CDC say. Health alerts about disease outbreaks, previously sent to health professionals subscribed to the CDC’s Health Alert Network, haven’t been dispatched since March. The agency’s main social media channels have come under new ownership of the Department of Health and Human Services, emails reviewed by NPR show, and most have gone more than a month without posting their own new content.
NOTUS: Senators Ask RFK Jr. Who’s in Charge of Cuts: Him or DOGE? Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s appearance before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday was dominated by one question: Who, exactly, is directing the sweeping cuts to the nation’s federal health research and infrastructure? “Is it DOGE?” ranking member Sen. Tammy Baldwin asked bluntly. Kennedy didn’t give a clear answer. And when asked by Sen. Dick Durbin about cuts to tobacco regulation personnel at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, Kennedy said he “didn’t know about those cuts
Health Impacts:
- CBS: Biden’s “Cancer Moonshot” hit by Trump’s cuts to research at Harvard and Columbia
- Nature: NIH killed grants on orders from Elon Musk’s DOGE
- Politico: ‘Terrifying’: Trump cuts CDC’s drowning-prevention team
- San Francisco Chronicle: Language service cutbacks raise fear of medical errors, misdiagnoses, deaths
Cruel, Destructive, and Corrupt Policy Changes:
The FDA Is Being Dismantled – Stalling Drug Development And Leaving Us Vulnerable To Food-Borne Illness
The Independent: Trump’s FDA chief suggests diabetics should take cooking classes under MAHA agenda Donald Trump’s Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary has suggested it would be more effective to “treat more diabetes with cooking classes” instead of “just throwing insulin at people” under the president’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. Makary made the remarks Sunday on Fox News Sunday Morning Futures while promoting a new report from the president’s “Make America Healthy Again” commission. “We’ve got to stop and ask ourselves, should we be focusing more on school lunch programs, not just putting every kid on Ozempic? We’ve got to talk about food as medicine and gut health and the microbiome,” Makary said.
Stat: FDA will limit Covid vaccines to people over 65 or at high risk of serious illness, leaders say The Food and Drug Administration announced Tuesday that it will limit access to Covid-19 vaccines going forward to people 65 and older and others who are at high risk of becoming seriously ill if they are infected, and will require manufacturers to conduct clinical trials to show whether the vaccines benefit healthy younger adults and children. After weeks of signaling a shift in thinking, the new leaders of the FDA and the agency’s division that regulates vaccines published a commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine laying out their plan for future use of Covid vaccines. Commissioner Marty Makary and Vinay Prasad, director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, argued that the U.S. approach to recommending Covid vaccination for everyone ages 6 months and older is out of step with the rest of the world and may no longer be needed, given that many people have developed some protection from the SARS-CoV-2 virus through vaccinations, infections, or both. New randomized, placebo-controlled trials of healthy adults will help to determine if the vaccines are still warranted for people who are not at high risk from Covid infection, they wrote.
CBS: FDA expands COVID vaccine warning about heart side effect risk for young males The Food and Drug Administration is telling Pfizer and Moderna to expand the warning labels on their COVID-19 vaccines about the risk of a possible heart injury side effect linked to the mRNA shots, primarily in teen boys and young men, citing findings from a study published last year and new agency data. Orders to expand the warnings were posted Wednesday by the FDA, in letters dated April 17 to Pfizer and BioNTech about their Comirnaty vaccine and Moderna about its Spikevax vaccine. Both vaccines previously carried warnings about how the risk of the heart side effects — which doctors call myocarditis (an inflammation of the heart muscle) and pericarditis (inflammation of the membrane surrounding the heart) — looked to be higher in young men, generally within the first week after vaccination. While the earlier labels specified ages 18 to 24 years old for Moderna’s vaccine and 12 to 17 years old for Pfizer’s, the new warning will apply to males ages 16 to 25 for both vaccines.
Reuters: Moderna pulls application for COVID-flu combination shot Moderna said on Wednesday it has withdrawn an application seeking approval for its flu and COVID combination vaccine candidate to wait for efficacy data from a late-stage trial of its influenza shot, which is due later this year.
RFK Jr. Is An Extreme MAGA Anti-Vaxxer Who’s Breaking His “Assurances” To Key Republicans To Get Confirmed And Mis-Managing HHS
Stat: RFK Jr. rolls back Covid vaccine recommendations for healthy children, pregnant people Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Tuesday that he has unilaterally struck the recommendation that healthy children and healthy pregnant people get Covid-19 booster shots — a move that experts say is unprecedented. Kennedy made the announcement on the social media site X, flanked by Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health, and Marty Makary, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration. “It’s common sense, and it’s good science,” said Bhattacharya, whose agency has no involvement in the regulation of vaccines, or in decisions on who should get them. Absent from the video was anyone from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which sets policy for who should get approved vaccines on the advice of its expert panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. The CDC is currently without an acting director.
Wall Street Journal: What’s Inside RFK Jr.’s MAHA Report The White House’s “Make America Healthy Again” report criticized food additives, lobbyists and vaccines, but went easier than expected on pesticides in farming. The report released Thursday was compiled by the MAHA Commission led by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., which President Trump established in February. The White House made last-minute changes to the report, including cutting references to agricultural company Monsanto and details of corporate lobbying on “forever chemicals” and food labeling, as well as conflicts of interest in chemical regulation. The White House also shortened a section on vaccines and added recognition that vaccines benefit children by protecting them from infectious diseases. The Wall Street Journal previously reported on a draft version of the report, citing people briefed on it who said changes could be made before its release.
The Independent: Tim Walz calls out RFK Jr on children’s health: ‘Just so blatantly false’ Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz ripped into Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s comments about autism and warned that the Trump administration’s cuts to the Department of Education posed a risk to students with disabilities. Walz, the 2024 Democratic nominee for vice president alongside Kamala Harris, spoke to The Independent about the Trump administration, last year’s presidential election and the way forward for Democrats. Walz said that he worried about the stigma that Kennedy’s words would spread about people with disabilities. “First of all, you know, basically stigmatizing these kids and basically saying, you know, they’re not going to pay taxes, they’re not going to contribute, or whatever, which is just so blatantly false and, quite honestly, just evil in its intent and all the work we’ve done.”
Axios: RFK Jr. pushes back target date for autism report Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday walked back promises to release a report on the causes of autism by September. Why it matters: Kennedy, who has promoted debunked theories about the disorder, launched a mission to find a cure under the Trump administration. “The most solid information, it will probably take us another six months,” Kennedy told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Kennedy laid out the new timeline the same day his Make America Healthy Again Commission released a 68-page report on childhood chronic illness. Kennedy tapped David Geier, a vaccine denier who practiced medicine without a license in Maryland, to conduct a study into the links between vaccines and autism.
Reuters: RFK Jr. demands healthier school meals as Trump cancels program that funded them First-graders at John B. Wright elementary school in Tucson bounced into the brightly lit lunchroom, chattering with friends as they grabbed trays featuring juicy mandarin oranges, cherry tomatoes and butter lettuce, all grown at nearby farms that coax fresh produce from the Sonoran Desert. Those fruit and vegetables were supplied with the help of the federal Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program, or LFS, which was set to distribute $660 million to school systems and child care facilities in 2025, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The USDA abruptly canceled the program in March as part of President Donald Trump’s plans to gut the federal government. “People think it’s crappy food, it’s processed, unhealthy, they think it’s mystery meat,” said Lindsay Aguilar, who heads up the Tucson Unified School District’s nutrition program. “Parents associate it from when we were in school 23 years ago. It is completely different from what it used to be.” The Trump administration’s mixed messages on school meals — funding cuts alongside calls for healthier, and more costly options — create a challenge for those involved with school nutrition programs, they told Reuters. As part of his Trump-inspired campaign to “Make America Healthy Again,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has accused schools of feeding children unhealthy food laden with food dyes and additives. “We need to stop poisoning our kids and make sure that Americans are once again the healthiest kids on the planet,” Kennedy said at an event with U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins late last month, adding that the two agencies would be “looking at” school meals.
Disastrous, Dangerous Appointments
Stat: Inside the rise of Tracy Beth Høeg, the Covid contrarian shaping FDA vaccine policy The Covid-19 pandemic was a turning point for Tracy Beth Høeg. Before March 2020, Høeg was a sports medicine physician focused on ultramarathon runners. Then, she rose to prominence by challenging school closures, mask mandates, and the approval of booster shots for children. Now, she’s been tapped for a top role at the Food and Drug Administration, working closely with two fellow Covid contrarians — Marty Makary, the agency’s commissioner, and Vinay Prasad, the head of a key center — and advising on vaccines. Officially, she’s a special assistant to Makary. In May, she quietly updated her LinkedIn to add another title: senior clinical science advisor at Prasad’s division, the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, which oversees vaccines. Høeg, a political appointee and close confidante of Makary’s, is already starting to have a central role in reshaping vaccine policy. She attended a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory meeting in the place of a career vaccine scientist in April, and reportedly was involved in the approval delay of Novavax’s Covid-19 vaccine.
Public Health Threats
NBC: When measles struck, a surge of parents stepped up to vaccinate their children Kala Hunter did not hesitate to get her 2-year-old son, Brady, fully vaccinated in March as the number of measles cases grew in her West Texas community. “Being in the hotbed of the measles outbreak,” said Hunter, 47, of Lubbock, “it was a no-brainer. If it was safe to get him vaccinated early, we were going to protect him.” Harmony Montes, 21, also of Lubbock, said she felt the same way. As the outbreak escalated in April, Montes jumped at the chance to get her daughter, Melody Rocha, vaccinated at her six-month checkup. “We didn’t hesitate at all,” Montes said. “I wasn’t going to risk her health.” The moms represent a recent surge in Texas parents opting to get their babies and toddlers the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccination as soon as possible.