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Judge Blocks RFK Jr. From Implementing 'Arbitrary and Capricious' Vaccine Overhaul
One physician and public health expert called the ruling "a much-needed victory for a sane approach to federal vaccine policy that relies on science, not misinformation and conspiracy theories."
Mar 16, 2026
In what advocates called a major victory for public health, a federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from implementing a series of moves that critics have warned would weaken childhood immunization efforts and increase the likelihood of serious disease outbreaks.
US District Judge Brian E. Murphy of Massachusetts, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, invalidated Kennedy's reorganized Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) panel, which was set to meet later this week.
Kennedy—who was confirmed by the Senate last year over the objections of tens of thousands experts and despite being a purveyor of vaccine misinformation—replaced ACIP members with several people with ties to the anti-vaccine movement.
Murphy also blocked the committee's unprecedented changes to US immunization recommendations, writing that the "arbitrary and capricious" move stands in stark contrast with the long established decision-making process he called "a method scientific in nature and codified into law through procedural requirements."
“Unfortunately, the government has disregarded those methods and thereby undermined the integrity of its actions," the judge said.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under Kennedy revised the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) childhood immunization schedule so that fewer vaccines are now universally recommended for all children. The agency also reclassified vaccines that were previously endorsed for all children into categories in which vaccination depends on designated risk groups and consultations with medical professionals, among other changes.
Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have announced that they would not follow the new CDC immunization recommendations.
Lookie Here! As of now, 29 states + DC, have announced that they are no longer going to follow CDC's recommendations for some or all childhood vaccines.Kennedy is not restoring public trust in science as he said he would. 🧪 www.kff.org/other-health...
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— Princess Vimentin PhD | Cancer Biologist (@princess-vimentin.bsky.social) March 12, 2026 at 11:47 AM
Plaintiffs' attorney Richard Huges IV said in a statement that "this ruling is a momentous step toward restoring science-based vaccine policymaking."
"The judge recognized that the actions of Secretary Kennedy and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices are not grounded in science and that they are destructive," he added. "We are thrilled that the court has discarded the baseless vaccine schedule changes made by Secretary Kennedy and is blocking the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices from doing further damage to vaccine policy."
Dr. Robert Steinbrook, Health Research Group director at Public Citizen, said in response to the ruling that "Judge Murphy’s decision is a much-needed victory for a sane approach to federal vaccine policy that relies on science, not misinformation and conspiracy theories."
"Kennedy’s hand-picked ACIP has been a national embarrassment, thoroughly lacking in the ability to make careful fact-based decisions," he added. "The judge’s ruling offers a responsible path forward for public health and evidence-based federal vaccine policy.”
RFK Jr. fired all of the legitimate scientific experts on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and replaced them with unqualified political appointees.A judge just ruled that the new members were not appropriately appointed, so ACIP cannot meet this week to spread more misinformation.
— Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD (@elizabethjacobs.bsky.social) March 16, 2026 at 1:38 PM
Anthony Wright, executive director of the advocacy group Families USA, said in a statement: "When politics override science, our children pay the price. Today’s decision helps ensure that medical evidence—not ideology—guides how we protect kids from preventable diseases."
Wright continued:
Secretary Kennedy’s attempt to remove universal recommendations for routine vaccinations only increased confusion among medical providers and families. The routine vaccines being questioned by HHS are the product of centuries of rigorous science and medicine and are why children today don’t die from measles or suffer the lifelong consequences of diseases we long ago learned to prevent. For a country as large, diverse, and mobile as ours, universal vaccine recommendations are the safest and most effective way to stop outbreaks before they start.
Amid several recent outbreaks, public health officials warned late last year that the United States is close to following Canada in losing its measles elimination status, a deadly and preventable setback many experts attribute to HHS' vaccine-averse policies and practices under Kennedy.
"We commend the court for this ruling, but families should not have to depend on litigation to ensure their child can receive a routine vaccine," Wright said. "Evidence-based medicine keeps children alive and in school. Preventing disease should be the foundation of any healthcare system serious about confronting the next disease outbreak or finding the next cure."
The group Protect Our Care called the decision "a major step in the right direction for children’s health after many setbacks under this administration."
“Most Americans, most states, and now a federal court have rejected the [President Donald] Trump-RFK Jr. scheme to make preventable disease great again among American children while exploding health costs across the country," Protect Our Care president Brad Woodhouse said. "While this ruling is a reprieve from harmful anti-vaccine policy based on nothing but junk science and discredited conspiracies, it’s clear the Trump administration is determined to resuscitate their agenda in a higher court because they care more about their anti-science agenda than keeping kids healthy.”
Indeed, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said the agency "looks forward to this judge’s decision being overturned just like his other attempts to keep the Trump administration from governing.”
Public health advocates noted the limitations of judicial rulings.
"The courts can only do so much without Congress, which must fulfill its oversight responsibility and rein in an executive branch that is taking an axe to core public health protections," Wright said. "Transparency and scientific integrity are not optional, especially when children’s lives are at stake. Families deserve vaccine policy grounded in evidence and expert guidance—not ideology or personal bias—with the goal of making sure every child in America can grow up healthy.”
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'Absurd Yet Predictable': US Close to Losing Measles Elimination Status Under RFK Jr.
"The CDC is now completely compromised after Trump and RFK Jr. ousted or drove out real, well-intentioned, and intelligent scientists," said one physician.
Nov 21, 2025
US public health officials warned this week that the country is close to following Canada in losing its measles elimination status, a deadly and preventable setback many experts attribute to the vaccine-averse policies and practices of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials have linked the ongoing measles outbreak in Arizona and Utah with the major outbreak in Texas that began in January, both of which are being caused by the same viral subtype. With no signs of slowing, and holiday travel and gatherings fast approaching, experts worry that measles transmission could escalate and the disease will no longer be considered eliminated.
Under World Health Organization guidance, "eliminated" means an absence of endemic virus transmission for 12 months or longer in a defined geographical area under a well-performing surveillance system.
Many public health experts blame the administration of President Donald Trump—and particularly Kennedy's policies—for the measles resurgence. Kennedy, who initially downplayed the seriousness of the Texas outbreak, has endorsed vaccines, but has also made unsupported or misleading claims about the safety and efficacy of measles shots.
"Absurd yet predictable," Dr. Michael O'Brien, an urgent care pediatrician, wrote Thursday on X. "The CDC is now completely compromised after Trump and RFK Jr. ousted or drove out real, well-intentioned, and intelligent scientists. As measles approaches endemic status in the US for the first time since 2000, the CDC has abandoned science and reason."
The anti-vaccination movement is largely to blame for the continuing measles outbreak and the fact that the U.S. is going to lose our measles elimination status. Until RFK Jr. is removed from office, things are only going to get worse. @jimalwine.bsky.social and I wrote about here:
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— Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD (@elizabethjacobs.bsky.social) November 19, 2025 at 2:18 PM
The United States declared measles eliminated in 2000. However, with 1,753 confirmed cases and three deaths in 45 reported outbreaks so far this year, experts say the US is at risk of following Canada, which announced earlier this month that it has lost its elimination status, which it enjoyed since 1998.
As in the US, experts attribute Canada's measles backsliding to declining vaccination rates, mis- and disinformation, and vaccine aversion—especially among religious groups. The West Texas outbreak began in the close-knit, unvaccinated Mennonite community in Gaines County, while the Arizona/Utah outbreak originated among members of a fundamentalist Mormon offshoot.
More than 9 in 10 reported US measles cases this year are among people who have either not been vaccinated or whose vaccination status is unknown.
"We are in this dire situation primarily due to the explosion of the anti-vaccine movement since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic."
Writing for LiveScience, University of Pennsylvania molecular virologist James Alwine and University of Arizona professor emerita and epidemiologist Elizabeth Jacobs warned Wednesday that measles is "a bellwether of declining vaccination rates—a wailing siren that other vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks are just around the corner."
"We are in this dire situation primarily due to the explosion of the anti-vaccine movement since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic," Alwine and Jacobs asserted. "The movement is responsible for undermining trust in scientists and vaccines via a tsunami of misinformation coming from social media accounts and podcast appearances."
The authors continued:
This was made worse when Senate Republicans confirmed Kennedy as secretary of HHS, despite the objections of tens of thousands of scientists, healthcare providers, and public health practitioners. Kennedy is an avowed anti-vaccination proponent who chaired Children's Health Defense, an organization that regularly promotes vaccine misinformation. He is also a conspiracy theorist and has claimed that Covid-19 is a "bioweapon" engineered to "attack Caucasians and Black people" while sparing Ashkenazi Jews; that WiFi causes brain cancer; and that drug use, not HIV, causes AIDS. His appointment opened the door to install anti-vaccine proponents as leaders in public health, such as replacing the members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) with several individuals with links to the anti-vaccine movement. In confirming Kennedy, Senate Republicans utterly failed the people of the US and demonstrated a cavalier disregard for decades of scientific achievement.
In June, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) launched an investigation into Kennedy's ACIP purge. The following month, six major US medical organizations sued Kennedy, alleging his vaccine policies are placing children at grave and immediate risk.
"As the anti-vaccine movement continues to be nurtured by Kennedy and his followers, this threat will only continue to expand and grow more severe," Alwine and Jacobs warned. "Removing state vaccine requirements for school entry—as has happened in Florida—is demonstrative of this, and represents an unacceptable risk."
"Kennedy must be removed from office," they added, echoing a September demand by more than 1,000 current and former HHS officials. "There can be no improvements in public health or vaccination rates as long as he continues his destructive reign."
In September, Congresswoman Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) filed articles of impeachment against Kennedy, declaring that he "has violated his oath of office and proven himself unfit to serve the American people."
Advocacy groups and medical organizations have gathered more than 150,000 petition signatures calling for Kennedy's removal.
On Friday, Congresswoman Kim Schrier (D-Wash.), who chairs the Democratic Doctors Caucus, led 65 colleagues demanding that Kennedy "immediately correct" the CDC website "after it was updated to promote the widely disproven and dangerous claim that vaccines may cause autism."
"RFK Jr.’s decision to spread fringe conspiracy theories and misinformation on the CDC’s official website is reckless," Schrier said in a statement. "He’s scaring parents, undermining trust in the CDC, and putting children at risk.”
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Deadly Obsession
The harm Trump's health secretary is doing when it comes to disease prevention could end being nearly impossible to calculate.
Sep 02, 2025
Vaccines have saved millions of lives. But for decades, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has pursued a single-minded crusade against them. Numerous scientific studies have debunked his false claim that vaccines cause autism. But now he’s weaponizing the nation’s public health system to promote his ideological quackery.
Once a Crackpot, Always a Crackpot – But Now Possessing the Power of Life and Death
In a 2021 podcast, Kennedy urged Americans to “resist” CDC guidelines on when kids should get vaccines.
In 2021, Kennedy said, “I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby and I say to him, better not get them vaccinated.”
In a video promoting his non-profit organization’s anti-vaccine sticker campaign, Kennedy appeared onscreen next to a sticker that declared “IF YOU’RE NOT AN ANTI-VAXXER YOU AREN’T PAYING ATTENTION.”
In a July 2023 podcast, he said, “There’s no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.”
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a physician, knows that Kennedy’s anti-vaccine claims are bogus. But Kennedy assured him that he would protect “the public health benefit of vaccinations” and maintain without changes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). That committee of outside experts reviews the most recent data on all vaccines to assess safety, efficacy, and clinical need. It develops a recommended guidance schedule for all vaccines, including seasonal flu shots and COVID boosters. Physicians rely on that guidance in counseling patients, and insurance companies and government programs use it to determine the vaccines they will cover.
Based on Kennedy’s promises, Sen. Cassidy cast the deciding vote to confirm him as Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Timeline of Destruction
In RFK Jr.’s mission to spread his lies, he has systematically gutted the world’s premier public health organization.
In March, Kennedy announced that he would conduct a study to find the cause of autism by September – an absurd mission with a nonsensical end date.
Leading his autism “study” is David Geier, a discredited vaccine skeptic who isn’t a physician. In 2012, the Maryland State Board of Physicians pursued charges against Geier, alleging that he had engaged in the unlicensed practice of medicine while working on autistic kids with his father, who was a physician at the time. His father’s medical license was suspended following claims that he had “endangered autistic children and exploited their parents by administering a treatment protocol that has a known substantial risk of serious harm and which is neither consistent with evidence-based medicine nor generally accepted in the relevant scientific community.”
- In May, Kennedy announced new rules that delay vaccine approvals and impose severe limits on the availability of Covid vaccines.
- On May 28, Moderna announced that Kennedy had terminated a $590 million award for late-stage development of a bird-flu vaccine and other pre-pandemic vaccine candidates.
- On June 9, Kennedy fired the entire CDC’S ACIP committee – all 17 of them.
- On June 11, Kennedy named eight replacements to ACIP. Among them were anti-vaccine activists, conspiracy theorists, vaccine misinformation promoters, and a co-author of and a signatory to the pandemic-era Great Barrington Declaration that recommended widespread exposure to COVID as the strategy for dealing with the outbreak (instead of widespread vaccination).
- On August 5, Kennedy cut $500 million in funding for mRNA vaccine research. That research had produced Trump’s Operation Warp Speed Covid vaccine that saved more than three million American lives and is the best hope for fighting the next pandemic.
Paging Sen. Cassidy
On August 25, Kennedy demanded that newly-confirmed CDC Director Dr. Susan Monarez fire career CDC officials and commit to backing his advisory committee if it recommended restricting access to proven vaccines. She refused.
That evening, Dr. Monarez called Sen. Cassidy, who then called Kennedy. The next day, an angry Kennedy reiterated his ultimatum to Dr. Monarez. Again, she refused. The next day, she received a call from the White House personnel office telling her that she was fired.
Four of the highest-ranking CDC officials resigned in protest: Dr. Debra Houry (deputy director and chief medical officer), Dr. Demetre Daskalakis (director of the National Center on Immunization and Respiratory Diseases), Dr. Daniel Jernigan (director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases), and Dr. Jennifer Layden, (director of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology).
In his resignation letter, Dr. Daskalakis warned that the current environment “treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public's health.” He wrote that the administration’s “desire to please a political base will result in death and disability of vulnerable children and adults.” In an email to colleagues, he denounced “the ongoing weaponization of public health.”
On August 27, Trump presided over a televised, three-hour North Korea-style cabinet meeting. He asked Kennedy about autism, and RFK Jr. responded, “We are doing very well. We will have announcements as promised in September. We’re finding interventions, certain interventions are clearly, almost certainly causing autism. And we’re going to be able to address those in September.”
Trump then rambled for several minutes, revealing that he had no understanding of the complexity behind the increase in autism diagnoses and concluding, “I think we maybe know the reason and I look forward to being with you in that press conference.”
Kennedy was offering Trump a simple and incorrect solution to a complex problem.
But Sen. Cassidy knows that the answer to the autism puzzle isn’t simple – and it isn’t vaccines. On August 28, he called for a delay in the CDC’s upcoming vaccine advisory committee meeting. He said that if the meeting proceeds, “any recommendations made should be rejected as lacking legitimacy” given concerns about the panel “and the current turmoil in CDC leadership.”
The same day, Kennedy named Jim O’Neill as acting director of the CDC. O’Neill, a former Silicon Valley biotech executive, is not a physician or a scientist.
The Reckoning Ahead
Until it affects them personally, most Americans don’t—or won’t—the magnitude of ruinous government action. The long run is always somebody else’s problem. Along with the public’s short attention span, Trump relies on that principle to govern.
So have Senate Republicans. Abdicating their constitutional responsibilities to reject Trump’s unfit nominees for critical government posts, they have put incompetent ideologues like RFK Jr. in charge of life-and-death decisions.
But eventually, the long-run arrives. And when it does, millions of Americans will pay the ultimate price.
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'Wednesday Night Massacre at CDC'
"I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public's health," said top CDC official who resigned in protest.
Aug 28, 2025
It's being called the Wednesday Night Massacre.
Total "chaos" erupted at the Centers for Disease Control on Wednesday after the forced removal of CDC Director Susan Monarez, handpicked by President Donald Trump just months ago, was followed by the disgruntled resignations of other top officials at the agency who openly warned that health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is running the place into the ground while putting the nation's public health system at risk of collapse and threaten millions of lives.
That Monarez was no longer the director was announced by the Department of Health and Human Services, led by RFK Jr., via social media on Wednesday afternoon. Hours later, lawyers for Monarez said her removal was a firing, not a resignation, and they accused the director of "weaponizing public health for political gain" after she clashed with Kennedy over new immunization guidelines related to the Covid-19 vaccine.
A letter from Monarez's lawyer said she was targeted because she challenged the new policy that would put "millions of American lives at risk" and represents deeper concerns about the agency's agenda under Kennedy's leadership.
Her ouster, her legal team said, "is about the systematic dismantling of public health institutions, the silencing of experts, and the dangerous politicization of science. The attack on Dr. Monarez is a warning to every American: Our evidence-based systems are being undermined from within."
"The CDC is being decapitated. This is an absolute disaster for public health." —Dr. Robert Steinbrook, Public Citizen
In an announcement earlier Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) narrowed the kinds of conditions people need to have in order to receive approval for available Covid-19 vaccines.
As the Washington Post reports, the new FDA guidance sparked concern among public health experts who say the policy shift "injects uncertainty for Americans not considered high-risk who want to get another coronavirus vaccine. They said it's not clear who will ultimately be able to get the shot, whether insurance will cover it and whether they can get vaccinated at their local pharmacy."
In response to Monarez's firing—and other underlying issues at the agency under RFK Jr.'s leadership, at least four other top CDC officials resigned in protest Wednesday night.
Demetre C. Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; Dr. Jennifer Layden, who led the office of public health data; and CDC Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry all submitted their resignations.
Dr. Richard Pan, a pediatrician and a former Democratic state senator in California, was among those who declared the events should be seen as the "Wednesday Night Massacre at the CDC"—a reference to the infamous Saturday Night Massacre during the Watergate scandal under President Richard Nixon in 1973.
In his explosive resignation letter made public, Dr. Daskalakis said he did not make the decision lightly.
"However," he stated, "after much contemplation and reflection on recent developments and perspectives brought to light by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., I find that the views he and his staff have shared challenge my ability to continue in my current role at the agency and in the service of the health of the American people. Enough is enough."
The letter continues:
I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health. The recent change in the adult and children’s immunization schedule threaten the lives of the youngest Americans and pregnant people. The data analyses that supported this decision have never been shared with CDC despite my respectful requests to HHS and other leadership. This lack of meaningful engagement was further compounded by a “frequently asked questions” document written to support the Secretary’s directive that was circulated by HHS without input from CDC subject matter experts and that cited studies that did not support the conclusions that were attributed to these authors. Having worked in local and national public health for years, I have never experienced such radical non-transparency, nor have I seen such unskilled manipulation of data to achieve a political end rather than the good of the American people.
It is untenable to serve in an organization that is not afforded the opportunity to discuss decisions of scientific and public health importance released under the moniker of CDC. The lack of communication by HHS and other CDC political leadership that culminates in social media posts announcing major policy changes without prior notice demonstrate a disregard of normal communication channels and common sense. Having to retrofit analyses and policy actions to match inadequately thought-out announcements in poorly scripted videos or page long X posts should not be how organizations responsible for the health of people should function.
Critics of RFK Jr. and Trump, including public health advocates and Democratic lawmakers charged with oversight, slammed the chaos and the deeper threat to the American people that the administration's misguided attacks on the CDC have triggered.
"President Trump and Sec. Kennedy are trying to purge anyone who stands up against their anti-science agenda at the CDC," said Sen. Rafael Warnock (D-Ga.). "They're risking disease outbreak and another pandemic just to advance their own extremist goals."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called for an immediate hearing before the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), of which he is the ranking member. "It's outrageous that Sec. Kennedy is trying to fire the CDC Director—after only a few weeks on the job—for her commitment to public health and vaccines," said Sanders. "Vaccines save lives. Period."
One former CDC staffer, who went unnamed, told Rolling Stone that what's happening now at the agency is "the work of a death cult."
According to Dr. Georges C. Benjamin, MD, executive director of the American Public Health Association, the ouster of Monarez, just weeks after her confirmation in the US Senate, "is yet another glaring sign of Secretary Kennedy’s failed leadership and reckless mismanagement. His tenure has been marked by chaos, disorganization, and a blatant disregard for science and evidence-based public health."
The episode, Benjamin continued, "underscores his administrative incompetence and his disdain for the expertise that the public and our public health agencies rely on. RFK Jr. must be removed from his position."
He wasn't the only one calling for Kennedy's immediate removal. "Fire him," declared Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) in a social media post.
"We cannot let RFK Jr. burn what's left of the CDC and our other critical health agencies to the ground—he must be fired," Murray said in a separate statement. "I hope my Republican colleagues who have come to regret their vote to confirm RFK Jr. will join me in calling for his immediate termination from office."
Dr. Robert Steinbrook, the health research director for Public Citizen, said, "Ousting the first Senate-confirmed CDC director weeks into the start of her tenure makes absolutely no sense and underscores the destructive chaos at RFK Jr.'s Department of Health and Human Services."
"The CDC is being decapitated," warned Steinbrook. "This is an absolute disaster for public health."
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RFK Jr. Ripped Over 'Reckless and Deadly' Halt on US Support for Global Child Vaccine Program
"Kennedy is either misinformed or lying," said one critical physician, "but either way, children will die as a result."
Jun 25, 2025
In an incendiary stunner delivered via a prerecorded video statement played Wednesday to attendees of the global vaccine summit in Brussels, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the United States is suspending financial contributions to the lifesaving organization as it aims to vaccinate hundreds of millions of children around the world.
Kennedy—described by a coalition of green groups during his quixotic 2024 presidential campaign as "a dangerous conspiracy theorist and science denier whose agenda would be a disaster for our communities and the planet"—accused Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance of having "ignored the science" on childhood vaccination.
"The U.S. is turning its back on women and children at risk of death and disability."
"When vaccine safety issues have come before Gavi, Gavi has treated them not as a patient health problem, but as a public relations problem," Kennedy alleged in his video message, without providing any evidence to support his claim. "In its zeal to promote universal vaccination, it has neglected the key issue of vaccine safety."
"I'll tell you how to start taking vaccine safety seriously: Consider the best science available, even when the science contradicts established paradigms," he added. "Until that happens, the United States won't contribute more to Gavi."
Gavi responded to Kennedy's allegations in a statement asserting that the organization's "utmost concern is the health and safety of children."
"Any decision made by Gavi with regards to its vaccine portfolio is made in alignment with recommendations by [the World Health Organization's] Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE), a group of independent experts that reviews all available data through a rigorous, transparent, and independent process," Gavi added. "This ensures Gavi investments are grounded in the best available science and public health priorities."
@drneilstone.bsky.social
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— Physicians for a Healthy Democracy (@physiciandemocracy.medsky.social) June 25, 2025 at 9:15 AM
Gavi's Health and Prosperity through Immunization summit—which is co-hosted by the European Union and the Gates Foundation, with Global Citizen as a key partner—seeks to secure $9 billion to fund the immunization of 500 million more children, a move Gavi says will prevent 8-9 million deaths over the next five years.
"Over the past 25 years, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance has helped to immunize more than a billion children, meaning one-eighth of humanity has received a vaccine funded by Gavi," the organization said. "Today we help give half the world's children access to vaccines every single year."
"The scale is massive, and so is the impact," Gavi added. "Since we were founded in 2000 child mortality in the lower-income countries we work with has halved, with Gavi's vaccines averting more than 18 million deaths."
Since taking office in January, Kennedy—a prolific purveyor of conspiracy theories including one that vaccines cause autism—has restricted Covid-19 vaccine access and fired everyone on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) vaccine advisory panel and replaced them with his own controversial picks.
On Wednesday, Kennedy announced that the panel will review the long-standing U.S. childhood vaccination schedule, raising concerns about possible ideology-driven revisions. This, as a new study published in the peer-reviewed British medical journal The Lancet sounded the alarm over flagging global childhood vaccination rates driven by inequality, Covid-era disruptions, and misinformation.
Dr. Tom Frieden, who led the CDC during the Obama administration, said on the social media site Bluesky that "Secretary Kennedy's statement to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, is literally sickening."
"Sickening because millions of children's lives are in the balance because of Mr. Kennedy's fringe beliefs and misinformation on vaccines," Frieden added. "Sickening because the U.S. is turning its back on women and children at risk of death and disability. And sickening because it reflects the invasion of anti-vaccination falsehoods into life-and-death programs."
Dr. Ashish Jha, former President Joe Biden's coronavirus response coordinator, slammed Kennedy's decision as "terrible but totally predictable."
"Gavi helps poor kids around the world get vaccinated against polio and measles and other life-threatening diseases," Jha said. "This is just mind-bogglingly awful."
Gavi works in close partnership (operationally and financially) with governments around the world to distribute life-saving vaccines to children. Their work has saved nearly 20 million lives since 2000.Kennedy is either misinformed or lying, but either way children will die as a result.
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— Dr. Stephanie Psaki (@spsaki.bsky.social) June 25, 2025 at 8:17 AM
Canadian health law and policy expert Timothy Caulfield said on the social media site X: "Just horrible. Sickening. Evil."
"This decision will kill children," Caulfield added. "We all knew RFK Jr. was the worst person for this job. He's lived up to the hype. The f*cking worst."
Liza Barrie, director of Public Citizen's Global Vaccines Access Campaign, called Kennedy's suspension of Gavi funding "reckless and deadly."Barrie continued:
The Trump administration is turning its back on a program that has helped vaccinate more than a billion children and save over 17 million lives—while Kennedy spreads lies about science, safety, and one of the world's most effective public health efforts. The facts are clear. Gavi exists to get vaccines to children who need them most. It works with governments in lower-income countries, health workers, and communities to stop deadly diseases. Because of Gavi, millions of children who would have died are alive today.
Kennedy claims that Gavi ignored science are entirely false. Gavi's recommendations are grounded in global evidence and reviewed by independent experts. His suggestion otherwise fuels the same disinformation that has already led to deadly measles outbreaks and the resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases, including polio.
"This isn't about protecting children. It's about abandoning them," Barrie added. "Choosing to walk away from a program that saves lives—knowing full well what the consequences will be—isn't just reckless. It's cruel."
Barrie urged Congress to protect the funding for Gavi already allocated in this year's federal budget, "which the Trump administration is now trying to claw back through its rescission proposal."
"The United States must not walk away from global vaccine access," Barrie stressed. "Not now, not ever. Turning away would be a choice to let disease spread and let children die."
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Trump’s Attack on Science Will Leave Us All Sicker
Budget cuts and layoffs at major U.S. public health agencies threaten our health and well-being and will hobble scientific progress and innovation.
Jun 22, 2025
The Trump administration’s evisceration of the federal agencies that protect our health and environment is a full-throttled attack on science that will set our nation back for years, if not decades to come.
The illegal firings of thousands of employees across Health and Human Services’ (HHS) 13 divisions, the freezing of government contracts, attacks on universities, and cuts to billions in research dollars will have profound effects on our health and well-being, economic competitiveness, and standing as a world leader in science.
And the wrecking ball has just begun swinging. HHS is slated to shed 20,000 employees, or one-quarter of its dedicated workforce, and see its budget cut by 26%.
At its worst, the dismantling of federal agencies like the CDC, the NIH, and the Food and Drug Administration is cruelly calculated to hurt those most vulnerable in our society—the poor, the disabled, and the elderly.
A disdain for independent science and expertise is seemingly a root cause of the actions. As Sudip Parikh, chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and executive publisher, Science journals said at this year’s annual meeting in Boston, “Science and engineering and medicine are searches for truth, facts, and objectivity. We live in a time when that seems under threat, and we need to be able to say that.”
To his point, a May 23 Executive Order puts science under the control of politicians by giving presidential appointees broad latitude to police scientific research and conduct and punish alleged violations of its Orwellian “Gold Standard Science.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of HHS, has already acted on the EO by firing the entire advisery committee that helps guide vaccine policy for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Seventeen highly qualified, evidence-based physicians and researchers, many with decades of expertise, are to be replaced with individuals aligned with Kennedy’s anti-vaccination ideology.
The president’s appointment of Kennedy, a lawyer with no scientific training, to lead the HHS is itself an attack on expertise and truth. In four short months, Kennedy has made ill-informed decisions from announcing a change in Covid-19 vaccine policy without notifying the CDC, to offering a Florida sanctuary for Canadian ostriches exposed to bird flu, to ending the development of a vaccine for the H5N1 virus, even as researchers demonstrate its ability to rapidly spread through airborne transmission.
Science is clearly taking a backseat to grandstanding, and the consequences could be deadly.
At its best, the demolition of our public health and research institutions shows an indifference to the pain and suffering that may fall on Americans when the agencies that keep our food safe, water clean, and protect us from deadly diseases are kneecapped. At its worst, the dismantling of federal agencies like the CDC, the NIH, and the Food and Drug Administration is cruelly calculated to hurt those most vulnerable in our society—the poor, the disabled, and the elderly.
Americans are already sicker and die younger in comparison with other wealthy nations, according to a 2024 report by the Commonwealth Fund. Life expectancy is 4.1 years shorter in the U.S. compared with our peer nations, and maternal mortality, for instance, is more than three times higher than in Europe. The Trump administration’s attacks on science and medicine will only worsen these gaps.
Lawsuits challenging the legality of the administration’s executive orders are moving through the court system, but we do not yet know how all of this will play out.
Already the damages are taking a toll, with NIH being especially hard hit. With an annual budget of $47 billion, the NIH is the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research and development. It’s no coincidence that the world’s leading medical labs are located in the U.S., or that our research benefits people across the globe.
The Trump administration plans to cut NIH’s budget by $18 billion, or about 40%, and to consolidate its 27 institutes and centers into just eight. At least 2,100 NIH research grants have been terminated thus far, totaling $9.5 billion.
With at least 1,200 staff laid off all at once, and thousands more voluntarily resigning, the loss of institutional knowledge and medical expertise is staggering. The full extent of the brain drain is unknown because NIH Director Jayanta Bhattacharya has yet to report the total number of staff losses.
One of NIH’s critical roles is to fund the basic science research that underpins development of drugs and therapeutics, long before the private sector takes an interest. Companies take that basic science and further develop and commercialize vaccines, drugs, and therapies that save lives. Funding for the grants that the NIH provides these labs, universities, and institutions has largely been frozen for the past month, as part of the administration’s war on universities, even though a federal judge ordered a release of the money. Billions of biomedical research dollars allocated to Harvard, Cornell, Northwestern, Brown, Columbia, and Princeton are being withheld.
The agency has reportedly stopped vetting future studies on cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, and other illnesses and slashed the programs for cancer and Alzheimer’s research.
The Trump administration also cut the overhead rate that NIH pays to research universities to keep the lights on, computers running, and lab equipment maintained from between 40% and 70% to 15%. Such deep cuts will lead to even more layoffs, and research could grind to a halt.
While a U.S. District Court ruled the change was “arbitrary and capricious,” it’s unclear whether the Trump administration will reverse the policy.
Halting research will have profound impacts on the American health system and on our health.
It will disrupt local economies and hurt our overall competitiveness. Every dollar that NIH spends on research generates more than two dollars in economic activity, not to mention the patents and biomedical startups that ensue.
Some U.S. universities are reducing or halting their PhD admissions as a consequence. Doctoral students—our scientific future—are watching their dreams die.
“Many are right now questioning the viability of being a scientist in the U.S. going forward,” Carole Labonne, developmental and stem cell biologist at Northwestern University, said in a PBS interview. We could see a brain drain in the U.S., as young scientists choose a different career path or choose another country in which to build their career.
And NIH is but one federal agency that the Trump administration is taking a chain saw to. Cuts at the Food and Drug Administration could have immediate impacts on our food safety, at a time when food contamination outbreaks are on the rise. Staff with technical expertise in nutrition, infant formula, and food safety response have been cut.
Similarly, at the CDC, staff cuts and contract freezes are coming at a time when the nation is experiencing an H5N1 outbreak in poultry and dairy cattle that may well lead to another pandemic, an unprecedented spread of measles in 33 states, and a tuberculosis outbreak in Kansas. The CDC plays a vital role, working with states and communities to understand where disease is, how to prevent it, and how to react. Simply put, we are losing people on the front lines of keeping people healthy.
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Trump Administration Slammed for Slashing $12 Billion in Funding for State Health Services
"These are not people who want to make America healthy," said one advocate for people with disabilities. "They want to make the sick disappear."
Mar 26, 2025
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services canceled more than $12 billion in federal funding for state health departments across the nation, money that is used to track infectious diseases and provide mental health services, addiction treatment, and other critical care.
NBC News reported Wednesday that $11.4 billion of the canceled grants were earmarked by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for state and community health departments, nongovernmental organizations, and international recipients following the Covid-19 pandemic. Around $1 billion worth of grants are being pulled from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
"The Covid-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a nonexistent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago," Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement. "HHS is prioritizing funding projects that will deliver on President [Donald] Trump's mandate to address our chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again."
This is just stunning. HHS has abruptly canceled more than $12 billion in federal grants to states that were being used for tracking infectious diseases, mental health services, addiction treatment and other urgent health issues.
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— Charles Ornstein ( @charlesornstein.bsky.social) March 26, 2025 at 1:36 PM
However, experts point to the certainty of future pandemics—like an avian flu strain that mutates to pass between humans—in urging public health policy planners to maintain or even increase preparedness and response funding.
NBC News reported that the 13 agencies overseen by HHS were sent notices starting Monday, which informed them that they have 30 days to reconcile their expenditures.
For some state and community healthcare providers, the effects of the cuts were immediate.
There was an abrupt $11B cut to local/state public health (PH) infrastructure yesterday. I don't think people realize what this means: -Want an updated system to check your immunizations instead of digging through docs? PH no longer able to carry out upgrades to immunization information systems
— Katelyn Jetelina ( @kkjetelina.bsky.social) March 26, 2025 at 11:34 AM
As The New York Times reported:
In Lubbock, Texas, public health officials have received orders to stop work supported by three grants that helped fund the response to the widening measles outbreak there, according to Katherine Wells, the city's director of public health.
On Tuesday, some state health departments were preparing to lay off dozens of epidemiologists and data scientists. Others, including Texas, Maine, and Rhode Island, were still scrambling to understand the impact of the cuts before taking any action.
In interviews, state health officials predicted that thousands of health department employees and contract workers could lose their jobs nationwide. Some predicted the loss of as much as 90% of staff from some infectious disease teams.
"We learned yesterday that the federal government has unilaterally terminated approximately $226 million in grants to Minnesota Department of Health related to the Covid-19 pandemic," Minnesota Commissioner of Health Dr. Brooke Cunningham said in a statement. "This termination is effective immediately and impacts ongoing work and contracts. This action was sudden and unexpected."
Lori Freeman, CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, told CBS News that much of the funding would have expired soon anyway.
"It's ending in the next six months," she said. "There's no reason—why rescind it now? It's just cruel and unusual behavior."
Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment communications director Kristina Iodice told NBC News, "We are concerned that this sudden loss of federal funding threatens Colorado's ability to track Covid-19 trends and other emerging diseases, modernize disease data systems, respond to outbreaks, and provide critical immunization access, outreach, and education—leaving communities more vulnerable to future public health crises."
The first Trump administration was widely criticized for shortcomings in these fields. A congressional panel issued a 2022 report accusing top administration officials of "failed stewardship" and a "persistent pattern of political interference" that undermined the nation's response to Covid-19, which to date has killed more than 1.2 million people in the United States and is still claiming hundreds of lives each week, according to CDC figures.
Wednesday's reportingd came as HHS, CDC, and other critical agencies braced for more cuts and layoffs ordered by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his aides are also "nearing their final decisions on a sweeping restructuring of the department," CBS News reported last week.
Last month, Senate Democrats demanded answers from Kennedy regarding the purge of more than 5,000 HHS workers after the agency "blindly followed" a "baseless directive" by Trump and DOGE that the lawmakers said is "blatantly undermining Americans' health and safety."
As Common Dreams reported Wednesday, public health experts have also condemned the administration's decision to terminate funding for Gavi, the global vaccine alliance—a move critics warned could result in the deaths of over 1 million children in the Global South.
"Investing in Gavi brings other benefits for our world and the American people," the alliance said. "Here's why: By maintaining global stockpiles of vaccines against deadly diseases like Ebola, mpox, and yellow fever, we help keep America safe. These diseases do not respect borders, they can cross continents in hours and cost billions of dollars."
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The Real Reason for Soaring Egg Prices? Gouging by the 'Rotten Egg Oligarchy'
A new Food & Water Watch report details how "corporations use the worsening bird flu crisis to jack up egg prices, even as their own factory farms fuel the spread of disease."
Mar 04, 2025
The nation's largest egg producers would have American consumers believe that avian flu and inflation are behind soaring prices, but a report published Tuesday shows corporate price gouging is the real culprit driving the record cost of the dietary staple.
The fourth installment of Food & Water Watch's (FWW) Economic Cost of Food Monopolies series—titled The Rotten Egg Oligarchy—reports that the average price of a dozen eggs in the United States hit an all-time high of $4.95 in January 2025. That's more than two-and-a-half times the average price from three years ago.
"While egg prices spiral out of reach, making eggs a luxury item, Big Ag is profiting hand over fist," FWW research director Amanda Starbuck said in a statement. "But make no mistake—today's high prices are built on a foundation of corporate price gouging. Our research shows how corporations use the worsening bird flu crisis to jack up egg prices, even as their own factory farms fuel the spread of disease."
FWW found that "egg prices were already rising before the current [avian flu] outbreak hit U.S. commercial poultry flocks in February 2022, and have never returned to pre-outbreak levels."
Furthermore, "egg price spikes hit regions that were bird flu-free until recently," the report states. "The U.S. Southeast remained free of bird flu in its table egg flocks until January 2025, and actually increased egg production in 2022 and 2023 over 2021 levels. Nevertheless, retail egg prices in the Southeast rose alongside January 2023's national price spikes."
"The corporate food system is to blame for exacerbating the scale of the outbreak as well as the high cost of eggs," the publication continues. "Factory farms are virus incubators, with the movement of animals, machines, and workers between operations helping to spread the virus."
"Meanwhile, just a handful of companies produce the majority of our eggs, giving them outsized control over the prices paid by retailers, who often pass on rising costs to consumers," the paper adds. "This highly consolidated food system also enables companies to leverage a temporary shortage in one region to raise prices across the entire country."
Cal-Maine, the nation's top egg producer, enjoyed a more than 600% increase in gross profits between fiscal years 2021-23, according to FWW. The Mississippi-based company did not suffer any avian flu outbreaks in fiscal year 2023, during which it sold more eggs than during the previous two years. Yet it still sold conventional eggs at nearly three times the price as in 2021, amounting to over $1 billion in windfall profits. Meanwhile Cal-Maine paid shareholders dividends totaling $250 million in 2023, 40 times more during the previous fiscal year.
The report highlights how factory farming creates ideal conditions for the spread of avian flu, a single case of which requires the extermination of the entire flock at the affected facility, under federal regulations.
"These impacts cannot be understated," FWW stressed. "Today's average factory egg farm confines over 800,000 birds, with some operations confining several million. This magnifies the scale of animal suffering and death, as well as the enormous environmental and safety burden of disposing of a million or more infected bird carcasses."
Citing U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) figures, The Guardian reported Tuesday that more than 54 million birds have been affected in the past three months alone.
Egg producers know precisely how the supply-and-demand implications of these outbreaks and subsequent culls can boost their bottom lines. Meanwhile, they play a dangerous game as epidemiologists widely view a potential avian flu mutation that can be transmitted from birds to humans as the next major pandemic threat—one that's exacerbated by the Trump administration's withdrawal from the World Health Organization and cuts to federal agencies focused on averting the next pandemic.
"We cannot afford to place our food system in the hands of a few corporations that put corporate profit above all else."
So far, 70 avian flu cases—one of them fatal—have been reported in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, under Trump, the CDC has stopped publishing regular reports on its avian flu response plans and activities. The USDA, meanwhile, said it "accidentally" terminated staffers working on avian flu response during the firing flurry under Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. The agency is scrambling to reverse the move.
"We cannot afford to place our food system in the hands of a few corporations that put corporate profit above all else," the FWW report argues. "Nor can we allow the factory farm system to continue polluting our environment and serving as the breeding ground for the next human pandemic."
"We need to enforce our nation's antitrust laws to go after corporate price fixing and collusion," the publication adds. "We also need a national ban on new and expanding factory farms, while transitioning to smaller, regional food systems that are more resilient to disruptions."
That is highly unlikely under Trump, whose policies—from taxation to regulation and beyond—have overwhelmingly favored the ultrawealthy and corporations over working Americans. Meanwhile, one of the president's signature campaign promises, to lower food prices "on day one," has evaporated amid ever-rising consumer costs.
According to the USDA's latest Food Price Outlook, overall food prices are projected to rise 3.4% in 2025. Eggs, however, are forecast to soar a staggering 41.1% this year—and possibly by as much as 74.9%.
"If President Trump has any interest in fulfilling his campaign pledge to lower food prices," Starbuck stressed, "he must begin by taking on the food monopolies exploiting pandemic threat for profit."
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'Chaos and Fear' at CDC Amid Order to Retract Journal Articles to Purge 'Forbidden Terms'
"How can the government decide what words a journal can use to describe a scientific reality? That reality needs to be named," one journal editor said.
Feb 02, 2025
Employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have been ordered to pull any articles under consideration for publication in medical or scientific journals so that they can be checked for certain "forbidden terms" including gender, transgender, and LGBT.
The order was sent in an email to CDC division heads on Friday by the agency's chief science officer, a federal official told Reuters on Sunday. Inside Medicine broke the news on Saturday and provided a screenshot of the full list of terms that needed to be scrubbed.
"It sounds incredible that this is compatible with the First Amendment. A constitutional right has been canceled," Dr. Alfredo Morabia, editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Public Health, told Reuters. "How can the government decide what words a journal can use to describe a scientific reality? That reality needs to be named."
"We can't just erase or ignore certain populations when it comes to preventing, treating, or researching infectious diseases such as HIV."
The order is an attempt to ensure that CDC is in compliance with U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order mandating that the U.S. government only recognize two sexes: male and female. The papers will be withdrawn so that a Trump appointee can review them.
The "forbidden terms" CDC employees are supposed to avoid are, in full: Gender, transgender, pregnant person, pregnant people, LGBT, transsexual, non-binary, nonbinary, assigned male at birth, assigned female at birth, biologically male, and biologically female, according to Inside Medicine.
The order covers both papers under consideration and those accepted but not published. According to Reuters, if a CDC employee worked on a paper with nongovernmental scientists but did not initiate it, they have been asked to remove their names.
The new order is separate from a demand two days into the administration that government health agencies including CDC freeze all communications with the public. It follows reports on Friday that CDC webpages and datasets involving HIV, the LGBTQ community, youth health, and other topics were no longer accessible as the agency attempts to comply with the Trump executive order on transgender identity and another on banning government Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives.
"It is Orwellian, it really is," Steven Woolf, director emeritus and senior adviser at Virginia Commonwealth University's Center on Society and Health,
In response to the purges, scientists, science journalists, and public health advocates have worked to preserve the datasets, with everything on the CDC website as of January 27, 2024 preserved at ACASignups.net and downloaded data sets also available on Jessica Valenti's Substack Abortion, Every Day.
"Censoring data on ideological grounds is wrong. It is unscientific, and it is designed to eliminate opposition and erase dissidents," virologist Angela Rasmussen, who was involved with the data preservation efforts, wrote on social media.
The journal article retraction order has created uncertainty and confusion at the agency, Inside Medicine reported:
How many manuscripts are affected is unclear, but it could be many. Most manuscripts include simple demographic information about the populations or patients studied, which typically includes gender (and which is frequently used interchangeably with sex). That means just about any major study would fall under the censorship regime of the new policy, including studies on Covid-19, cancer, heart disease, or anything else, let alone anything that the administration considers to be "woke ideology."
Meanwhile, chaos and fear are already guiding decisions. While the policy is only meant to apply to work that might be seen as conflicting with President Trump's executive orders, CDC experts don’t know how to interpret that. Do papers that describe disparities in health outcomes fall into "woke ideology" or not? Nobody knows, and everyone is scared that they'll be fired. This is leading to what Germans call "vorauseilender Gehorsam," or "preemptive obedience," as one non-CDC scientist commented.
There are also concerns that censoring such a broad list of terms would have unintended consequences for public health.
"We can't just erase or ignore certain populations when it comes to preventing, treating, or researching infectious diseases such as HIV. I certainly hope this is not the intent of these orders," Carl Schmid, the executive director of the HIV+ Hepatitis Policy Institute, told Reuters.
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As Uganda Reports Ebola Death, Experts Sound Alarm on Trump's Order to Quit WHO
"This is pure stupidity that will only hurt us," warned one U.S. doctor and Ebola expert.
Jan 31, 2025
Public health experts pointed to the announcement of highly contagious hemorrhagic fever outbreaks in at least three central and eastern African nations this week to underscore what they say are the dangers of President Donald Trump's ideologically driven decision to withdraw the United States from the World Health Organization during a time of mounting pandemic threats.
Uganda Ministry of Health Permanent Secretary Diana Atwine said Thursday that a 32-year-old nurse died of Sudan Ebola virus the previous day in the capital Kampala amid the first new outbreak in two years. Atwine assured the public "that we are in full control" of the situation.
Uganda's alert followed reports of another potential Ebola outbreak, this one in the Western Democratic Republic of Congo. Additionally, health officials earlier this month announced an outbreak of suspected Marburg Virus Disease—a severe, often fatal illness similar to Ebola—in neighboring Tanzania. At least nine people have reportedly died.
World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on social media Thursday that "a full-scale response is being initiated" by the Ugandan government and its international partners. In a statement, the WHO said it is "deploying senior public health experts and mobilizing staff from the country office to support all the key outbreak response measures."
During past outbreaks of Ebola—a severe viral disease spread via contact with infected bodily fluids, with a fatality rate of 50-90%—the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) worked with the WHO to help stem the spread of the illness.
However, following Trump's January 20 executive order initiating a U.S. withdrawal from the WHO over its alleged "mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic," CDC and other public health officials have been ordered to stop working with the United Nations body, effective immediately.
"The agencies that are statutorily responsible for protecting our health are unable to do that job because they are not able to pick up the phone and talk to people who might have information that could protect U.S. health and security," Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University's School of Public Health, told Stat this week.
"This is just one of the examples about how the United States loses access, loses the ability to protect American lives," Nuzzo explained. "We can't be everywhere, we can't have eyes and ears on the ground in every possible location [where] harm could be emerging. And this is what happens when we don't engage with institutions that can provide these lifesaving insights."
Experts said other existing or emerging epidemiological threats including bird flu underscore the lifesaving imperative of more, not less, international cooperation.
"Local health officials and doctors depend on the CDC to get disease updates, timely prevention, testing and treatment guidelines, and information about outbreaks," University of Southern California public health expert Dr. Jeffrey Klausner told The Associated Press in a recent interview.
"Shutting down public health communication stops a basic function of public health," he added. "Imagine if the government turned off fire sirens or other warning systems."
Dr. Ashish Jha, the former White House Covid-19 coordinator during the Biden administration, noted Thursday on social media that during Ebola outbreaks, the CDC "usually sends a team right away to help bolster staff that might already be there and support the ministry of health."
"There'd be clear communication from CDC and White House about what exactly is being done, what help we are sending, what American hospitals and others can do to be prepared should Ebola land here," Jha continued. "So what of this is happening? My sense is, not much—but we don't know."
"The communication freeze means CDC not sharing what if anything it is doing," he added. "Travel freeze means CDC staff likely not going. Directive to stop working with WHO means we're flying blind and don't have information about what is happening on the ground. None of this is good."
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