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 And Cruel Policies Are Creating Chaos And Endangering Americans’ Health And Scientific Innovation
Science: NIH director orders new review of grants in outline of top research priorities National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Jayanta “Jay” Bhattacharya today released a widely anticipated list of a dozen research priorities for his agency, spanning familiar topics ranging from autism to health disparities. But he sparked concern within and outside of NIH by ordering a new internal review of the agency’s entire funding portfolio. Some staff and others worry that effort will further delay NIH’s issuing of grant funding. The analysis the director calls for, says University of Pittsburgh biochemist Jeremy Berg, former NIH institute director and former Science editor-in-chief, “is a substantial undertaking, yet no timelines or clear guidance is given.” One staffer at NIH who asked not to be identified said by text, “It makes it sound we will need to review every single award AGAIN.” NIH grant officers have already had to scour grants for politically sensitive topics disliked by President Donald Trump’s administration, a process that has taken months and helped put NIH at risk of not spending its 2025 budget before the end of the fiscal year.
New York Times: Trump Administration Scraps Research Into Health Disparities The federal government has for decades invested vigorously in research aimed at narrowing the health gaps between racial and socioeconomic groups, pouring billions of dollars into understanding why minority and low-income Americans have shorter lives and suffer higher rates of illnesses like cancer and heart disease. Spending on so-called health disparities rose even during the Trump administration’s first term. But in its second, much of the funding has come to a sudden halt. Following a series of executive orders prohibiting diversity, equity and inclusion policies at every level of the federal government, the National Institutes of Health this year began terminating initiatives that officials said smacked of identity politics and offered dubious benefits. “Spending billions on divisive, politically driven D.E.I. initiatives that don’t deliver results is not just bad health policy — it’s bad government,” said a spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Human Services. The N.I.H will invest in projects that support “all vulnerable populations,” and expand participation “based on clinical need — not identity,” she added. She declined to be identified. In letters from the N.I.H., scientists were told that their projects were canceled because they “harm the health of Americans,” “provide a low return on investment,” or “do not enhance health, lengthen life, or reduce illness.” “The communication is very clear: We do not value health equity, we do not value a focus on underserved and under-treated populations, we do not consider these to be a priority,” said Dr. Kemi Doll, a cancer specialist at the University of Washington School of Medicine, who coaches younger researchers from minority backgrounds.
Stat: Staff cuts are undermining federal research on how to make health care better A small federal agency that studies how to improve the health care system has been rendered functionally “incapacitated” after much of its staff was laid off or retired, according to three people, including two former employees, who spoke with STAT. The loss of most of the workers at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has left it unable to distribute grants or support a panel of outside experts that advises on preventive medical services, the people said. “None of the other science agencies in HHS — NIH, FDA, nor CDC — focus on actually improving the quality of care that Americans can receive,” Robert Otto Valdez, who directed the agency through January, told STAT via email. “That has been AHRQ’s scientific focus.” STAT spoke with two former employees who asked not to be named to avoid reprisal and Aaron Carroll, president and CEO of AcademyHealth, a nonpartisan group that advocates for health researchers. They said that while the directors of many AHRQ offices remain because it is difficult to fire them, their staffs have been decimated.
The Bulwark: Warning: The Trump Presidency May Be Hazardous to Your Health These cuts are jeopardizing progress in many fields, including the decades-long war on cancer—a war in which scientists have made some truly impressive gains, especially in the past ten years or so. Recent discoveries about the human genome and mechanisms of tumors, along with new technologies for crafting and delivering treatments, have made it possible to “cure” some cancers—in the sense of going into remission and having a high chance of surviving without recurrence—and transform others from an immediate death sentence into something more like a chronic disease to be managed. It’s why today so many more people get “extra” precious years to see weddings and births and other milestones—or simply to live out more of their lives. Federal support made these breakthroughs possible. Now Trump is taking a big chunk of that support away.
The Atlantic: No One in the White House Knows How to Stop Ebola As of last month, there is no one left in the White House whose sole job is to keep the nation safe from biological threats. The leader of the National Security Council’s biosecurity directorate recently resigned. His staff had been pushed out, and his unit is now defunct. The Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, established by Congress in 2022, has dwindled from a staff of about 20 under President Joe Biden to a staff of zero. The Trump administration has said that it’s just reorganizing the bureaucracy and is prepared to handle biothreats. But our experience suggests otherwise. Without a leader from the NSC embedded in the White House and ready to coordinate other agencies, more people—including Americans—will get sick and die.
RFK Jr.’s War on Vaccines Will Have Deadly Consequences
NOTUS: HHS Brings Back a Task Force Pushed by Anti-Vaccine Groups The Department of Health and Human Services is resurrecting a long-disbanded federal panel to scrutinize childhood immunizations, fulfilling the demands of an anti-vaccine organization Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. once chaired. The Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines will “produce regular recommendations focused on the development, promotion, and refinement of childhood vaccines that result in fewer and less serious adverse reactions than those vaccines currently on the market,” the department said in a statement Thursday. It’s the latest decision inviting vaccine skepticism into HHS. Kennedy announced earlier this month that the department was cancelling millions of dollars of contracts with companies developing mRNA vaccines. He also fired all the members of the committee that recommends which vaccines should be added to the childhood immunization schedule and replaced them with appointees of his own choosing, some of whom have a history of questioning vaccines. The newly reestablished task force will work alongside that committee and comprise “senior leadership from NIH, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” the department said.
Axios: RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine revolution Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made a dizzying amount of changes to federal health agencies in his first six months as HHS secretary, with yesterday’s decision to revive a childhood vaccine safety panel that anti-vax groups sought being the latest in a long list. Why it matters: Kennedy has upended years of vaccine policy and cut biomedical research funding, and experts worry his revisions could result in a less vaccinated population and more disease outbreaks and deaths. “I see a potential here for the dramatic reduction in vaccine access for this country,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
Axios: Back to school vaccine confusion The new school year is bringing more ambivalence and confusion over children’s vaccines, as shifting policies under HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and lingering skepticism lead more parents to opt out. Why it matters: The U.S. this year experienced the worst measles outbreak in 30 years, a large uptick in whooping cough and the highest number of pediatric flu deaths in more than a decade. State of play: Clinicians say moves like Kennedy’s decision to stop recommending COVID-19 vaccines for healthy kids have emboldened segments of the public to question the effectiveness and safety of a range of shots for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR), pertussis, chicken pox and more. “They feel like if the government has chosen RFK Jr. to be the head of Health and Human Services, there must be something to that. There must be a reason to question vaccines,” said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Some pediatricians offices and even children’s health systems have begun weighing whether to keep unvaccinated patients on their rosters. “It’s gotten so bad that you’re concerned about the waiting room with a lot of children who are unvaccinated. That’s a risk, not only to them, but the children they come in contact with,” Offit said.
The Deadly Shooting Attack on the CDC Was Fueled By Vaccine Misinformation
Washington Post: After CDC shooting, its employees turn their anger to RFK Jr. and Trump A gaunt Patrick White approached his neighbor on her porch last year to deliver a warning, she recalled. Coronavirus vaccines harmed him and others. Authorities were covering this up. On Friday afternoon, he fired hundreds of bullets at six buildings on the Atlanta headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, officials allege, forcing hundreds of workers into lockdown as gunfire bombarded windows around them. White died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and his gunfire killed a responding police officer — a father of two children with a third on the way, law enforcement officials said during a Tuesday news conference. Investigators said they found documentation at White’s residence expressing his discontent with coronavirus vaccination. “The overall content of one of the documents was more of wanting to make the public aware of his distrust of the vaccines,” said Chris Hosey, director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. For many in public health, the shooting seemed to vindicate their long-running fears that the backlash to their work during the coronavirus pandemic could turn deadly. Some left the field after a vitriolic response to mandates for masking and vaccination. Armed protesters gathered outside the homes of health officials. Some health officials faced death threats, including Anthony S. Fauci, one of the leaders of the federal coronavirus response. Days after the shooting, the initial shock has morphed into anger for many CDC employees, according to interviews with more than a dozen of them, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.
NBC: Anti-vaccine myths surged on social media ahead of the CDC shooting In the weeks and months before the Aug. 8 shooting at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta, posts tying Covid vaccines to mental illness accrued millions of views online. Previously more tightly moderated, some of the world’s largest social media platforms now operate with far fewer guardrails, allowing vaccine misinformation to flourish. On X, for example, verified accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers openly claimed in recent weeks that Covid vaccines act like “chemical lobotomies,” which is false. On Facebook, health influencers with broad reach alleged that Covid vaccines cause severe brain damage or other severe side effects such as cancer, despite no scientific basis for those claims. And on TikTok, videos repeating the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism drew hundreds of thousands of views this year, spreading doubt to wide audiences. The posts are just one part of a now-chaotic information ecosystem that internet users navigate when they look for information about vaccines. In that environment, incomplete or out-of-context information is often snipped, packaged to fit predisposed narratives and then rapidly amplified across text, short-form video or audio content.
Mother Jones: Anti-Vaxxers Are Making Excuses for the CDC Shooter When Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared on Scripps News this week to address the tragic CDC shooting, he began by condemning the violence that had occurred four days earlier, when shooter Patrick Joseph White fired over 180 rounds into CDC buildings in Atlanta, Georgia. White broke approximately 150 windows and killed Officer David Rose, a Marine veteran, father of one, and expectant father of another. White then fatally shot himself at a nearby CVS. Investigators later discovered writings in which White blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for his depression and suicidal ideation—beliefs that reflect themes common in anti-vaccine spaces. Public health workers, Kennedy said in the interview, “should not be the targets of this kind of violence from anybody.” But then Kennedy pivoted, claiming, somewhat cryptically, that it was unclear what drove the shooter. “We don’t know enough about the motivations of this individual, but people can ask questions without being penalized,” Kennedy said, seemingly referring to people who question the safety of vaccines. He then shifted his remarks back to critiquing federal public health policy. “What I’m trying to do at the agency,” he said, “is return it to gold standard science.” That carefully ambiguous response contained echoes of the reactions from some of the most influential anti-vaccine influencers on social media. The day after the shooting, Erin Elizabeth, creator of Health Nut News and a well-known anti-vaccine figure with 219,000 followers, posted on X that the tragedy stemmed from public frustration with CDC vaccine guidance, not from misinformation. “R U shocked that mainstream admitted the vaxxed CDC shooter [gun emoji] people and took his own life because of the Covid vaccines, which made him suicid@l?” she wrote. “It’s proven to alter brain chemistry. And several of my regulars w accts posted today that the shot has made them like this.”
Stat: Challenges mount for RFK Jr. and his MAHA agenda A deadly shooting at one of the public health agencies that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vilified during his rise to power is proving to be a unique test of his leadership, at a time when fractures are emerging in his Make America Healthy Again movement. On Friday, a gunman, reportedly motivated by anti-vaccine beliefs, fired more than 180 rounds at the Atlanta headquarters campus of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, killing a police officer and leaving windows shattered. Employees have expressed fear for their physical safety and anger about what many believe contributed to the attack. “Unfortunately, mistruths from the Department of Health and Human Services, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. [and] the Trump administration have resulted in the vilification of this agency,” Tatishka Thomas, a national vice president of the union that represents CDC workers, told reporters on Monday. “I am not blaming the Trump administration for the attack. However, he did turn the agency that focuses on safeguarding our country against infectious diseases into a political issue.”
Other Dangerous MAHA Initiatives
Stat: Draft of major MAHA report calls for more education, less regulation — and offers few policies much-awaited game plan for how the Trump administration will make Americans healthier largely steers clear of policy recommendations, instead calling for more research on nutrition, agricultural chemicals, and “potential benefits of select high-quality supplements,” among other topics. That’s according to a draft version of a new report from the president’s Make America Healthy Again Commission led by health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The White House has yet to share a finalized version, which will likely undergo edits before its release. While the document, titled “Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy,” retreads key MAHA ground like the need to cut artificial food dyes and encourage physical activity, it also offers a more expansive view of where Kennedy plans to steer his agency. Details of the report, which was delivered to the White House on Tuesday but not made public, were first published by the New York Times. They have yet to be authenticated by White House officials. Childhood vaccine schedule reform is on the agenda, though the report offers no details on how Kennedy will change the list of recommended childhood vaccines, if at all. He has for years cast suspicion on vaccines, often citing flawed research, and promoted the idea that early shots are harming children. The report similarly calls for “addressing vaccine injuries.”
New York Times: Draft of White House Report Suggests Kennedy Won’t Push Strict Pesticide Regulations A highly anticipated White House report on the health of American children would stop short of proposing direct restrictions on ultraprocessed foods and pesticides that the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has called major threats, according to a draft of the document that was reviewed by The New York Times. The report, if adopted, would be good news for the food and agriculture industries, which feared far more restrictive proposals than the ones outlined in the draft. Through his “Make America Healthy Again” movement, Mr. Kennedy has sought to overhaul the nation’s diet by pushing those industries to make major changes. The draft includes an array of policy proposals calling for research into topics as distinct as electromagnetic radiation and children’s oral health. It also recommends action on health initiatives, like efforts to increase breastfeeding rates, address infertility and educate the public on the dangers of vaping.
Bloomberg: RFK Jr. Disavows Presidential Run, Pledges Loyalty to Trump Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he isn’t running for president in 2028 in a social media post on Friday, pushing back on criticism from right-wing commentator Laura Loomer that he’s disloyal to President Trump. “The president has made himself the answer to my 20-year prayer that God would put me in a position to end the chronic disease epidemic,” Kennedy wrote. “That’s exactly what my team and I will do until the day he leaves office.” The declaration follows speculation, stoked by Loomer, that Kennedy, 71, has his sights set on the White House. Kennedy also defended one of his top aides, Stefanie Spear, from Loomer’s attacks on her loyalty to the president.
MSNBC: How RFK Jr. alienated MAGA, MAHA and the White House in a single week On the evening of Aug. 5, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted a 2 1/2-minute video to X announcing that the Department of Health and Human Services was canceling some $500 million in mRNA vaccine research via 22 contracts from the department’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. Kennedy had spent the morning on the National Mall pedaling a bike until it generated enough power to blend a blueberry smoothie at a USDA farmers market event. Now, the secretary of health and human services was in Anchorage, Alaska, for a long-planned stop on his Make America Healthy Again tour. While Kennedy was meeting with tribal health leaders and salmon fishing in the Alaska wilderness, scientists and public health experts were condemning the mRNA announcement in a backlash that HHS apparently had not anticipated. And over the next week, what should have been the signature accomplishment of Kennedy’s first year at HHS — the realization of a promise to end vaccines he’s falsely called deadly, even as nearly every major public health, scientific and medical body agrees they are both very safe and have saved millions of lives — became a case study in how not to sell an anti-vaccine policy in Washington. It was a week of conflicted messaging and open infighting where Kennedy irked nearly all of his allies: MAGA, MAHA, the White House and the agency he leads.
Other MAHA Activity:
- Politico: Congress is lukewarm on RFK Jr.’s plans. In the states, they’re catching fire.
- Politico: Wiles intervened to save RFK Jr.’s top vaccine aide
- MedPage Today: Groups Call For RFK Jr. To Be Impeached. Here’s What That Would Take.
Public Health Threats
Washington Post: Covid is rising. New vaccines may not be ready until mid-September. Coronavirus infections are climbing again, marking another summer wave as children go back to school. But this uptick arrives with an added layer of uncertainty because it’s unclear when and which Americans can receive updated vaccines this fall. Daniel R. Kuritzkes, chief of the division of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said the current rise looks similar to seasonal bumps in previous years and is not driving a surge in severe illness. This is the new rhythm of covid waves. Many people are getting sick — some feeling lousy — especially after returning from vacation and conferences. Most probably won’t even know it’s covid because the symptoms can be indistinguishable from a cold or other respiratory bug. Yet hospitals are no longer flooded with patients because immune systems are much better trained to fight the virus five years after it arrived. But Kuritzkes and other medical and public health experts worry that delays and confusion surrounding the vaccines will limit access for those who need them the most: Adults ages 65 and older and people who have chronic conditions, weakened immune systems or are pregnant.
CBS: Mother sues Florida dairy farm, claiming she lost unborn baby after toddler got sick from drinking raw milk A Florida dairy farm was named in a lawsuit filed by a woman who claims she lost her unborn child after getting sick while caring for her toddler, who also got sick after drinking raw milk. Rachel Maddox is suing Keely Farms Dairy, a New Smyrna Beach dairy farm, which state health officials have tied to at least 21 cases of E. coli and Campylobacter bacteria sickness from raw milk consumption, Orlando’s CBS News affiliate WKMG reported. Six of the 21 patients were children under the age of 10, seven were hospitalized and at least two cases have resulted in severe complications, according to the state-issued warning.
The American Prospect: Tuberculosis Spawning in Crowded, Dirty ICE Detention Centers Consumption is flourishing in immigration detention centers across the country, yet another sign that America is grinding its way through a second Gilded Age. It’s better known now by its other name, tuberculosis, and it’s the most deadly infectious disease in the world, the World Health Organization says, responsible for killing 1.5 million people each year, even though it’s both preventable and curable. Detainees have tested positive for tuberculosis at the Anchorage Correctional Complex in Alaska and Adelanto ICE Processing Center in California, according to news reports. One immigrant died days after a diagnosis of the disease in the Eloy Detention Center in Arizona, an ICE death notice shows. Detainees may have been exposed at the Denver Contract Detention Facility in Aurora, according to a lawsuit. And in Washington state, several possible cases of tuberculosis in the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma were reported this month to state authorities, and one man was hospitalized for it, his attorney said. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) did not respond to a request for comment. Officials have previously downplayed the presence of tuberculosis, the reports show, including responding to questions about the cases in Tacoma by saying, “This false claim needs to stop.”