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RFK Jr. Fires ‘Opening Salvo’ on Vaccine Status Quo
Public health experts say Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is exactly who they thought he was.
The U.S. Health and Human Services secretary — who is also the nation’s most well-known vaccine skeptic — is remaking the agency in his image, casting doubt on the benefits of vaccines, and erecting new barriers that will make it harder for people who want shots to get them, like requiring new vaccines to be tested against placebos.
During his confirmation hearings and other recent congressional testimony, Kennedy sought to distance himself from the anti-vaccine movement. He argued he is simply seeking good data about vaccine safety. He assured lawmakers he would not take away anyone’s vaccines and specifically pledged to Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) that he would not make any changes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory panel.
While testifying at a House Appropriations Committee hearing on May 14, Kennedy said his views on vaccines were “irrelevant.”
Texas Lawmakers Approve Making Vaccine Exemption Process Easier
Instead of waiting for the state to send you a vaccine exemption form, parents may soon print and fill out the form if they want to skip any school-required shots. This decision is now in the hands of Gov. Greg Abbott.
Marta Castaneda just had her first baby a few months ago. As a new mom, she’s had to make numerous decisions. “As we’ve become new parents we’ve had to think about things we haven’t had to think about before in all aspects of life,” Castaneda said.
One decision she does not take lightly, she said, is deciding when her child will get recommended vaccines.
“When it comes to vaccinations, it’s a term of like having an understanding of what do we know and how do we feel about things versus doing research and people on medical websites and non-medical websites, and talking to doctors, there’s a lot of information out there and that makes it really challenging to know what you want to do,” Castaneda said.
The bill is now awaiting Abbott’s signature, and it is aimed at making school vaccine exemptions easier.
Morrisey Defends Executive Order on School Vaccine Exemptions
In his first public reaction to a lawsuit filed last week, Gov. Patrick Morrisey said that his executive order allowing for religious and philosophical exemptions to West Virginia’s mandatory immunization program for entering public and private schools was not violating state law.
During a press conference Wednesday afternoon at the State Capitol Building, Morrisey said his executive order instead clarifies State Code based on legislation passed in 2023 that prohibits excessive government limitations on the exercise of religious faith.
“I think that there’s been a mischaracterization of our position,” Morrisey said. “The executive order interprets the law that was passed by the Legislature, so it’s interpreting both the laws together. You can’t just ignore the laws.”
Warren Presses Hegseth About Fluoridation’s Impact on Readiness
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., has sent a letter pressing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for answers about how potentially ending fluoride use in drinking water, as recently championed by the Trump administration’s health care chief, could undermine military readiness.
Warren’s Thursday letter comes as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said he plans to direct the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to stop recommending fluoride be added to drinking water in communities nationwide.
Kennedy said he’s assembling a task force of health experts to study the issue and make new recommendations. Kennedy, who has called fluoride a “dangerous neurotoxin,” has blamed the fluoridation of drinking water on health issues, including arthritis, bone breaks and thyroid disease, according to The Associated Press.
“These attacks on the use of fluoride for dental health present a serious readiness problem,” Warren wrote in her letter, adding that Sean O’Keefe, the administration’s nominee to be deputy under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, has said “dental health issues are often the largest cause of non-deployability within a military unit.”
CDC Told Health Providers Not to Treat After East Palestine Derailment: Lawsuit
Two years after the Norfolk Southern train derailment in East Palestine and the subsequent toxic plume of smoke that devastated the area, a lawsuit against the transport company alleges a conspiracy to deny health care to those impacted. Tara Hicks, Christa Graves and Lonnie Miller are among the 793 East Palestine residents involved in the litigation against Norfolk Southern and more than 50 other defendants, including state and local agencies, involved in the investigation and cleanup.
The lawsuit alleges a conspiracy to deny health care on behalf of Vanguard, BlackRock, Mercy Health and Quest. “We’ve been lied to from the beginning,” said Hicks. “They’ve said everything is fine when we know that that’s not the case. And now we’re finding out for a fact that we were right. We’ve been poisoned.”
The lawsuit cites the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for “failure to ensure proper public health response, testing, and medical support for the affected residents of East Palestine.” It also alleges the CDC “negligently instructed health professionals and testing facilities not to test for dioxins and other toxic chemicals, denying residents accurate diagnosis and critical medical care.”
FDA Commissioner Evades Questions on Covid Shot, Calls CDC Panel a ‘Kangaroo Court’
In an interview meant to clarify the federal government’s position on COVID-19 vaccines, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Marty Makary had few answers. Instead, he urged Americans to consult with their doctors.
In a Sunday appearance on CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” Makary said the data on COVID-19 shots in healthy children and pregnant people are mixed, and said the decision on whether to get vaccinated should be between patients and their doctors. He also called the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) independent vaccine advisory panel a “kangaroo court” that “rubber-stamps” every vaccine.
The Trump administration has made several moves to restrict COVID-19 vaccine access in recent weeks, with the FDA planning to limit use of the vaccines to people 65 and older or those with risk factors, and health secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. unilaterally pulling a CDC recommendation that healthy children and pregnant people should get COVID-19 shots.
Although other countries, including many in Europe, have stopped recommending the vaccines for healthy children, the U.S. decisions on children and other populations bypassed normal regulatory processes that involve input from the public and from outside experts. The moves don’t make the shots entirely unavailable, but may affect whether insurers pick up the bill.
Trump Administration Ending Multiple HIV Vaccine Studies, Scientists and Officials Say
The Trump administration has moved to end funding for a broad swath of HIV vaccine research, saying current approaches are enough to counter the virus, multiple scientists and federal health officials say. Notifications that the funding would not be extended were relayed Friday to researchers, who were told by National Institutes of Health (NIH) officials that the Department of Health and Human Services had elected “to go with currently available approaches to eliminate HIV” instead.
The cuts will shutter two major HIV vaccine research efforts that were first funded by the NIH in 2012 at the Duke Human Vaccine Institute and the Scripps Research Institute, multiple scientists said. A spokesperson for Moderna said the vaccine manufacturer’s clinical trials through the NIH’s HIV Vaccine Trials Network have also been put on pause.
One senior NIH official said the HHS had also instructed the agency not to issue any more funding in the next fiscal year for HIV vaccine research, with only a small handful of exceptions.
