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Kennedy Wants to Limit CDC’s Role to Infectious Diseases
A day after nine former directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) wrote that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s actions at the agency are “unlike anything our country has ever experienced,” he pushed back in a Wall Street Journal editorial.
The CDC “was once the world’s most trusted guardian of public health,” Kennedy wrote Tuesday in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. “Its mission — protecting Americans from infectious disease — was clear and noble. But over the decades, bureaucratic inertia, politicized science and mission creep have corroded that purpose and squandered public trust.”
He argues the agency should return to its original focus on infectious diseases, shifting away from efforts to improve public health by moving programs focused on chronic disease like diabetes or heart disease away from the CDC.
He described the nation’s response to the pandemic as a “failure,” saying public health officials prioritized “cloth masks on toddlers, arbitrary 6-foot distancing, boosters for healthy children, prolonged school closings, economy-crushing lockdowns, and the suppression of low-cost therapeutics in favor of experimental and ineffective drugs.”
“The CDC must restore public trust — and that restoration has begun,” he wrote.
Exclusive: Kennedy’s Autism Data Project Draws More Than 100 Research Proposals, Sources Say
Researchers have submitted more than 100 proposals to participate in the Trump administration’s $50 million study into possible causes of autism, with a list of up to 25 grant winners expected to be announced by the end of September, people with knowledge of the plans told Reuters.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the Autism Data Science Initiative in May, and put the National Institutes of Health in charge of it. The program aims to mine large datasets to investigate possible contributors to autism and evaluate the outcomes of existing treatments.
CDC’s New Acting Director Jim O’Neill Faces Looming Decisions on Vaccines
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is at a crossroads. Last week, CDC Director Susan Monarez was ousted less than a month into her tenure after resisting Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s push to align with his vaccine policy agenda. Within hours, three senior leaders — including the chief medical officer and the heads of vaccine safety and respiratory infections — resigned in protest.
Their exits capped weeks of mounting tension: biased scientific reviews, the withdrawal of key documents, and a shooting at CDC headquarters tied to COVID-19 misinformation. Hundreds of staff publicly applauded the departing scientists in a rare “clap-out.” Into that vacuum stepped Jim O’Neill, deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), now installed as acting CDC director. O’Neill’s résumé breaks sharply with CDC tradition. A Bush-era HHS official turned Silicon Valley investor, he is neither a physician nor a scientist — an unusual profile for the agency’s top post.
He is expected to retain his deputy role at HHS while leading the CDC. After his early government service, O’Neill spent nearly two decades in close partnership with billionaire Peter Thiel, managing his funds, directing the Thiel Foundation, and co-founding the Thiel Fellowship. He also led the SENS Research Foundation, a nonprofit focused on anti-aging science. In June, he returned to Washington as deputy secretary; he now holds that position alongside his role as CDC director.
ACIP to Review COVID, Hep B, and MMRV Vaccine Recommendations at September Meeting
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has posted the agenda for the upcoming meeting of its Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). The ACIP meeting, to be held on Sept. 18 and 19 at CDC headquarters in Atlanta, will include discussions and possible votes on recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines; hepatitis B vaccine; measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella, or MMRV, vaccine; and respiratory syncytial virus.
The ACIP will also provide updates on its work groups. But in a new development today spurred by recent upheaval at the CDC, a U.S. senator is calling for the meeting to be postponed.
The meeting is the second of the newly reconstituted ACIP, which now includes seven members handpicked by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who fired the 17 sitting members of the group in June. Several of the new members of the group share Kennedy’s anti-vaccine views.
Rep. Higgins Urges End to Federal Funding of Organizations That Support COVID-19 Vaccinations in Children
Louisiana’s Republican Representative Clay Higgins delivered a letter Monday urging a House subcommittee to ban federal funding for organizations that he says push the COVID-19 vaccine for children.
In a letter to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health, and Human Services, Higgins accused the American Academy of Pediatrics of using its platform to “encourage the COVID-19 shot and influence state health departments’ recommended pediatric immunization schedules, now contrary to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s [CDC’s] guidance.”
The CDC in May, under the direction of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., removed COVID-19 vaccinations from the lists of shots recommended for healthy pregnant women and children, ending the years-long recommendation.
At the time, Kennedy posted on X that the country was now “one step closer to realizing President Trump’s promise to make America healthy again.”
Rep. Higgins wants to include language in the annual Labor, Health, and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act that would prohibit federal funding of any program that encourages the COVID-19 vaccine in children and adolescents.
‘No Powerful Solutions’: Nutrition Experts Explore Draft MAHA Strategy’s Priorities and Impact
Public debate on the recently leaked draft Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy is bubbling, with criticism about its impact on addressing children’s chronic diseases. The report, by the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission, identifies public health priorities and calls to expand research, but experts argue it lacks actionable solutions for tangible health improvements. They also question proposed reforms to the generally recognized as safe, or GRAS, framework.
Nutrition Insight discusses initial feedback and criticism on the draft MAHA strategy with Mary Story, Ph.D., a registered dietitian and director of Healthy Eating Research, and the Council for Responsible Nutrition. “The commission should carefully consider the criticisms raised and revise the report. Priority areas need to be defined and timelines established.”
