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?
Dangerous Chaos At The HHS and the CDC
CNN: HHS employees demand RFK Jr. resign for ‘compromising the health of this nation’ More than 1,000 current and former employees of the US Department of Health and Human Services wrote a letter to Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday, arguing that his leadership has “put the health of all Americans at risk” and demanding his resignation. The letter, which was also addressed to members of Congress, comes after a tumultuous week at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that saw its newly confirmed director, Dr. Susan Monarez, declared to be fired by the Trump administration, spurring the resignations of four other senior officials at the public health agency. Monarez was ousted after refusing to bend to pressure from top HHS officials to sign off on potential new vaccine restrictions, according to people familiar with the matter. “Secretary Kennedy continues to endanger the nation’s health,” the employees wrote in Wednesday’s letter, citing actions including the facilitation of Monarez’s firing, the resignations of key, longtime CDC leaders, the appointment of what they called “political ideologues” to influential roles in vaccine policy, and the rescinding of emergency use authorizations for Covid-19 vaccines without, they said, “providing the data or methods used to reach such a decision.”
New York Times: Kennedy, Rejecting Data, Fuels Distrust of His Own Agencies The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts the U.S. death count from Covid-19 at 1.2 million. But Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. rejects his own department’s statistics. “I don’t know how many died,” Mr. Kennedy told senators during a contentious hearing Thursday, adding, “I don’t think anybody knows, because there was so much data chaos coming out of the C.D.C.” When Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, said, accurately, that it was becoming harder for people to get Covid shots at pharmacies, Mr. Kennedy denied that, retorting: “Everyone can get access to them.” He also claimed mRNA vaccines “cause serious harm, including death, particularly in young people,” though the C.D.C. found “no increased risk of death” from the shots. Mr. Kennedy’s defiant performance at the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday, his critics say, put on vivid display what happens when someone with no medical or scientific training and a conspiracy-minded approach takes charge of the nation’s public health. Instead of being guided by rigorous research and nuanced debate over complex issues that defy easy answers, the country’s health secretary rejects facts that do not fit his theories and casts out experts who are not aligned with him. He is buoyed by the support of a vocal populist base that shares his suspicions of organized medicine and is energized by his push for a new approach. Mr. Kennedy’s distrust of his department’s scientists and doctors has created turmoil within the nation’s public health agencies, particularly the C.D.C. Mass firings and restructuring have stripped the institution of expertise. And the health secretary dismissed an entire panel of vaccine experts and fired the C.D.C. director — whom he had called a “brilliant microbiologist and a tech wizard” — just one month after the Senate confirmed her.
CNN: RFK Jr. says he sees no successes in the agency he leads Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he did not think there have been any “successes” among US health agencies Sunday, claiming the infiltration of pharmaceutical companies have led to a “series of bad decisions.” Asked during an interview with “Fox and Friends” what the last great success of federal health agencies was, the secretary responded, “I don’t think there have been successes.” “We’ve seen a 30- or 40-year decline in the agency because, you know, it’s been infiltrated by the pharmaceutical companies, and they’ve made a series of bad decisions,” he said, while highlighting the opioid crisis. “What we want to do now is put an end to it, to end those entanglements, those corrupting entanglements with the pharmaceutical industry, and make this again a gold standard science agency that is protecting the American public,” Kennedy added.
Stat: CDC’s vaccine information no longer entirely trustworthy, former director says It pains Rochelle Walensky, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to hear people say that the agency can’t be trusted. But these days, she said, people should be cautious about the vaccination information on its website. “What I can say is the vaccine information on the CDC is not necessarily that of the subject matter experts or the CDC, but there’s a lot of other great information on this CDC website that I don’t believe has been tainted with as of yet,” she said in response to a question at a media briefing in Boston Friday, calling her former colleagues heroes who are doing their best.
More on the crisis at HHS:
RFK Jr.’s War on Vaccines Will Have Deadly Consequences
Washington Post: RFK Jr. weighs adding critics of coronavirus shots to key vaccine panel Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been weighing whether to appoint new members to the committee that recommends which vaccines Americans should receive, according to two former federal health officials, most of whom appear to have been highly critical of coronavirus vaccines. Kennedy in June fired every member of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and replaced them with his own picks, most of whom have criticized coronavirus vaccine policies. His overhaul of that committee has sparked backlash from CDC leaders, with several resigning in protest; medical organizations; and even some Republican senators. And Kennedy’s handling of coronavirus vaccines has come under scrutiny as Americans struggle to access them after the Food and Drug Administration narrowed approval of the latest version to those considered at high risk. The CDC immunization committee has yet to release coronavirus vaccine recommendations but is scheduled to vote on them later this month. The newly reformulated panel already has moved to undo long-standing vaccine policies, voting in its first meeting to remove an ingredient from flu shots that scientists have deemed safe and promising to reexamine the childhood immunization schedule. A list of seven potential nominees to expand the committee includes the names of medical professionals who challenged official public health guidance related to the coronavirus. The press office of the Department of Health and Human Services declined to comment on the list. Two of the potential nominees have called for mRNA coronavirus vaccines to be taken off the market. Another said physicians “blindly believed” in the vaccines, while another has criticized the shots in testimony to the Ohio legislature.
- Washington Post: Prominent critic of RFK Jr. blocked from FDA vaccine committee Paul Offit, a pediatrician who has sparred with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over childhood vaccination, has been blocked from participating in a vaccine advisory committee for the Food and Drug Administration. An HHS spokesman said Offit was among a dozen members of eight FDA advisory panels who were notified they can no longer participate because their terms as special government employees expired. The spokesman, who declined to be named, declined to identify the other members or committees.
Washington Post: RFK Jr. says anyone who wants a covid shot can get one. Not these Americans. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told senators this week that anyone can get a new coronavirus vaccine. But many Americans are finding the opposite. Confusion is rippling through the health care system as pharmacies and doctors try to adjust to providing a vaccine that is no longer broadly recommended. Americans’ experiences vary widely from easily booking appointments to having to cross state lines to access the shots, according to more than 3,200 submissions to The Washington Post’s request for readers to share their experiences. Chain pharmacy locations in some parts of the country have yet to stock the shots or are turning away patients seeking the updated vaccines manufactured to protect people from the worst effects of new strains of coronavirus. In some states, they require prescriptions, a step that has largely not been required since vaccines became widely available in early 2021. Even more confusing: Pharmacies are reaching different conclusions about whether they’re allowed to administer coronavirus vaccines, even in the same state. And some states, including New York and Massachusetts, have scrambled in recent days to rewrite their rules to make it easier to get shots.
New York Times: Whistle-Blower Complaints Detail Tension Over Vaccines at N.I.H. Two prominent scientists said in whistle-blower complaints filed late Wednesday that they had been removed from leadership positions at the National Institutes of Health after objecting to Trump administration efforts to undermine vaccines, flout court orders, withhold research money and politicize the grant-making process. The complaints shed light on much of the internal strife at the agency earlier this year, as the Trump administration clamped down on the country’s medical research funding apparatus. The scientists drew particular attention to what they described as an administration-wide “hostility” toward vaccines that they said had taken hold in the upper echelons of the N.I.H., long one of the world’s leading engines of vaccine research.
Reuters: Another US doctors’ group breaks with federal policy, recommends COVID-19 vaccines for all adults They contrast with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration which two weeks ago approved the updated vaccines for people with health conditions and all people aged 65 and older. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy said in May the U.S. no longer recommends routine COVID-19 shots for healthy kids and pregnant women, prompting medical organizations and several states to formulate their own vaccine recommendations. Previously, all Americans had access to the shots. The AAFP recommends all children aged six to 23 months be vaccinated against COVID-19 and employs a risk-based single dose approach for children and teens between two and 18 years old.
RFK Jr. Is A Political Liability For Trump And Republicans
NBC: Poll: Trump’s job ratings stay negative; Americans express strong support for vaccines The latest NBC News Decision Desk Poll powered by SurveyMonkey. Notably, the poll shows U.S. adults expressing strong, bipartisan support for vaccines as Trump’s health and human services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has moved to limit certain shots. An overwhelming majority of Americans support using vaccines for the prevention of diseases, including 49% who strongly support it and 78% who strongly or somewhat support it. Across party lines, large majorities of Democrats (93%), independents (72%) and Republicans (67%) say they support using vaccines
CBS: Americans say vaccines should be made more available, but many say RFK Jr. making them less Americans tend to believe Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s policies are making vaccines less available rather than more available. But the large majority (74%) of Americans feels government policy ought to make vaccines more available if people want them. Also, there’s a wide view (70%) that government policy should encourage parents to vaccinate their children for diseases like measles, mumps and rubella, more specifically. Only a scant few think the government ought to discourage that.
NBC: Ahead of Kennedy hearing, GOP saw poll showing Trump voters support vaccines Polling showing that a majority of President Donald Trump’s voters support vaccines was shared with several Republicans lawmakers’ staffers in a closed-door meeting Wednesday, according to two people familiar with the meeting. NBC News obtained a copy of a memo, dated Aug. 26, summarizing the poll results. It was conducted by veteran Republican pollsters Tony Fabrizio and Bob Ward and concluded “that there is broad unity across party lines supporting vaccines such as measles (MMR), shingles, tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis (TDAP), and Hepatitis B.” Fabrizio and Ward presented the findings during the meeting, the sources said.
CNN: Trump’s former surgeon general calls for RFK Jr. to be fired Jerome Adams, who served as US surgeon general during President Donald Trump’s first administration, is calling for Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be fired as controversy continues to swirl over his handling of vaccine approvals. When asked by CNN’s Victor Blackwell on Saturday if Trump should fire Kennedy, Adams said, “I absolutely believe that he should for the sake of the nation and the sake of his legacy.”
The Washington Post: Doubts about RFK Jr. grow for some Republicans Seven months after they voted to confirm longtime anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the nation’s health secretary, some Republican senators are having second thoughts. “I’m a doctor. Vaccines work,” Sen. John Barrasso (Wyoming), the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, told Kennedy at a hearing Thursday on Capitol Hill. “Secretary Kennedy, in your confirmation hearings, you promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines. Since then, I’ve grown deeply concerned.” Barrasso’s warning, which Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) and Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) echoed at Thursday’s hearing, was the latest and perhaps most significant sign of growing GOP doubts about the merits — and political wisdom — of Kennedy’s agenda.
Axios: Trump breaks from RFK on vaccines: “Pure and simple, they work” President Trump said he’s supportive of vaccines on Friday, breaking with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Why it matters: Kennedy has faced widespread criticism for his new vaccine mandates and staffing shake-up at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Driving the news: Trump was asked Friday during an Oval Office meeting about Kennedy’s vaccine mandate changes, which include limiting which children are eligible for vaccines. “I think you have to be very careful when you say that some people don’t have to be vaccinated,” Trump said of Kennedy’s vaccine mandates for children “They’re just, pure and simple — they work,” he added. “They’re not controversial at all. And I think those vaccines should be used.”
Axios: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s family calls for his resignation Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s sister and nephew called on the secretary to resign Friday after he questioned the safety of vaccination while testifying before a congressional committee. Why it matters: The resignation calls came hours before President Trump broke with Kennedy by encouraging the public to take vaccines, and a day after several Republican members of the committee questioned the secretary’s fitness following the upheaval at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Vaccines In The States
Washington Post: Florida moves to end all school vaccine mandates, first in nation to do so Florida’s surgeon general on Wednesday announced plans to end all state vaccine mandates, including for children to attend schools, which would make it the first state to completely withdraw from a practice credited with boosting vaccination rates and controlling the spread of infectious diseases. Speaking at a news conference outside Tampa with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), Surgeon General Joseph A. Ladapo said that every vaccine mandate “is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery” and called the rollback “the right thing to do.” Ladapo’s stances on vaccines and other measures intended to protect Floridians have drawn criticism from public health experts and advocates. “Who am I as a man standing here now to tell you what you should put in your body?” Ladapo said Wednesday.
- Politico: Florida surgeon general denies need for study ahead of end to vaccine mandates in the state Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo on Sunday acknowledged his team had not conducted any studies on the effects of removing state vaccine mandates before he made his public appeal this week. “What I’m saying is that it’s an issue of right and wrong in terms of whether parents should be able to control, have ultimate authority over what happens to their kids’ bodies,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.” “And in terms of outbreaks, we do have outbreaks in Florida, just like every state, and we manage those. So there are no new special, you know, special procedures that need to be made.”
Axios: Blue states eye rival health rules to defy RFK Jr. Blue states are quickly moving to defy Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vaccine restrictions, increasing the likelihood of a patchwork of conflicting policies similar to the divides over abortion and gender-affirming care. Why it matters: The resulting standoff could confuse the public on potentially life-and-death decisions. And a state-by-state approach could be inadequate in a major crisis. “Any public health response that is dependent on a patchwork of state actions is going to necessarily be less effective and less efficient” than a federal policy, said Samuel Bagenstos, who was general counsel to the Department of Health and Human Services in the Biden administration.
Other Dangerous MAHA Initiatives
Wall Street Journal: RFK Jr., HHS to Link Autism to Tylenol Use in Pregnancy and Folate Deficiencies Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to announce that pregnant women’s use of an over-the-counter pain medication is potentially linked to autism in a report that will also suggest a medicine derived from folate can be used to treat symptoms of the developmental disorder in some people, people familiar with the matter said. The report, expected this month from the Department of Health and Human Services, is likely to suggest as being among the potential causes of autism low levels of folate, an important vitamin, and Tylenol taken during pregnancy, people familiar with the matter said. The agency also plans to pinpoint a form of folate known as folinic acid, or leucovorin, the people said, as a way to decrease the symptoms of autism, which affected roughly one in 31 eight-year-olds in the U.S. in 2022. Tylenol, whose active ingredient is acetaminophen, is a widely used pain reliever, including by pregnant women. Some previous studies have indicated risks to fetal development, but others have found no association. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says it is safe to use in pregnancy, though it recommends that pregnant women consult with their doctors before using it, as with all medicines.
- Bloomberg: FDA Head Says Government Hasn’t Started Writing Autism Report US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary said the federal government has not yet started writing a report on the possible causes of autism but reaffirmed a longstanding promise that it will be released “within a month.” Makary said last week’s Wall Street Journal story about the autism report was “premature.” The Journal said the report will include a claim that pregnant women’s use of the over-the-counter painkiller Tylenol could be a contributing factor to autism. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has touted that a report examining the root causes of autism would be coming in September. Kennedy in the past has suggested that the effects of vaccination are a contributing cause to autism rates.
New York Times: White House Set to Release Report on Childhood Health The Trump administration is expected to release a report on Tuesday outlining its strategy to combat childhood chronic disease. The report, from a presidential commission chaired by the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., will most likely propose initiatives around food, medications and fertility. A draft of the report, which The New York Times described in August, disappointed some of Mr. Kennedy’s supporters because it did not propose direct restrictions on pesticides or ultraprocessed foods, which Mr. Kennedy has called major threats to the health of American children. The Department of Health and Human Services posted on its website that members of the Make America Healthy Again commission would release the final report at an event at 2 p.m. Eastern time today. The report comes the week after Mr. Kennedy appeared at a combative Senate hearing, and follows weeks of tumult at the nation’s leading health agencies after Mr. Kennedy pushed out the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Other MAHA Activity:
- Vox: Exclusive: RFK Jr. and the White House buried a major study on alcohol and cancer. Here’s what it shows.
- NOTUS: RFK Jr. Touted a CDC Biosurveillance Program That Doesn’t Appear to Exist Yet
Public Health Threats
New York Times: Ebola Outbreak Is Declared in Province of Congo Health officials have declared an Ebola outbreak in a province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the World Health Organization announced on Thursday, with 28 suspected cases and at least 15 deaths. The deadly virus has claimed thousands of lives across 15 outbreaks in the country in Central Africa since the disease was first identified in 1976. The latest presence of Ebola was confirmed by samples tested on Wednesday by the Congolese health authorities. Some of the deaths include health workers, officials say.