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    ‘Americans should be alarmed’: Experts say loss of expertise at CDC will harm US health

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    After high-profile departures and sweeping layoffs, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) faces an unprecedented loss of expertise and a simultaneous erosion of trust as top health leaders undermine vaccines and other vital health tools.“Americans should be alarmed,” said Nirav Shah, former principal deputy director at CDC and now a visiting professor at Colby College. “All of these moves leave us less safe, and it comes at a time of rising public health threats.”Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for the second Trump administration, vowed to strip the CDC of its ability to issue guidance on vaccines and to end required testing for new pathogens.The changes to US health will be felt for decades, and the cutbacks and changes will erode the public’s already wavering trust in health officials, experts say.“Losing top, experienced experts managing crucial units in the CDC is going to put all of us at risk,” said Dorit Reiss, professor of law at UC Hastings College of Law.The departure of four senior officials – Debra Houry, Demetre Daskalakis, Daniel Jernigan and Jennifer Layden – dealt “a big blow to our nation’s health preparedness”, Shah said.They joined thousands of health agency employees who have been laid off or resigned, with entire departments gutted, since Donald Trump was re-elected.“Next time there’s a problem, we will not have qualified leadership for our response,” Reiss said.The loss of “experienced, world-class” experts at the CDC is “directly related to the failed leadership of extremists” in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.The losses may continue under budget cuts, with proposed reductions of $5bn – a 42% decrease from 2024.Two of the recently ousted officials will testify before Congress on Wednesday. Susan Monarez, the most recent CDC director, who was fired after 28 days, criticized the administration’s “reckless” approach to science, including a request to “rubber-stamp” recommendations from the CDC’s independent advisers.The advisory committee on immunization practices (ACIP) plans to meet on Thursday and Friday. Advisers have indicated the committee will re-examine recommendations on routine childhood vaccinations such as those against hepatitis B and HPV (human papillomavirus).The Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy released on Tuesday “reaffirms that Kennedy is gunning for childhood vaccines”, Reiss said.Emily Hilliard, an HHS spokesperson, said: “Secretary Kennedy has been clear: the CDC has been broken for a long time. Restoring it as the world’s most trusted guardian of public health will take sustained reform and more personnel changes.”When asked about Kennedy’s stance on childhood vaccines, Hilliard said that HHS is “reaffirming the importance of the doctor-patient relationship so people can make informed decisions about their health”, emphasizing the roles of “clear, honest information and personal choice”.Kennedy has also limited access to the Covid vaccines, restricting them only to people “at higher risk”, while also saying “anyone can get the booster”.“Kennedy’s claim that anyone can get them is deeply insincere,” Reiss said. He already removed, for example, the recommendation for pregnant people, making it harder for them to access the vaccine.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“While it’s legal to give vaccines off-label, not all doctors and pharmacists will, and depending what ACIP does, not all insurers will cover them”, including Medicaid, which is bound by ACIP recommendations, she said.Kennedy has repeatedly undermined the CDC and vaccines, calling the agency a “cesspool of corruption” and the Covid vaccine, for instance, the “deadliest vaccine ever made”. During the worst measles outbreak in decades, Kennedy framed vaccination as a personal choice. He has also cut millions of dollars for research on mRNA vaccines.Earlier this month, Trump defended the Covid and polio vaccines. But the president has given Kennedy sweeping control over the nation’s health and nutrition agenda.“In an era of rising threats to public health – whether it’s measles, whether it’s an Ebola outbreak, or whether it’s the continuing concern and threat from H5 [bird flu] – none of these things makes America healthy again,” Shah said.The acting director of the CDC, Jim O’Neill, has a background in biotechnology investing but he does not appear to have training in medicine or public health.“Based on what I understand, he does not have the requisite background to even be serving as acting director,” said Shah, who was acting director of the CDC while the Trump administration entered office.“Americans need to ask themselves: ‘Are we safe right now?’” Shah said. “‘Is there somebody who knows at the higher levels what should be done in the face of an emerging Ebola outbreak? Are they doing it? How do we know that?’”The news that top experts at the CDC haven’t briefed Kennedy is “alarming”, Shah said. ”If America’s top generals were planning a war and sketching out battlefield plans but had not talked to any of their lieutenants and colonels in the field, we would say that’s not leadership.”So far, many Americans have not yet felt the shock waves of Kennedy’s changes to public health, Shah said.For most people, “you don’t actually see the consequences of it until there’s an emergency”, Shah said. “And it’s way too late at that point.” More

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      Guided by angels, pursued by chemtrails: the weird world of Florida health chief’s influential wife

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      The wife of Florida surgeon general Dr Joseph Ladapo, a leading vaccine skeptic, believes that angels have spoken to her and that “dark forces” are targeting her family with chemtrails, and has claimed her husband won’t work with anyone she hasn’t vetted.In published works and interviews reviewed by the Guardian, Brianna Ladapo – who edited her husband’s USA Today op-ed from March 2020 against Covid-19 shutdowns and appears alongside him at conferences – claims to have regularly received visions that come true and believes her life has been saved “multiple times” by angels.Joseph Ladapo, a longtime vaccine skeptic who was handpicked by Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, has faced accusations by public health advocates of peddling “scientific nonsense”. Ladapo has defended his stances on vaccines and Covid guidance, stating in 2023 in response to allegations he falsified a Covid report: “Between my scientific experience and training, and the fact that I am only comfortable saying the truth and speaking the truth, I felt completely fine with that announcement.”He recently ended vaccine mandates for children in Florida against preventable diseases, including measles, mumps, chickenpox, polio and hepatitis, comparing mandates to “slavery” and claimed the move would receive the blessing “of God”. Florida is the first state in the US to do so.The Guardian made several attempts to reach Brianna Ladapo and Joseph Ladapo by email. They did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The Florida department of health and DeSantis also did not respond to multiple requests for comment.In a Substack post on 5 September, Brianna Ladapo defended her husband’s decision to end vaccine mandates and claimed there are “dubious origins, nonexistent safety profiles, and dirty money trails surrounding vaccines”.She wrote in the post: “You believe in vaccines because you’ve been told to by a corrupt medical establishment that has a vested interest in keeping you subservient and stupid.”In a July 2025 podcast, Brianna Ladapo stated: “I often think if I hadn’t had to learn to trust my own gut and learn how to think and stand on my own two feet at such a young age, when Covid had come through, apparently swept away everyone’s brains, I might have been swept away right along with it if I didn’t already know how to listen to that truth that I believe is inside every single one of us.”She added in the podcast that “even to the lead-up, I was having visions, I was having dreams”, about the pandemic, before it began in early 2020. “Immediately, ridiculous inconsistencies started to show themselves.”She also appeared in an interview with the prominent anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense in January 2025, in which she said: “If we all listen to our intuition, we listen to that voice, we would not fall for propaganda. Like, what’s happened with Covid. People did truly insane things to keep from catching a virus that over, well over 99% of people survived without intervention, right? That’s textbook insanity.”Joseph Ladapo has appeared with his wife on stage at conferences on health and parenting.In Dr Ladapo’s 2022 memoir, Transcend Fear, he wrote that his wife has “a history of extraordinary experiences that were hard to explain with natural laws”. In March 2020, he wrote an op-ed for USA Today against shutdowns in response to Covid-19, the first of several he wrote about the virus, and noted that it was edited by his wife.Joseph Ladapo wrote in Transcend Fear that when he was recruited for the job of Florida surgeon general by DeSantis, his wife claimed it was the message she was waiting for.In Brianna Ladapo’s 2023 memoir, she claimed “as long as I can remember, I have received communications from beings beyond this realm. Even as a young child, angels regularly spoke to me.”She added that “since I was born, I have also received constant communications in the form of visions” and that “eventually, every single one of them came to pass”.In the book, Brianna Ladapo claims she went on a “pilgrimage” trip to Egypt in graduate school during which she saw the rest of a “recurring vision” from a past life.In a video podcast on Rumble earlier this year, she reiterated these claims about her “gifts”.“I was born a very sensitive child, the kind of kid who would see angels and talk to beings that no one else could necessarily perceive,” she said, claiming her family “perceived what was happening to me as satanic and demonic and evil”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I saw a lot of angels, but my angels would talk to me and they saved my life multiple times,” she claimed.Brianna Ladapo also claimed their children together “have all been having experiences like this since they were born” and have “innate divine intelligence”.She claimed one of her children as a baby had “a gift” that was temporarily shared with her.“I started to hear conversations that sounded like they were right next to me. There were no people anywhere near us. And they were clearly from different eras, sometimes different countries, different languages and dialects,” Ladapo said.She said initially in their relationship, her husband was skeptical, but came to believe in her “gifts”.“After a number of years, he came to deeply trust my gift and now he won’t work with anybody I haven’t vetted,” she said. The couple did not respond to requests for comment about Brianna Ladapo’s vetting.Later in the podcast, Ladapo claimed she floated an inch above the ground during a session with a former Navy Seal and self-proclaimed traditional healing guru, whom she said her husband had also seen and had similar experiences with. The healer declined to comment, citing client confidentiality.Ladapo is also a proponent of the chemtrails conspiracy theory about planes mass-dumping chemicals. She claims in the podcast interview that she and her children got sick because of chemtrails, and she used a patch that has been characterized as pseudoscience by medical experts.“As we try to chase down where this is coming from, who is funding the companies who are flying the planes, who are piloting these planes, where are they taking off? We don’t even know where they are, because none of this is on the books.” Ladapo said about chemtrails.She added in the podcast interview about a photo of a Florida sky outside of her home: “This is how the chemtrails have been looking outside our window for the past few weeks. They are, I hate to say it, but that looks like a pentagram and they’ve been plastering it in the sky right outside our house for the last few weeks.”She characterized the perceived chemtrailers as “dark forces” out to get her and her husband.“They’ve been trying to stop us for years,” she claimed. “We are operating at a level of light that puts us essentially out of the grasp of those with a very low vibration, very evil intention.” More

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      RFK Jr does not just reject vaccines. He rejects science and must step down | Bernie Sanders

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      Since taking office, Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of the health and human services department (HHS), has undermined vaccines at every turn. He has dismissed the entire Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) vaccine advisory panel, narrowed access to life-saving Covid-19 vaccines, filled scientific advisory boards with conspiracy theorists and fired the newly appointed CDC director for refusing to rubber-stamp his actions.But his rejection of vaccines is only part of the problem. Secretary Kennedy is unfit to be our nation’s leading public health official because he rejects the fundamental principles of modern science.For generations, doctors have agreed that germs – like bacteria or viruses – cause infectious diseases.In the 1850s, John Snow, known as the father of epidemiology, traced a cholera outbreak in London to water contaminated with human waste – not the “bad air”, or so-called miasma, that many at that time believed to be the cause.In the 1880s, Louis Pasteur, the French chemist, in a controlled experiment, injected one group of sheep with an anthrax vaccine while another group went without it. Then he injected all of the sheep with anthrax bacteria. The vaccinated sheep survived, the unvaccinated did not.The germ theory led to a revolution in public health and medicine which, over the years, has saved tens of millions of lives.Just a few examples.At a time when many women were dying during childbirth at hospitals, Dr Ignaz Semmelweis found that handwashing by doctors saved lives.Joseph Lister showed that sterilizing medical equipment before surgery prevented needless deaths.Florence Nightingale, considered the mother of modern nursing, substantially improved hygiene at hospitals and made healthcare much safer for patients.Pasteur made the food we eat and the milk we drink safer through a process of heating called pasteurization.And these are just a few examples.Yet, incredibly, in the year 2025, we now have a secretary of HHS who has cast doubt and aspersions on the very concept of the germ theory – the very foundation of modern medicine for over a century.In his book The Real Anthony Fauci, Kennedy absurdly claims that the central tenet behind the germ theory “is simply untrue”. Vaccines are not, Kennedy falsely asserts, responsible for the massive decline in deaths from infectious diseases. Instead, Kennedy falsely proclaims that “science actually gives the honor of having vanquished disease mortalities to sanitation and nutrition”.Yes. No one disputes that proper sanitation, a nutritious diet and exercise can lead to healthier lives. But no credible scientist or doctor believes that alone makes a person immune from polio, measles, mumps, Covid, HIV/Aids and other infectious diseases. Otherwise healthy people can become sick, hospitalized or even die from these and other terrible diseases.Sadly, Kennedy’s dangerous rejection of well-established science is behind his wild conspiracy theories and misinformation campaigns.It’s what led to Kennedy’s false assertion that “there is no vaccine that is safe and effective” despite peer-reviewed scientific studies finding that vaccines have saved more than 150 million lives and reduced infant deaths by 40% in the past 50 years.It’s behind Kennedy’s bogus claim that the polio vaccine “killed many, many, many, many, many more people than polio ever did”, even though the scientific data has shown that the polio vaccine has saved 1.5 million lives and prevented about 20 million people from becoming paralyzed since 1988.It undergirds his history of promoting the ridiculous idea that HIV does not cause Aids, despite rigorous studies finding the exact opposite. This type of outrageous HIV/Aids denialism is widely believed to have caused the deaths of at least 330,000 people in South Africa who did not receive the life-saving medicine they needed.It’s what led him to say that the Covid vaccine was the “deadliest vaccine ever made”, that vaccines cause autism, and that the hepatitis B vaccine doesn’t work and should only be used for “prostitutes” and “promiscuous gay men” – lies that have been thoroughly debunked by scientific data and the medical community.Frighteningly, it’s what caused Kennedy to say: “I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby and I say to him, ‘Better not get him vaccinated.’ And he heard that from me. If he hears it from 10 other people, maybe he won’t do it.”As a private citizen, Kennedy is entitled to his views, no matter how misguided they may be.If Kennedy would like to swim in water contaminated by raw sewage and fecal matter, as he has done recently in Washington DC’s Rock Creek Park, he is free to do that.But as our nation’s top health official, Secretary Kennedy’s rejection of science and the actions he has taken as a result of his bizarre ideology is endangering the lives of millions of children in the United States and throughout the world.Today, Kennedy is making it harder for people to get vaccines. Tomorrow, what will it be? Will he tell doctors they don’t need to wash their hands before surgery? Will he tell hospitals that they don’t need to sterilize their scalpels and other medical equipment?The American people need a secretary of HHS who will listen to scientists and doctors, and not conspiracy theorists.We need a secretary of HHS who will listen to medical experts who may disagree with him, not fire them summarily.Bottom line: we need an HHS secretary who will not engage in a war on science and the truth itself.Secretary Kennedy must step down.

      Bernie Sanders is a US senator, and ranking member of the health, education, labor and pensions committee. He represents the state of Vermont and is the longest-serving independent in the history of Congress More

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      RFK Jr accused of ‘reckless disregard for science and the truth’ in Senate hearing

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      The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, faced the Senate finance committee in a tense and combative hearing on Thursday, during which lawmakers questioned his remarks expressing vaccine skepticism, claims that the scientific community is deeply politicized and the ongoing turmoil plaguing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).In a hearing lasting more than three hours and ostensibly about the Trump administration’s healthcare agenda, Kennedy defended his leadership at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), claiming that his time at the agency will be focused on “unbiased, politics-free, transparent, evidence-based science in the public interest”.Senate Democrats on the committee began the hearing calling for Kennedy’s resignation. “Robert Kennedy’s primary interest is taking vaccines away from Americans,” ranking member Ron Wyden, a Democratic senator from Oregon, said in his opening remarks. “People are hurt by his reckless disregard for science and the truth in this effort. I hope the very least, Robert Kennedy has the decency to tell the truth this morning.”Raphael Warnock, also a Democrat, called Kennedy a “hazard to the health of the American people”, repeating calls for him to step down or for Donald Trump to fire him.Last week, Kennedy fired the CDC director, Susan Monarez, less than a month after she was confirmed to her position. She is now mounting a legal case challenging her removal.Shortly after Monarez’s termination, several leading public health officials at the CDC resigned from their positions, citing frustration with Kennedy’s approach to vaccines and his management style.Kennedy said Monarez was “lying” about her claims that she was fired for refusing to sign off on the secretary’s new vaccine policies. Instead, Kennedy said that she was removed after admitting to being untrustworthy.The Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, was unconvinced – citing Kennedy’s prior characterization of the former CDC director as “unimpeachable”.“You had full confidence in her and you had full confidence in her scientific credentials, and in a month she became a liar?” she asked. Thom Tillis, the outgoing Republican senator of North Carolina, asked about the same contradiction in his questioning.Monarez’s lawyers responded in a statement to Kennedy’s comments, calling them “false” and “at times, patently ridiculous”. They added that Monarez would repeat her published claims “under oath”.Kennedy also justified wider firings at the CDC , calling them “absolutely necessary”.“We are the sickest country in the world,” he said. “That’s why we need to fire people at CDC. They did not do their job. This was their job to keep us healthy.”In June, Kennedy fired all 17 members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee – a move that defied a promise he made during his confirmation hearing to Republican senator Bill Cassidy, a physician who chairs the Senate health committee. Many of Kennedy’s replacements for the advisory panel have a history of vaccine skepticism.When asked about the changes to the advisory committee, and how that will change vaccine recommendations and scheduling, Kennedy said he didn’t anticipate changes to the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine.In an exchange with Kennedy, Cassidy noted the possible conflict of interest with some of the panel’s new members who are involved in ongoing litigation with vaccine manufacturers.Cassidy cast a critical vote to confirm Kennedy earlier this year. He had previously expressed a number of concerns about the health secretary’s historic comments that undermined vaccine efficacy. The senator has since been critical of a number of Kennedy’s policies, including his decision to cut half a billion dollars worth of mRNA vaccine funding – calling the move “unfortunate”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLast month, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the new batch of Covid-19 vaccines, but placed restrictions on who would be able to access them. The agency has authorized shots for people 65 and older, who are known to be more at risk from serious illnesses from Covid infections. Younger people will only be eligible if they have an underlying medical condition that makes them vulnerable. Infectious disease experts say that this policy could prove extremely dangerous, particularly for young children.On Tuesday, Kennedy defended HHS’s handling of the measles outbreak that affected several states in an opinion piece. While the secretary branded his agency’s response as effective, public health experts said Kennedy’s own messaging around vaccines was muddied and confusing.Cassidy concluded his remarks at the hearing by telling Kennedy that his policies were “effectively denying people the vaccine”, sharing an email from a doctor friend who expressed confusion about Covid inoculation eligibility given the FDA’s new recommendation policies.Kennedy snapped back: “You’re wrong.”The Republican senator John Barrasso, of Wyoming, also a doctor, expressed similar concerns about Kennedy’s policies. “In your confirmation hearing you promised to uphold the highest standard for vaccines,” Barrasso said. “Since then, I’ve grown deeply concerned.”During a back and forth with the Virginia senator Mark Warner, a Democrat, Kennedy falsely claimed that there are “no cuts to Medicaid” under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act – Trump’s hallmark domestic policy legislation that was signed into law in July.The congressional budget office estimates that around 7.8 million people stand to lose their health insurance over a decade, due to Medicaid changes under the law.Multiple Democrats on the committee had heated exchanges with the health secretary. Many of them pointed out the inconsistency between Kennedy’s recent support for the president’s “Operation Warp Speed” and his disparagement of the Covid-19 shot. He has previously called it the “deadliest” vaccine ever manufactured.At the hearing, Kennedy refused to acknowledge the wealth of data that shows that the Covid-19 vaccine has saved lives.“Trump has said the vaccine works, and has saved millions of lives. Your own process, on the other hand, has not been transparent,” said the Democratic senator Maggie Hassan, of New Hampshire. “You repeatedly choose to ignore data because it doesn’t match your preconceived notions and lies.” More

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      DoJ drops charges against Utah doctor accused of destroying Covid vaccines

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      The US Department of Justice dropped charges on Saturday against Michael Kirk Moore, the Utah doctor accused of destroying more than $28,000 worth of government-provided Covid-19 vaccines and administering saline to children instead of the shot.Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, announced the news in a statement on the social media platform X, saying the charges had been dismissed under her direction.“Dr Moore gave his patients a choice when the federal government refused to do so,” Bondi said. “He did not deserve the years in prison he was facing.”According to a 2023 press release from the US attorney’s office in Utah, Moore distributed at least 1,937 fraudulent vaccination record cards in exchange for either direct payment or required donations to a specific charity. The minors he gave saline shots to were under the impression, at the request of their parents, that they were receiving a Covid-19 shot. Moore ran the operations from a plastic surgery center in Midvale, Utah, and was charged, along with three other co-defendants, with conspiracy to defraud the United States.Far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene thanked Bondi in a statement on X and called Moore a “hero who refused to inject his patients with a government-mandated unsafe vaccine”.The Utah senator Mike Lee also weighed in, saying on X that he was glad Moore could remain a free man and that countless Americans endured lies and lockdowns during the pandemic.Moore was indicted by the justice department in 2023. He pleaded not guilty to the charges, which also included conspiracy to convert, sell, convey and dispose of government property, and the conversion, sale, conveyance and disposal of government property.The fake vaccination records were sold under Moore’s scheme for $50 each, and operations allegedly ran between May 2021 and September 2022. Attorneys for Moore argued that the regulations set at the time by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were unconstitutional.The charges against Moore were brought in when Joe Biden was president, but Covid-19 conspiracists and skeptics have been embraced in the new administration under Trump.Recently, the Trump administration canceled a $766m award to Moderna on the research and development of H5N1 bird flu vaccines, and officials announced new restrictions and regulations for Covid mRNA vaccines.The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, who has for decades baselessly sowed doubt about vaccine safety, contrary to scientific research, thanked Moore in a statement on X back in April.“Dr Moore deserves a medal for his courage and his commitment to healing,” Kennedy Jr said. More

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      Pregnant doctor denied Covid-19 vaccine sues Trump administration

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      A pregnant physician who was denied a Covid-19 vaccine is suing the Trump administration alongside a group of leading doctors associations, charging that the administration sought to “desensitize the public to anti-vaccine and anti-science rhetoric”, according to their attorney.The lawsuit specifically takes aim at health secretary Robert F Kennedy’s unilateral decision to recommend against Covid-19 vaccines for pregnant women and healthy children.Kennedy’s announcement circumvented expert scientific review panels and flouted studies showing pregnant women are at heightened risk from the virus, and made it more difficult for some to get the vaccine.“This administration is an existential threat to vaccination in America, and those in charge are only just getting started,” said Richard H Hughes IV, partner at Epstein Becker Green and lead counsel for the plaintiffs in a statement.The American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Physicians and American Public Health Association are among a list of leading physicians associations named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit.“If left unchecked, secretary Kennedy will accomplish his goal of ridding the United States of vaccines, which would unleash a wave of preventable harm on our nation’s children,” said Hughes. “The professional associations for pediatricians, internal medicine physicians, infectious disease physicians, high-risk pregnancy physicians, and public health professionals will not stand idly by as our system of prevention is dismantled. This ends now.”In late May, Kennedy announced that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) would no longer recommend Covid-19 vaccines for healthy children or pregnant women. The announcement, made on social media, contradicted a raft of evidence showing pregnant women and infants are at especially high-risk from the disease, including from the administration’s own scientific leaders.In June, Kennedy went further by firing all 17 sitting members of a key vaccine advisory panel to the CDC. The advisory panel is a key link in the vaccine distribution pipeline, helping to develop recommendations insurers use when determining which vaccines to cover.That panel met for the first time in late June. Members announced they would review both the childhood vaccine schedule and any vaccines that had not been formally reviewed in seven years. They also recommended against a long-vilified vaccine preservative, in spite of a lack of evidence of harm.The news comes amid the largest annual measles case count in 33 years, and amid reports of more parents seeking early vaccination for their children, fearing vaccines will go into shortage or no longer be covered by insurance. More

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      Trump health cuts create ‘real danger’ around disease outbreaks, workers warn

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      Mass terminations and billions of dollars’ worth of cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have gutted key programs – from child support services to HIV treatment abroad – and created a “real danger” that disease outbreaks will be missed, according to former workers.Workers at the HHS, now led by Robert F Kennedy Jr, and in public health warned in interviews that chaotic, flawed and sweeping reductions would have broad, negative effects across the US and beyond.While Donald Trump’s administration is cutting the HHS workforce from 82,000 to 62,000 through firings and buyouts, grant cuts by Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) have also had a stark impact on state governments – and resulted in firings at state public health agencies.At the South Carolina department of public health, for example, more than 70 staff were laid off in March due to funding cuts.“Disease surveillance is how we know when something unusual is happening with people’s health, like when there are more food-poisoning cases than usual, or a virus starts spreading in a community,” an epidemiologist at the department, whose role was eliminated, said. “It’s the system that lets us spot patterns, find outbreaks early, and respond before more people get sick.”“When you lose public health staff, you lose time, you lose accuracy, you lose responsiveness, and ultimately that affects people’s health,” they added. “Without us, outbreaks can fly under the radar, and the response can be delayed or disorganized. That’s the real danger when these roles get cut.View image in fullscreen“It’s invisible work, until it’s not. You may not think about it day to day, but it’s protecting your drinking water, your food, your kids’ schools and your community.”A spokesperson for South Carolina’s public health department declined to comment on specifics, but noted employees hired through grants are temporary. “When funding for grants is no longer available, their employment may end, as happened with some temporary grant employees who were funded by these grants,” they said.In Washington, the HHS has been cut harder by Doge than any other federal department. Hundreds of grants to state, local and tribal governments, as well as to research institutions, have been eliminated, worth over $6.8bn in unpaid obligations.The HHS receives about a quarter of all federal spending, with the majority disbursed to states for health programs and services such as Medicare and Medicaid, the insurance programs; medical research; and food and drug safety. Trump’s budget proposal calls for cutting the department’s discretionary spending by 26.2%, or $33.3bn.RFK Jr, who has a history of promoting conspiracy theories and medical misinformation, was nominated by Trump and approved by the Senate along party lines, with Mitch McConnell the sole Republican dissenter.Following a reduction in force of 10,000 employees on 1 April, Kennedy Jr claimed 20% of the firings were in error and that those workers would be reinstated, though that has not happened.An HHS spokesperson blamed any such errors on data-collection issues, and did not comment on any other aspects of the Guardian’s reporting.Aids relief program ‘dismantled’At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an operating division of the HHS, employees working on maternal and child health at the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar) program were shocked to be included in the reduction in force, as earlier in the administration their work had received a waiver for parts of the program from federal funding freezes.All federal experts on HIV prevention in children overseas were fired as part of the reduction in force.“Our concern initially was that it was a mistake with the name. We hoped around that time it came out that there were 20% errors, that we would be included,” said an epidemiologist who was included in the reduction in force, but requested to remain anonymous as they are currently on administrative leave. They also noted that they were in the middle of planning and delivering a new pediatric HIV treatment medication set to be dispersed this year, and that that work was now at risk.View image in fullscreenThey said 22 epidemiologists in the branch of their CDC division had been fired. Pepfar was created in 2003 by George W Bush to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission and credited with saving 26 million lives.“We were very shocked on April 1 that we were put immediately on admin leave,” said another epidemiologist affected by the reduction in force at the CDC. “We really feel our branch being cut was a mistake. The state department had said services were a priority and needed to continue, but then we were cut by HHS.”They noted HIV treatment had already stopped in regions of countries that had been reliant on USAID programs, such as Zambia.“It is one of the most successful global health programs in history, data driven with high levels of accountability and the dollars spent achieve impact. Our concern now is, yes, they are continuing Pepfar in name, but they are dismantling all the systems and structure that allowed it to succeed,” they added. “The US made a huge investment in this program in 20 years and a lot of it is now undone. We’ve now disrupted those systems that could have reduced and eventually removed US investment in these programs.”‘Long-term impact’ on US familiesInside the HHS, the Administration for Children and Families is responsible for enforcing court-ordered child-support payments. For every dollar it receives in federal funding, ACF says it is able to collect $5 in child support.A child-support specialist with the HHS, who requested to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation, said reductions in force at the department have increased workloads on those who were not fired by multiple times, making it so state and tribal agencies have no way of ensuring they are compliant with federal requirements.“The regional staff with direct oversight of the program are gone,” they said. “There are entire regions that have two staff members managing a quarter of the work for the program with no management, no support, no knowledge of the program.”After the Trump administration took office, the agency was under an unofficial stop-work order, where staff were not permitted to provide guidance or support to grantees or even answer phones, until late February, the specialist said. A reduction in force followed on 1 April, when, the child-support specialist claimed, about half the ACF staff working on child support were fired.Their department is responsible for overseeing child-support programs at state, tribal and local levels. States “could very well lose millions of dollars in funding” if ACF does not provide key training and assistance and the states do not have qualified staff, the specialist cautioned. “And that is the long-term impact to vulnerable children and families in the country.”They added: “The entire function of the program is to give economic stability to children and families, so that they do not depend on any other government program, or their reliance on these programs is lower, because the children are supported by both parents.”‘A living hell’At the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, also within the HHS, one of 300 workers terminated as part of a reduction in force claimed it had been illegal, and had not followed any proper procedures. The National Treasury Employees Union has filed a grievance over how the firings were carried out, including incorrect information on notices.They explained that, on 1 April, they received a generic letter informing them of an intent of reduction in force. Hours later, they were locked out of their government logins. “We started emailing the management that was left, trying to get clarification on what our status was. Nobody could give us an answer,” the worker said.On 7 April, they discovered through their paystub that they had been placed on administrative leave, despite never receiving a notice. They didn’t receive an RIF notice until weeks later, after requesting it.“Based on my tenure, and as a disabled veteran, I should at least have a chance of reassignment,” they said. “I’m not mad about losing my job. It happens. I’ve been laid off. The first time was in the private sector, and it was way more humane, more empathetic, and I was given different offers.“This, on the other hand, is unbridled hate. This administration has gone out of their way to make it a living hell for all of its public servants.” More

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      How ‘revenge of the Covid contrarians’ unleashed by RFK Jr puts broader vaccine advances at risk

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      The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, entered office with a pledge to tackle the US’s chronic disease epidemic and give infectious disease a “break”. In at least one of those goals, Kennedy has been expeditious.Experts said as Kennedy makes major cuts in public health in his first weeks in office, the infrastructure built to mitigate Covid-19 has become a clear target – an aim that has the dual effect of weakening immunization efforts as the US endures the largest measles outbreak since 2000.“If his goal is to undermine public health infrastructure, he’s making strides there,” said Dorit Reiss, a University of California Law School professor whose research focuses on vaccine law. “If his goal is combating chronic diseases – he’s not doing very well.”The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has been characterized by upheaval since Kennedy and the billionaire Elon Musk’s unofficial “department of government efficiency” (Doge) cumulatively axed 20,000 jobs – roughly a quarter of the 82,000-person workforce.And it appears that turmoil will continue: a leaked budget memo shows the administration poised to propose a budget cut of another $40bn, or roughly one-third of the department’s discretionary spending.Amid the cuts, attacks on Covid-19 infrastructure have proven thematic, and show the administration’s hostility toward work that once mitigated the virus. That’s included attacking promising vaccine platforms and elevating once-ostracized voices to high-level roles.“The Covid-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago,” a spokesperson for HHS told the Guardian in response to questions about its strategy.“HHS is prioritizing funding projects that will deliver on President Trump’s mandate to address our chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again.”Gregg Gonsalves, a Yale University associate professor and infectious disease epidemiologist, calls this strategy the “revenge of the Covid contrarians”.“They’re not interested in the science, they’re interested in their conclusions and having the science bend to their will,” said Gonsalves. “They want to create a Potemkin village of their own making that looks like science but has nothing to do with science at all.”Among Kennedy’s changes: attacks on the promising platform that supported Covid-19 vaccine development, delayed approval of a Covid-19 vaccine, the clawing back of grants that provided local immunization support and studied vaccine safety, and elevating one-time critics of Covid-19 policy.“When the new administration came in, we were hearing even within the organization: ‘We can’t say Covid, we’re not allowed to say Covid,’” said Lori Tremmel Freeman, chief executive officer of the National Association of County and City Health Officials (Naccho), about her members’ conversations.Freeman noted that “we kind of saw the writing on the wall a couple months ago that: ‘OK, they really don’t want anything Covid-related to be pursued any more.’ Everything Covid-related is quite honestly at risk.”In the latest change, Kennedy said this week he may remove Covid-19 shots from the childhood vaccine schedule, which would probably make the shots harder to get by limiting insurance coverage.“The recommendation for children was always dubious,” Kennedy told Fox News. Although a minority of children are vaccinated, the shots are recommended, especially for immune-compromised children.Freeman believes the desire to erase the government’s Covid legacy led to HHS’s decision to claw back $11bn in public health funds from states and localities. In effect done overnight, the clawback gave local officials only hours to lay off workers, cancel immunization clinics and even stop construction projects.“That’s why we feel like the drawback of the funding occurred: Covid,” said Freeman.A spokesperson for HHS characterized this as a savings, and said most canceled awards were for Covid-19-related work.The pullback led to the cancellation of more than 50 measles immunization clinics in Texas, where the measles outbreak has already claimed the lives of two unvaccinated children, to pilot programs such as “Text4Vax”, which sent reminders about pediatric vaccines to parents.Among the canceled grants were also programs that would seem to align with Kennedy’s rhetoric about vaccine safety – among them, a study of the safety and effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines in pregnant women in California and global Covid-19 vaccine safety monitoring in New Zealand.“If you start to take away people from health departments – the immunizers, the educators, the clinicians – through some of these other funding cuts , it disables the program naturally,” said Freeman. “You can’t put as many shots in arms.”Larger cancelled grants included a $2.25bn grant program to reduce Covid-19’s impact on the people worst affected, which had been sent to states and localities from South Dakota to Florida and the Virgin Islands to Vermont.Under Kennedy’s watch, HHS has also taken the unusual step of delaying an expected vaccine approval, reportedly under the watch of a Kennedy political appointee.The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which sits under the umbrella of HHS, delayed the expected 1 April approval of the Novavax Covid-19 vaccine. Novavax confirmed to the Guardian that its application remained on hold, and said it would have “no further comments”.Reiss said she doesn’t think “any vaccine that’s in the pipeline is going to go forward under Kennedy” or that “he will let any vaccine go far now”.Dr Tracy Hoeg, a political appointee, was reportedly involved in the decision. Hoeg also appeared as the FDA’s representative at a special advisory committee on immunizations in April, where she took the opportunity to question the efficacy of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine.An HHS spokesperson told the Guardian: “The FDA’s independent review process for the Novavax vaccine, like all vaccines, is based solely on ensuring safety and efficacy, not political considerations. Any delays are a result of scientific review, not a lack of priority. It’s important to focus on the facts rather than unfounded speculation.”Scientists have also said they fear for the future of messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine technology – the platform that underpinned the fast development of Covid-19 vaccines and that held promise for treating and preventing a wide range of diseases.Hoeg served on Florida’s public health integrity committee, which served as a platform for Covid-19 criticism during the pandemic. At the time, it was chaired by the Florida surgeon general, Dr Joseph Ladapo, who has also sown doubt about the safety and efficacy of mRNA vaccines.Hoeg could be further buttressed by insiders such as Dr Matthew Memoli, who, Kennedy said, “is going to be running Niaid [National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases]”. Memoli, whom Kennedy described as “the top flu researcher at NIH”, is known for opposition to Covid-19 vaccine mandates and declined to be vaccinated. In March, Memoli sent an email to NIH grant officials requiring any grant applications that reference mRNA technology to be reported to Kennedy’s office. He also canceled government-backed studies on vaccine hesitancy.The nominee for HHS general counsel, Michael B Stuart, is also well-known for involvement in vaccine fights. Stuart, a former West Virginia lawmaker, in 2023 proposed a bill to exempt virtual public school students from vaccine requirements and allow private schools to set their own requirements, according to Stat.“Dismantling the sort of vaccine infrastructure this country relies upon – that’s been in place for several dozens and dozens of years – only impacts the chronic disease front he’s trying to ameliorate as well,” said James Hodge, a professor of law at Arizona State University and a health law expert who said he worries about the future of vaccine advisory committees. “Acquiring infectious diseases leads to chronic conditions later.”Still, some of Kennedy’s most ardent supporters and reported informal advisers, such as the former cardiologist Peter McCullough, have argued these actions don’t go far enough.“The big threat is that we still have Covid-19 vaccines on the market,” McCullough told KFF Health News. “It’s horrendous. I would not hesitate – I would just pull it. What’s he waiting for?” McCullough did not respond to requests for comment from the Guardian. More

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      The Trump administration is sabotaging your scientific data | Jonathan Gilmour

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      United States science has propelled the country into its current position as a powerhouse of biomedical advancements, technological innovation and scientific research. The data US government agencies produce is a crown jewel – it helps us track how the climate is changing, visualize air pollution in our communities, identify challenges to our health and provide a panoply of other essential uses. Climate change, pandemics and novel risks are coming for all of us – whether we bury our heads in the sand or not – and government data is critical to our understanding of the risks these challenges bring and how to address them.Much of this data remains out of sight to those who don’t use it, even though they benefit us all. Over the past few months, the Trump administration has brazenly attacked our scientific establishment through agency firings, censorship and funding cuts, and it has explicitly targeted data the American taxpayers have paid for. They’re stealing from us and putting our health and wellbeing in danger – so now we must advocate for these federal resources.That’s why we at the Public Environmental Data Partners are working to preserve critical environmental data. We are a coalition of non-profits, academic institutions, researchers and volunteers who work with federal data to support policy, research, advocacy and litigation work. We are one node in an expansive web of organizations fighting for the data American taxpayers have funded and that benefits us all. The first phase of our work has been to identify environmental justice tools and datasets at risk through conversations with environmental justice groups, current and former employees in local, state, and federal climate and environment offices, and researchers. To date, we have saved over a hundred priority datasets and have reproduced six tools.We’re not fighting for data for data’s sake; we’re fighting for data because it helps us make sense of the world.The utility of many of these datasets and tools comes from the fact that they are routinely updated. While our efforts ensure that we have snapshots of these critical data sources and tools, it will be a huge loss if these cease to be updated entirely. That’s why we are “life rafting” tools outside of government – standing up copies of them on publicly accessible, non-government pages – hoping that we can return them to a future administration that cares about human and environmental health and does not view science as a threat.The second phase is to develop these tools, advocate for better data infrastructure, and increase public engagement. There’s a question of scope – if the government stops sharing National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration data, we don’t have the resources to start monitoring and tracking hurricanes. For many of these critical data sources, the government is the only entity with the resources to collect and publish this data – think about the thousands of weather stations set up around the world or the global air pollution monitors or the spray of satellites orbiting the earth. On the other hand, we do have the expertise to build environmental justice tools that better serve the communities that have borne the brunt of environmental injustice, by co-creating with those communities and by building from what we have saved from the government – like the Council on Environmental Quality’s CEJST, the Environmental Protection Agency’s EJScreen, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Social Vulnerability and Environmental Justice tools.A common refrain of the saboteurs is that if these functions that they are targeting are important enough, the states or the private sector will step in to fill the gap. While some of these functions of the federal government are replicable outside of government, privatization will render them less accessible, more expensive and subject to the whims of the markets. The states can also step in and fill some gaps – but many of the biggest challenges that we’re facing are best tackled by a strong federal government. Furthermore, many states are happily joining this anti-science crusade. The climate crisis and pandemics don’t stop politely at state borders. If data collection is left up to the states, the next pandemic will not leave a state untouched because it dismantled its public health department – but such actions will leave a gaping hole in our understanding of the risks to the residents of that state and its neighbors. What’s more, some states do not have the resources to stand up the infrastructure required to shoulder the burden of data collection. Coordination between federal and state governments is essential.Data is being stolen from us; our ability to understand the world is being stolen from us. Americans will die because the Trump administration is abdicating its responsibility to the people – this censorship regime will have dire consequences. That’s why we must stand up for science, we must be loud about the importance of federal data and we must put the brakes on Trump’s un-American agenda.

      Jonathan Gilmour is a data scientist at Harvard’s TH Chan School of Public Health, a fellow at the Aspen Policy Academy, and coordinator at the Public Environmental Data Partners. More