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 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?
Trump and RFK Jr.’s Dangerous Lies About Tylenol And Autism
PolitiFact: Trump Claims ‘No Downside’ to Avoiding Tylenol During Pregnancy. He’s Wrong. Obstetricians have long advised their pregnant patients that Tylenol is the safest option to reduce fever or pain. President Donald Trump stood before a national audience on Sept. 22 and contradicted that. “Don’t take Tylenol,” Trump said during an hourlong White House press conference that included his leading health appointees. “There’s no downside. Don’t take it. You’ll be uncomfortable. It won’t be as easy, maybe, but don’t take it. If you’re pregnant, don’t take Tylenol.” His advice has no clear basis in research and contradicts long-standing science and medical guidance. And there are downsides to avoiding acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, when it is needed. Untreated fever during pregnancy can harm a mom and baby, medical experts warn. Untreated pain is a drawback, too.
NBC: World health officials counter Trump’s unproven claim of link between acetaminophen and autism Health officials across the globe on Tuesday rejected President Donald Trump’s warning that pregnant women should limit the use of acetaminophen over unsubstantiated claims of a link to autism. Authorities from Australia to Europe moved swiftly to respond to the U.S. announcement, which Trump made with great fanfare while flanked by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “Don’t take Tylenol. Don’t take it. Fight like hell not to take it,” Trump said. But a range of experts worldwide noted there was not conclusive evidence to support the possible association between autism and acetaminophen — the active ingredient in Tylenol and other widely used medications — and no new evidence to warrant a change in guidance.
Politico: Co-author of study linking Tylenol to autism says pain reliever still an option A researcher whose work linking Tylenol to autism was cited by the Trump administration in cautioning pregnant women against taking acetaminophen says the drug still can be used for treating maternal pain and fevers. University of Massachusetts epidemiologist Ann Bauer reviewed existing research in a paper published last month in the journal Environmental Health with Dr. Andrea Baccarelli, the dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City and the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. She told POLITICO that while pregnant women should be informed that high-quality studies show a correlation between acetaminophen use and autism, Tylenol and generic versions should remain a pain relief and fever-reduction option for them.
Stat: Trump’s Tylenol warning cited a Harvard dean’s research. But a judge called his shifting conclusions ‘unreliable’ A Harvard dean and preeminent epidemiologist whose work was cited by top health officials in the Trump administration as justification for severely curtailing Tylenol use by pregnant women due to a supposed link to autism provided expert testimony in a lawsuit against the drug’s maker that a federal judge called “unreliable.” Andrea Baccarelli, dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, submitted written testimony in 2023 that his review of the scientific literature led him to conclude that prenatal exposure to acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, “can cause the offspring to develop” neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and ADHD. A Harvard spokesperson said that Baccarelli was paid roughly $150,000 for his work on the case. The federal court judge excoriated Baccarelli’s testimony, writing that “Dr. Baccarelli downplays those studies that undercut his causation thesis and emphasizes those that align with his thesis.”
New York Times: ‘Autism Doesn’t Need a Cure’: Trump’s Message Rankles People Living With the Disability Sitting on the couch a few weeks ago watching television, Jonathan Gardner saw something that made him text his mother immediately. “Weird question,” he typed. “Did you take Tylenol at all when you were pregnant with me?” He had seen a news report about a scientific review finding a possible correlation — though not a causal link — between the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy and a higher incidence of neurodevelopmental disorders. Mr. Gardner, a 22-year-old local disability advocate in East Bridgewater, Mass., was diagnosed with autism before he turned 2. His mother, Nancy Gardner, replied that she didn’t take acetaminophen — the active ingredient in the painkiller Tylenol — during pregnancy. And now she worried that a focus on the decisions of mothers would create unnecessary guilt for parents. “It’s no one’s fault” when a child has autism, she said in an interview. That’s something that many people with autism and their families were repeating on Monday, as President Trump and his health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., launched a broad offensive against the mainstream understanding of the condition, including telling pregnant women to resist using Tylenol, despite conflicting evidence and a lack of proof it causes autism.
- Axios: People with autism bristle at continued stigmatization from Trump, RFK People with autism say President Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s insistence that vaccines or Tylenol cause autism despite contrary evidence further marginalizes them. Why it matters: People with autism and their advocates told Axios that treating autism as a disease with a single cause that can be cured rather than a condition to be accommodated contributes to social stigma and undermines efforts to incorporate them into society. “That’s death by a million cuts on a daily basis from society, and then to have it come from our government with a sledgehammer is very disheartening,” Russell Lehmann, an international disability rights advocate at UCLA who has autism, told Axios
Stat: Trump’s ‘tough it out’ to pregnant women meets wave of opposition by medical experts Federal health officials are telling Americans no, they shouldn’t take Tylenol during pregnancy for fear of autism and yes, they should try a drug used in cancer care to treat children who have developed autism. The medical world disagrees. “We were actually pretty alarmed by some of the output that was coming from the administration,” Marketa Wills, CEO and medical director of the American Psychiatric Association, said in an interview. At a remarkable White House briefing on Monday, President Trump and his top health and science officials said Tylenol use in pregnancy caused some cases of autism in children and said leucovorin, a form of vitamin B9, could treat the condition. The event has drawn a flood of pushback from medical societies, autism organizations, and pediatric experts through official statements, interviews, and social media. Much more research is needed on the claims about Tylenol and leucovorin in particular, experts emphasized.
More on Trump’s war on Tylenol:
- The Hill: Vance on Tylenol: Pregnant women should ‘follow your doctor’
- KFF Health News: ‘Sick to My Stomach’: Trump Distorts Facts on Autism, Tylenol, and Vaccines, Scientists Say
- New York Times: The Company Behind Tylenol Tries to Navigate Its Latest Crisis
- Politico: Trump’s Tylenol diatribe was rooted in frustration
- Stat: In dispensing advice on Tylenol and autism, Trump takes on a new role: doctor in chief
Dangerous Chaos At The HHS and the CDC
CNBC: CDC takes down more than a dozen webpages on sexual and gender identity, health equity More than a dozen pages on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website related to sexual and gender identity, health equity, and other topics have been taken down, CNBC has learned. The CDC received a directive from the Health and Human Services Department, which oversees the agency, to remove certain webpages by the end of the day Sept. 19, according to an internal CDC email viewed by CNBC, which was sent that day to some employees whose work is related to the pages. The pages include one about sexually transmitted infections and gay men, another about healthy equity for people with disabilities, and additional fact sheets on asexuality and bisexuality. Some health equity advocates say removing such resources could create gaps in access to critical health information, especially for marginalized groups, and undermine efforts to promote equitable care.
New York Times: F.D.A.’s Approval of a Drug for Autism Upends Review Process In taking the unusual step of approving an old generic drug as a treatment for autism, the Food and Drug Administration stunned some experts by departing sharply from the agency’s typical standard for reviewing drugs. The drug, leucovorin, has long been used to treat the toxic effects of chemotherapy, but it was endorsed as a therapy for some people with autism by President Trump and top U.S. health officials during a White House briefing on Monday. The move flipped the standard process: Typically, a pharmaceutical company carefully studies a drug, often with input from the F.D.A. on the design of rigorous studies, and then files a formal application for approval. But in this case, the agency said it reviewed medical research and made the approval decision to expand the drug’s use on its own.
RFK Jr.’s War on Vaccines Will Have Deadly Consequences
Stat: Trump, questioning vaccine safety, pushes major changes to how kids get shots President Trump on Monday suggested an overhaul to how children get vaccinated after claiming, without evidence, that many vaccines are unsafe as currently given. The president said he has talked with health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about his proposed changes. While Trump has occasionally expressed skepticism of some vaccines, the president’s comments were his most extensive and detailed yet about his doubts and plans for action. They came during a White House event on the rise in cases of autism among children, a cause that Trump and Kennedy have zeroed in on. The extraordinary remarks included Trump suggesting changes to how many shots children get and the time periods over which they get them. The president did not provide any evidence to support changes — instead, he shared personal feelings of revulsion at the number of shots that babies receive, and recounted an anecdote of a child he said was injured by a vaccine. “Don’t do it,” Trump said, urging parents not to get their children vaccinated on the long-standing, evidence-based schedule. “Get them broken into four or five visits. … It can only help. There’s no downside. It can only be good.”
Politico: RFK Jr. adviser: We’re trying to get kids with autism into vaccine injury program Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his staff are working on policy changes that would sweep children with autism spectrum disorder into a federal program that compensates people for alleged vaccine injuries, an adviser said Thursday. Changes to the list of compensated injuries in the 1990s has made it nearly impossible for children with encephalopathy — a broad term for brain dysfunction — to win awards through the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, Drew Downing, a vaccine injury lawyer who now serves as a senior adviser to Kennedy, said at an autism discussion hosted by the MAHA Institute. The group backs the secretary’s agenda. “Part of what Secretary Kennedy is doing right now — and with my help, and we have a team looking at it — is we have to figure out a way to capture these kids,” Downing said. “If you don’t want to use the ‘A word,’ whatever, that’s fine,” he said, referring to autism. “How do we capture them: do we broaden the definition of encephalopathic events? Do we broaden neurological injuries? How do we do that?” Public health experts and program lawyers have warned that adding autism to the compensation program would exhaust the court’s workforce and financial resources. VICP currently has about $4 billion on hand.
MSNBC: He helped build the anti-vaccine movement. RFK Jr. just hired him. vaccine activist and author Mark Blaxill as a senior adviser, according to three current and former senior CDC officials and an internal profile reviewed by MSNBC. Neither a physician nor a scientist, Blaxill claims without evidence that every child who takes vaccines is in some way injured, and has written books and articles promoting the disproven claim that childhood the shots cause a broad range of health conditions and that autism is a consequence purely of environmental exposures. Blaxill once helped lead the advocacy group, SafeMinds, which funded research aimed at proving a link between vaccines and autism and served as editor-at-large of the anti-vaccine website, Age of Autism. Blaxill has long and wrongly blamed thimerosal, a preservative in some vaccines, for what he calls an autism “epidemic.” His claims have been refuted by decades of rigorous research. The Institute of Medicine officially rejected any causal relationship between thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism in 2004. Blaxhill’s role and remit at CDC is unclear. The internal profile showed he will be working directly under CDC chief of staff Matthew Buzzelli. One of the senior CDC officials said Blaxill’s name had been floated for weeks as a potential leader for a program that tracks autism within the Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities.
The Atlantic: America Is on the Cusp of a Two-Tier Vaccine System As far as sticker price goes, the recommended vaccines for kids in the United States do not come cheap. The hepatitis-B shot, given within the first hours of life, can be purchased for about $30. The rotavirus vaccine costs $102 to $147 a dose. A full course of the vaccine that protects against pneumonia and meningitis runs about $1,000. Virtually all children receive these shots for free. The federal government legally requires most insurance to cover the roughly 30 different shots for kids, without a co-pay. Kids who are on Medicaid or who don’t have insurance coverage can get free shots as well, thanks to a CDC program known as Vaccines for Children. Among public-health experts, VFC, as it’s commonly known, is widely seen as an unmitigated success. After the program was created in 1994, “disease went down, and life was a lot simpler for the families,” Anne Schuchat, a former top CDC official, told me. Roughly half of American children are eligible to receive vaccines through VFC. That ease and simplicity may be about to change. This week, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)—which guides America’s vaccine policy—convened for just the second time since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired the entire panel and appointed new members, some of whom lack vaccine expertise or have expressed anti-vaccine views (or both). The meeting was chaotic, contentious, and plagued by indecision. But the votes it got through are starting to point toward a shifting, more fractured landscape for kids’ access to vaccines.
More on vaccine access:
- Stat: With Trump’s anti-vaccine comments, Kennedy’s influence grows
- Politico: RFK Jr.’s big vaccine decision
RFK Jr. Is A Political Liability For Trump And Republicans
NOTUS: Democratic Congresswoman Says She’s Prepping Articles of Impeachment Against RFK Jr. Rep. Haley Stevens says she is drafting articles of impeachment against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. due to “health care chaos” under his leadership. “We need leaders who put science over chaos, facts over lies, and people over politics, which is why I am announcing today that I have begun drafting articles of impeachment against Secretary Kennedy,” the Michigan Democrat said in a Thursday press release. “His contempt for science, the constant spreading of conspiracy theories, and his complete disregard for the thousands of research hours spent by America’s top doctors and experts is unprecedented, reckless, and dangerous,” she added.
Wall Street Journal: Trump Is Betting That Stance on Children’s Health Will Play Well With MAGA Base Jennifer Foskey, who has a 12-year-old daughter with autism, eagerly voted for President Trump last fall for the third time. When he labeled Tylenol use by pregnant women as a potential cause of autism on Monday, she felt a mixture of guilt and shock. “I’ve had four pregnancies, and I’ve taken Tylenol with all of them, just for all the aches and pains that come along with being pregnant,” the Jacksonville, Fla., homemaker said. “So I thought, was this my fault?” Though Foskey said that she was skeptical of Trump’s claims about the drug and that she needed to see more research, the president’s efforts to spotlight autism have made her an even bigger supporter. “Because he’s not afraid to talk about it,” she said. Trump’s Make America Healthy Again initiative has upended public-health guidance on everything from widely used pain medication to childhood obesity, chemicals in food, and vaccines. The moves have set off alarms in the medical community and prompted concern from some Republican lawmakers. But many of Trump’s supporters said they are excited by the changes.
Politico: MAHA Rallies Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s supporters staged nearly 30 rallies nationwide to back him and his Make America Healthy Again agenda on Saturday, according to Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group Kennedy founded and ran before partnering with President Donald Trump during the 2024 campaign. The support came amid recent criticism of Kennedy from health groups, Democrats and some Republicans after the CDC director was ousted and he moved to revise vaccine guidance, Carmen reports. Last week, Kennedy and Trump pointed to taking Tylenol during pregnancy as a potential cause of autism in children, a claim that lacks scientific consensus. The statement drew a backlash from medical groups that said taking it for pain and high fever while pregnant is safe and often necessary to help manage pain and control fevers that could pose a risk to the fetus. On the ground: At a rally in Rockaway, some 30 people gathered in support — wearing MAHA hats and T-shirts and waving American flags and signs with images of Kennedy’s face.
Other Dangerous MAHA Initiatives
ABC: RFK Jr. launches FDA review of abortion pill Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Republican states this week that the FDA would conduct a new review of abortion pills, a move that abortion rights advocates say could lead to significant restrictions on the most common abortion method nationwide. Medication abortion is used in nearly two-thirds of abortions, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group focusing on sexual and reproductive health. It is also the primary way that abortions continue in states where abortion is banned, largely because of telehealth appointments and shield laws, which allow some providers in other states to mail abortion pills to women in states with bans without fear of prosecution.
Politico: Trump taps Ben Carson to help carry out MAHA agenda Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson is joining the Agriculture Department as a nutrition, healthcare and housing adviser with a focus on helping the Trump administration implement its Make America Healthy Again agenda. The retired neurosurgeon will lead USDA’s efforts to revamp Americans’ diets, working closely with Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., USDA said in an announcement obtained by POLITICO.
New York Times: Kennedy Says U.S. Rejects Global Health Goals Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday said the United States would reject a United Nations declaration on chronic diseases, because it ignored “the most pressing health issues,” and more broadly because the Trump administration takes issue with policies that he described as promoting abortion and “radical gender ideology.” Mr. Kennedy, who gave his remarks to a U.N. meeting on preventing and combating chronic illnesses like cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes, did not elaborate on the issues he said had been ignored. The text of the U.N. declaration does not mention reproductive rights or gender ideology. The word “gender” appears several times in the document, but only in the context of the specific health challenges facing women.
Public Health Threats
USA Today: US measles cases surpass 1,500 as outbreaks grow in parts of Utah and Arizona Measles infections in the United States have reached a new high since the disease was declared eradicated in 2000, surpassing 1,500 cases on Sept. 24 with outbreaks growing in parts of Utah and Arizona, public health officials said. A total of 1,514 measles cases have been confirmed in the United States as of Sept. 24, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Though the majority of cases are linked to a large outbreak that originated in West Texas, other outbreaks and cases have arisen from community transmission or during travel in other states. In recent months, cases in parts of Utah and Arizona have steadily increased. As of Sept. 24, the Utah Department of Health and Human Services confirmed 42 cases, with most infections concentrated in southwest Utah near the Arizona state line.
New York Times: Screwworm Case Detected Less Than 70 Miles From U.S.-Mexico Border Mexico’s ministry of agriculture on Sunday confirmed a case of New World screwworm among cattle in Nuevo León, a state in northern Mexico. It is the northernmost case of the livestock infestation, which was eradicated from the United States in the 1960s but has resurged in Mexico in recent months.
Associated Press: A new Ebola outbreak in Congo kills dozens as health officials warn of lack of funds As a deadly new Ebola outbreak kills dozens in southern Congo, health authorities and organizations are sounding the alarm, warning they lack the funds and resources to mount an effective response to the crisis. The World Health Organization said Wednesday that 57 cases and 35 deaths have been reported since the outbreak was announced by Congolese authorities on Sept. 4. The fatality rate is over 61%. It is the first Ebola outbreak in 18 years in Kasai province, a remote part of Congo characterized by its poor road networks. It is located more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) from the nation’s capital of Kinshasa. “We urgently need our partners and donors to step up and support this lifesaving response to ensure we can contain the outbreak quickly and protect the most vulnerable communities,” said Susan Nzisa Mbalu, head of communications for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies Africa, IFRC.