Top Democrat Blames RFK Jr. for ‘Emergency’ Measles Outbreak; The Daily Beast, July 11, 2025

Sarah Ewall-Wice , The Daily Beast ; Top Democrat Blames RFK Jr. for ‘Emergency’ Measles Outbreak

"“Under your tutelage as Secretary, you have undermined vaccines, gutted public health funding, and dismantled core federal protections meant to keep Americans safe,” Schumer wrote. 

“By destabilizing the nation’s infectious disease response infrastructure via conducting mass layoffs including infectious disease scientists, indiscriminately issuing careless and devastating grant freezes and rescissions, and politicizing the overhaul of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), you have walked our country into the nation’s largest measles outbreak in 33 years,” he continued.

The senator noted that the record number of measles cases comes 25 years after measles was eliminated in 2000, but cases have been on the rise amid an increase in vaccine skepticism."

Medical Societies Sue Kennedy and H.H.S. Over Vaccine Advice; The New York Times, July 7, 2025

Apoorva Mandavilli, The New York Times; Medical Societies Sue Kennedy and H.H.S. Over Vaccine Advice

 "Six leading medical organizations filed a lawsuit on Monday against Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, and the federal Department of Health and Human Services, charging that recent decisions limiting access to vaccines were unscientific and harmful to the public.

The suit, filed in federal court in western Massachusetts, seeks to restore Covid vaccines to the list of recommended immunizations for healthy children and pregnant women.

Mr. Kennedy has been on a “decades-long mission” to undermine vaccines and to portray them as more dangerous than the illnesses they are designed to prevent, said Richard H. Hughes IV, a lawyer who teaches vaccine law at George Washington University and is leading the effort.

“The secretary’s intentions are clear,” Mr. Hughes said: “He aims to destroy vaccines.”

The plaintiffs include the American Public Health Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American College of Physicians, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine and the Massachusetts Public Health Alliance."

RFK Jr. wants everyone to use wearables. What are the benefits, risks?; ABC News, July 3, 2025

Mary Kekatos , ABC News; RFK Jr. wants everyone to use wearables. What are the benefits, risks?

[Kip Currier: Probably not a good idea, given the current administration's documented disregard for the rights of people to control access to their own data.

See here, here, here, and here.]

[Excerpt]

"Last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the agency was launching a campaign to encourage all Americans to use wearables to track health metrics.

Wearables come in the form of watches, bands, rings, patches and clothes that can be used for a variety of reasons including monitoring glucose levels, measuring activity levels, track heart health and observe sleeping patterns.

"It's a way … people can take control over their own heath. They can take responsibility," Kennedy said during a hearing of the House Subcommittee on Health."

Kennedy Withdraws U.S. Funding Pledge to International Vaccine Agency; The New York Times, June 25, 2025

Stephanie Nolen , The New York Times; Kennedy Withdraws U.S. Funding Pledge to International Vaccine Agency

"The U.S. health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has moved to undermine public immunization programs in the United States, took his efforts global on Wednesday, accusing the leading international vaccine organization of having “ignored the science” in immunizing children around the world.

In confrontational remarks sent by video to global leaders who had gathered to support the organization, Gavi, Mr. Kennedy said the United States would withdraw its financial support for the group’s work purchasing vaccines for children in poor countries...

In the video, which was played in the last minutes of the summit, Mr. Kennedy accused Gavi’s leaders of being selective in their use of science to support vaccine choices, and said that the United States would not deliver on a $1.2 billion pledge made by the Biden administration until the organization changed its processes...

In a statement, Gavi’s leaders rejected the suggestion that its vaccine purchases were driven by anything other than the best available evidence.

“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’s statement said. “This ensures Gavi investments are grounded in the best available science and public health priorities.”

Dr. Atul Gawande, a surgeon who led global health work in the Biden administration, called Mr. Kennedy’s remarks “stunning and calamitous.”"

See Vaccine Recommendations Backed by Science in These Handy Charts; Scientific American, June 25, 2025

 JEN CHRISTIANSEN & MEGHAN BARTELS EDITED BY SARAH LEWIN FRASIER , Scientific American; See Vaccine Recommendations Backed by Science in These Handy Charts

"Vaccines are a marvel of modern medicine: the carefully tested and regulated technologies teach people’s immune systems how to fight off potentially fatal infections, saving both lives and health care costs.

But for as long as vaccines have existed, people have opposed them, and in recent years the antivaccine movement has gained visibility and power. Now the Department of Health and Human Services is led by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.—an environmental lawyer with no medical training and a history of antivaccine activism. And these lifesaving medical interventions are coming under threat.

Access to COVID vaccines this fall is already expected to be limited to people aged 65 years or older and to those with underlying health conditions that make them more vulnerable to severe disease. And in June Kennedy dismissed all 17 sitting members of a crucial vaccine oversight group, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which, in the past, has made independent, science-based recommendations on vaccine access for people in the U.S. The dismissals came just weeks before the panel’s next scheduled meeting; Kennedy appointed eight new members in advance of the meeting, which is still set to begin on June 25.

As a public resource, Scientific American has created graphics outlining the vaccines recommended by ACIP as of its final meeting in 2024.

Vaccine recommendations have always been in flux as new products have been developed and continuing research has suggested better practices: The COVID pandemic required brand-new vaccines for a novel virus, for example. And in the U.S., the stunning success of the HPV (human papillomavirus) vaccine led to its recommendation for everyone aged 26 or younger, meanwhile the oral polio vaccine was discontinued in favor of the inactivated injected vaccine.

But traditionally, these decisions have been made by scientists based on solid research done within the confines of accepted ethical practices. These principles mean, for example, that a vaccine’s side effects are carefully monitored and evaluated against its immune benefit and that potential replacement vaccines are tested against their predecessors, not—as Kennedy has proposed—an inert placebo that would leave people vulnerable to an infection that doctors already have the tools to combat."

The plan to vaccinate all Americans, despite RFK Jr.; The Washington Post, June 24, 2025

 

 Lena H. Sun

 and 

Rachel Roubein

, The Washington Post; The plan to vaccinate all Americans, despite RFK Jr.

"Professional medical societies, pharmacists, state health officials and vaccine manufacturers, as well as a new advocacy group, are mobilizing behind the scenes to preserve access for vaccines as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. works to upend the nation’s decades-old vaccine system, according to public health experts.

The groups are discussing ordering vaccines directly from manufacturers and giving greater weight to vaccine recommendations from medical associations. And they are asking insurance companies to continue covering shots based on professional societies’ guidance instead of the federal government’s, according to more than a dozen people familiar with the conversations, including some who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private discussions.

The moves come as Kennedy has replaced members of the key federal vaccine advisory panel to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that decides which vaccines are recommended for whom and whether they’ll be covered by insurance. Kennedy fired the 17-member committee earlier this month and handpicked eight new members,several of whom are vaccine critics."

Cassidy, in Break With Kennedy, Calls for Vaccine Meeting Delay; The New York Times, June 24, 2025

Sheryl Gay Stolberg , The New York Times; Cassidy, in Break With Kennedy, Calls for Vaccine Meeting Delay

"The chairman of the Senate health committee, in his first significant break with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has called for a delay in this week’s meeting of a panel of vaccine advisers, saying the group Mr. Kennedy appointed lacks the experience and diversity of opinion necessary to ensure public faith in its recommendations.

The chairman, Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, made his comments in a social media post on Monday night. Mr. Cassidy, a physician and a strong proponent of vaccines, voted reluctantly to confirm Mr. Kennedy after announcing that the secretary had agreed to consult with him on significant matters and not to disband the advisory committee. The senator has carefully parsed his words about Mr. Kennedy.

“Although the appointees to ACIP have scientific credentials, many do not have significant experience studying microbiology, epidemiology or immunology,” Mr. Cassidy wrote, using the acronym for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“In particular,” Mr. Cassidy added, “some lack experience studying new technologies such as mRNA vaccines, and may even have a preconceived bias against them.”"

US experts fear all vaccines at risk as Trump officials target mRNA jabs; The Guardian, June 14, 2025

Melody Schreiber, The Guardian ; US experts fear all vaccines at risk as Trump officials target mRNA jabs

[Kip Currier: How tragic that so many will suffer preventable ailments and some will die needlessly because of vaccine misinformation and disinformation and conspiracy theories fueled by quack science.]

[Excerpt]

"As top US health officials turn against some mRNA vaccines, experts fear for the country’s preparedness for the next pandemic and worry that other vaccines will be targeted next.

Donald Trump’s administration recently canceled a $766m award to Moderna on the research and development of H5N1 bird flu vaccines, and officials have announced new restrictions and regulations for Covid mRNA vaccines – actions that signal a move away from the breakthrough technology.

These changes add to other vaccine-related shakeups at health agencies, including layoffs and resignations of top vaccine officials and the abrupt termination of HIV vaccine research.

On Monday, Robert F Kennedy Jr, secretary of health and human services, announced he was disbanding the independent advisory committee on vaccines for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“I think mRNA vaccines are particularly at risk, although I think all vaccines are at risk,” said Paul Offit, professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.

“I think that this administration will do everything it can to make vaccines less available, less affordable and more feared.”"

Kennedy has caused irreparable harm to vaccines; The Washington Post, June 13, 2025

Leana S. Wen, The Washington Post ; Kennedy has caused irreparable harm to vaccines

"Robert F. Kennedy Jr. this week put to rest any doubt about his intent to use his perch as health and human services secretary to advance his long-standing anti-vaccine agenda. In an unprecedented move, Kennedy fired all 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s key vaccine advisory committee. He has since named eightreplacements, at least two of whom are outspoken vaccine skeptics.

One of them is Robert Malone, who became known during the pandemic as a prominent critic of coronavirus vaccines, suggesting, among other falsehoods, that they cause a form of AIDS. More recently, he claimedthat a Texas child who died of measles had not actually succumbed to the disease. Another pick is Vicky Pebsworth, who blames vaccines for causing her son’s autism. She has praised discredited former physician Andrew Wakefield, whose fraudulent research falsely linked vaccines to autism, and represented organizations that question vaccine safety.

Less is known about some of the other committee members’ vaccine views or, with the exception of infectious-disease specialist Cody Meissner, what makes them qualified to advise the CDC on vaccine recommendations. No matter what the newly restructured panel — known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP — decides, Kennedy will have already achieved his goal of causing irreparable harm to the CDC and eroding the public’s trust in vaccines."

RFK Jr. Conducts His Vaccine Purge: His claims about conflicts of interest proved to be nothing.; Wall Street Journal, June 10, 2025

The Editorial Board , Wall Street Journal; RFK Jr. Conducts His Vaccine Purge: His claims about conflicts of interest proved to be nothing.

"We’d like to conclude we were wrong to oppose Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to run the Health and Human Services Department, but alas, no. The latest evidence is his purge of a vaccine advisory panel."

RFK Jr. fires CDC’s independent vaccine advisors; The Hill, June 9, 2025

 NATHANIEL WEIXEL , The Hill; RFK Jr. fires CDC’s independent vaccine advisors

"Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he is removing every member of the independent panel advising the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccines, an unprecedented escalation in his quest to reshape the agency.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed released Monday, Kennedy said the move was necessary to restore faith in vaccines. 

“A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science,” Kennedy wrote. 

“The public must know that unbiased science—evaluated through a transparent process and insulated from conflicts of interest—guides the recommendations of our health agencies,” Kennedy said in a subsequent statement. 

Kennedy said removing every member of the panel will give the Trump administration an opportunity to appoint its own members. Kennedy has long accused ACIP members of having conflicts of interest, sparking concern among vaccine advocates that he would seek to install members who are far more skeptical of approving new vaccines."

White House MAHA Report may have garbled science by using AI, experts say; The Washington Post, May 29, 2025

Lauren Weber

 and 

Caitlin Gilbert

, The Washington Post ; White House MAHA Report may have garbled science by using AI, experts say

"Some of the citations that underpin the science in the White House’s sweeping “MAHA Report” appear to have been generated using artificial intelligence, resulting in numerous garbled scientific references and invented studies, AI experts said Thursday.

Of the 522 footnotes to scientific research in an initial version of the report sent to The Washington Post, at least 37 appear multiple times, according to a review of the report by The Post. Other citations include the wrong author, and several studies cited by the extensive health report do not exist at all, a fact first reported by the online news outlet NOTUS on Thursday morning.

Some references include “oaicite” attached to URLs — a definitive sign that the research was collected using artificial intelligence. The presence of “oaicite” is a marker indicating use of OpenAI, a U.S. artificial intelligence company."