Welcome to Public Health Watch, a weekly roundup from Protect Our Care tracking catastrophic activity as part of Donald Trump’s sweeping war on health care. From installing anti-vaccine zealot RFK Jr. as Secretary of HHS to empowering Elon Musk to make indiscriminate cuts to our public health infrastructure, including the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control, Donald Trump is endangering the lives of millions of Americans. Protect Our Care’s Public Health Watch will shine a spotlight on the worst of the Trump/RFK/Musk war on vaccines, science and public health and serve as a resource for the press, public and advocacy groups to hold them accountable.
Upcoming Events
March 10: RFK Jr. will meet with executives at major food companies, including Pepsi and General Mills
March 13: Confirmation hearing for Dave Weldon’s nomination to lead the CDC. Committee votes on the leadership for NIH and FDA.
March 14: Confirmation hearing for Dr. Oz’s nomination to lead CMS.
March 14: Government funding expires at midnight.
What’s Happening In Public Health?
Catastrophic Cuts Are Creating Chaos And Endangering Americans’ Health And Scientific Innovation
Associated Press: Federal judge blocks drastic funding cuts to medical research A federal judge on Wednesday blocked the Trump administration from drastically cutting medical research funding that many scientists say will endanger patients and cost jobs. The new National Institutes of Health policy would strip research groups of hundreds of millions of dollars to cover so-called indirect expenses of studying Alzheimer’s, cancer, heart disease and a host of other illnesses — anything from clinical trials of new treatments to basic lab research that is the foundation for discoveries. Separate lawsuits filed by a group of 22 states plus organizations representing universities, hospitals and research institutions nationwide sued to stop the cuts, saying they would cause “irreparable harm.”
- Boston Globe: NIH abruptly terminates millions in research grants, defying court orders In an unprecedented move, the National Institutes of Health is abruptly terminating millions of dollars in research awards to scientists in Massachusetts and around the country, citing the Trump administration’s new restrictions on funding anything related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, transgender issues, or research that could potentially benefit universities in China. The sweeping actions would appear to violate court rulings from federal judges in Rhode Island and Washington, D.C., that block the Trump administration from freezing or ending billions of dollars in government spending, said David Super, a constitutional law expert at Georgetown Law, who reviewed some of the termination letters at the Globe’s request.
NBC: HHS sends all employees a $25,000 voluntary buyout offer Health and Human Services employees were offered voluntary buyouts to resign from their jobs on Friday night, according to a person who received the email and an administration official. The agency’s approximately 80,000 employees received an unsigned email Friday night offering them a “voluntary separation incentive payment,” with a deadline to respond set for Friday, March 14. The White House and the Department of Health and Human Services didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Stat: NIH has paused patenting of discoveries, slowing their use in developing treatments Clampdowns on external communications and new contracts at the National Institutes of Health by President Trump’s administration — which have effectively slowed the flow of grant funding to a trickle — are also blocking the agency from sharing research materials with collaborators and taking crucial steps to ensure the discoveries its own scientists are making can later be used in the development of drugs and vaccines. For the past five weeks, employees at NIH technology transfer offices have been barred from filing new patent applications and been restricted from licensing existing ones, according to emails obtained by STAT and interviews with current and former NIH employees.
Washington Post: NIH reels with fear, uncertainty about future of scientific research In just six weeks, the Trump administration overturned NIH’s leadership, slowed its main mission of identifying the best new science to fund and silenced personnel at the biggest sponsor of biomedical research in the world — a nearly $48 billion enterprise that supports the work of some 300,000 external scientists. “It’s terrible. It’s awful. People are afraid to open their emails,” one NIH senior scientist said.
Wired: Trump’s FDA Cuts Are Putting Drug Development at Risk Budget and staffing cuts at the Food and Drug Administration orchestrated by President Donald Trump could prevent new drugs “from being developed, approved, or commercialized in a timely manner, or at all,” according to dozens of annual reports sent by pharmaceutical companies to the Securities and Exchange Commission in late February. “The Trump Administration has enacted several executive actions that could impose significant burdens on, or otherwise materially delay, the FDA’s ability to engage in routine regulatory and oversight activities,” says one filing from Xenon Pharmaceuticals, a company based in Canada that researches treatments for epilepsy. “If these executive actions impose constraints on the FDA’s ability to engage in oversight and implementation activities in the normal course, our business may be negatively affected.”
CNN: CDC firings undermine public health work far beyond Washington The Trump administration’s sudden firing of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employees gutted training programs across the nation whose participants bolstered the workforce of state and local public health departments that for decades have been starved of resources. The programs are designed to cultivate a new generation of public health leaders, many of whom have gone on to work at the CDC. That was far from its only purpose. Local and state officials said the departures threaten to undermine the nation’s constant effort to identify and control infectious disease outbreaks. The terminated CDC employees helped prevent and respond to outbreaks such as dengue fever and the flu. They worked with local officials to quickly test for viruses and ensure that testing in public health labs complies with federal regulations. Others monitored potential cases of tuberculosis or provided health education to adolescents to prevent sexually transmitted infections, according to interviews with fired workers and local public health officials.
KFF Health News: Trump Vowed To End Surprise Medical Bills. The Office Working on That Just Got Slashed. As President Donald Trump wrapped up his first term in 2020, he signed legislation to protect Americans from surprise medical bills. “This must end,” Trump said. “We’re going to hold insurance companies and hospitals totally accountable.” But the president’s wide-ranging push to slash government spending, led by billionaire Elon Musk, is weakening the federal office charged with implementing the No Surprises Act. Some 15% of those working at the federal Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, or CCIIO, were fired two weeks ago, according to the agency’s former deputy director in charge of operations, Jeff Grant. And while the full impact of the cutbacks is still coming into focus, the retrenchment is threatening work at an agency already laboring to run an overstretched system for resolving sometimes very large bills from out-of-network medical providers.
NOTUS: The Trump Administration Shut Down Two Food Safety Committees The Trump administration disbanded two independent food safety committees without warning this week, ending ongoing research into an outbreak of bacteria in powdered infant formula and an upcoming investigation into the spread of listeria in deli meats. The Department of Agriculture ordered the members of the two advisory committees — the National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods and the National Advisory Committee on Meat and Poultry Inspection — to immediately stop all work on Thursday.
Chaotic Firings and Re-Hirings:
Cruel and Destructive Policy Changes:
RFK Jr. Is An Extreme Anti-Vaxxer Who’s Already Breaking His “Assurances” To Key Republicans To Get Confirmed
New York Times: As Measles Spreads, Kennedy Embraces Remedies Like Cod Liver Oil As a measles outbreak expands in West Texas, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary, on Tuesday cheered several unconventional treatments, including cod liver oil, but again did not urge Americans to get vaccinated. In a prerecorded interview that aired on Fox News, Mr. Kennedy said that the federal government was shipping doses of vitamin A to Gaines County, the epicenter of the outbreak, and helping to arrange ambulance rides. H.H.S. officials previously said they were shipping doses of the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine to Texas, but Mr. Kennedy did not discuss vaccination. Texas doctors had seen “very, very good results,” Mr. Kennedy claimed, by treating measles cases with a steroid, budesonide; an antibiotic called clarithromycin; and cod liver oil, which he said had high levels of vitamin A and vitamin D. While physicians sometimes administer doses of vitamin A to treat children with severe measles cases, cod liver oil is “by no means” an evidence-based treatment, said Dr. Sean O’Leary, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases.
- Mother Jones: RFK Jr. Reportedly Had a Call With Texans Helping Distribute Unproven Measles Remedies The measles outbreak underway across West Texas and New Mexico has intensified, sickening 228 people, and killing two, a child and an adult. Amid the worsening public health emergency, a local historian in Seminole, Texas, Tina Siemens, has been helping a holistic medicine clinic raise money to distribute unproven remedies to families affected by the outbreak. The same activist told Mother Jones that she had a phone call last week with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to understand the unique health challenges in the Mennonite community. Siemens said she had been working with a clinic called Veritas Wellness in Lubbock, Texas, to distribute medications, including Vitamin C, cod liver oil, and the inhaled steroid budesonide. Last week, an online fundraiser appeared to collect donations that it says will be “used to defray the cost of essential vitamins, supplements, and medicines necessary to treat children enduring complications from the measles virus and other illnesses.” The fundraiser’s website says the funds will go to Tina Siemens and it lists its creator as Brian Hooker, a biologist and the chief scientific officer of Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine advocacy group that Kennedy helmed until he ran for president
- Washington Post: RFK Jr.’s focus on vitamin A for measles worries health experts Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s focus on vitamin A use to combat a growing measles outbreak in Texas is raising concerns among public health experts, who fear he is sending the wrong message about preventing the highly contagious disease and distracting from the critical importance of vaccination. Kennedy, who in his years as an anti-vaccine activist criticized measles shots and boosted vitamin A as a treatment, is now using his government position to tout the vitamin’s accepted benefits. The Department of Health and Human Services has directed the nation’s top public health agency to add similar language to its guidance for caring for measles patients.
Politico: ‘He needs to do much more’: RFK Jr.’s measles response under scrutiny As a deadly measles outbreak spread across Texas, the nation’s top health official took to Instagram on Sunday to blast out a message to his nearly 5 million followers. “Afternoon mountaineering above Coachella Valley,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote in a caption alongside photos of himself hiking in California. The post quickly ricocheted around the department, dismaying officials working overtime to track and contain the highly contagious disease, according to two people close to the response effort granted anonymity to describe a sensitive situation. Measles had infected more than 140 people in west Texas in a matter of weeks, killing a child and fueling fears more outbreaks would soon emerge throughout the country. To his critics and even some increasingly concerned allies, the episode epitomized the worryingly casual attitude that Kennedy has taken in public toward managing the first major health crisis on his watch, according to a half-dozen current and former administration officials, outside advisers and other public health officials, most of whom were granted anonymity to speak candidly.
Reuters: Exclusive: U.S. CDC plans study into vaccines and autism, sources say The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is planning a large study into potential connections between vaccines and autism, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, despite extensive scientific research that has disproven or failed to find evidence of such links. It is unclear whether U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who has long promoted anti-vaccine views, is involved in the planned CDC study or how it would be carried out. The CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services were not immediately available for comment.
CBS: RFK Jr. warns vaccinating poultry for bird flu could backfire Federal health agencies oppose the use of bird flu vaccines in poultry right now, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said, weighing in publicly on it for the first time in his new role. The Trump administration has been considering poultry vaccination as it seeks to combat the outbreak that is fueling a record surge in egg prices. U.S. Department of Agriculture officials said last month that they were ramping up planning on potentially deploying a vaccine for poultry, with the hopes of putting a draft of the plan before trading partners “as quickly as possible,” since it could affect billions of dollars in exports. “There’s no indication that those vaccines actually provide sterilizing immunity and all three of my health agencies, NIH, CDC, and FDA, the acting heads of those agencies have all recommended against the use of the bird flu vaccine,” Kennedy said in an interview on Fox News published this week. Sterilizing immunity means vaccine protection that completely stops infections and spread. Vaccines are rarely able to offer this kind of effectiveness, though the USDA said last month it would step up investments in “potential new generation vaccines” with better protection.
Wall Street Journal: Secrecy and Turmoil Dominate RFK Jr.’s First Weeks as Health Secretary Soon after taking over as President Trump’s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. marked a small victory for his food agenda, congratulating burger chain Steak ’n Shake “for being the first national fast-food chain to begin the transition away from seed oils.” Later that same day, the social-media post was quietly deleted, after it sparked internal consternation over whether the post showed too much favoritism to one company and stole the thunder of a bigger push on seed oils, people familiar with the matter said. The moment was an early sign of the tension that has marked the first three weeks of Kennedy’s tenure at the Department of Health and Human Services, where secrecy and turmoil have curbed many initiatives.
Politico: Top HHS spokesperson quits after clashing with RFK Jr. The top spokesperson at the Health and Human Services Department has abruptly quit after clashing with Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his close aides over their management of the agency amid a growing measles outbreak, two people familiar with the matter told POLITICO. Thomas Corry announced on Monday that he had resigned “effective immediately,” just two weeks after joining the department as its assistant secretary for public affairs. “I want to announce to my friends and colleagues that last Friday I announced my resignation effective immediately,” he wrote in a post to his LinkedIn page. “To my colleagues at HHS, I wish you the best and great success.” The sudden departure was prompted by growing disagreement with Kennedy and his principal deputy chief of staff, Stefanie Spear, over their management of the health department, said the two people, who were granted anonymity to speak candidly. Corry had also grown uneasy with Kennedy’s muted response to the intensifying outbreak of measles in Texas, the people said. The outbreak has infected at least 146 people and resulted in the nation’s first death from the disease in a decade.
Axios: Kennedy’s early warning signs on vaccine policy In nearly three weeks as Health and Human Services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. certainly hasn’t allayed concerns that he’ll bring his vaccine criticism — most if not all of it unfounded — into his role as the nation’s top health care official. Why it matters: Several of Kennedy’s vaccine-related actions have stoked fears that the anti-vaccine movement has gained a powerful foothold within the federal government in the midst of a worsening measles outbreak in Texas, one of the worst flu seasons in more than a decade and a circulating bird flu virus that has pandemic potential.
Stat: RFK Jr.’s muting of public comment in HHS rules draws pushback Nearly one week after health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. moved to cut the public out of his agency’s decisionmaking process, the Department of Health and Human Services has offered little clarity on the change. Patient groups and lawmakers are pushing back as the private sector girds itself for impact. On Thursday, a coalition of nearly two dozen patient advocacy groups made public a letter asking HHS to revoke its decision and include public participation the same way it has since 1971 — the year the little-known Richardson Waiver was adopted. The waiver made it HHS practice to issue public notices and solicit feedback on proposals that were previously excluded from such a process under the Administrative Procedure Act. Basically, HHS was choosing to involve the public more often than it had to under the law, experts say.
Mediaite: RFK Jr. Announces HHS Mission to End… Anti-Semitism? U.S. Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. raised eyebrows on Monday after he announced a Health Department mission to “end anti-semitic harassment on college campuses.” “Anti-Semitism – like racism – is a spiritual and moral malady that sickens societies and kills people with lethalities comparable to history’s most deadly plagues,” wrote Kennedy in an announcement on Monday evening, adding: In recent years, the censorship and false narratives of woke cancel culture have transformed our great universities into greenhouses for this deadly and virulent pestilence. Making America healthy means building communities of trust and mutual respect, based on speech freedom and open debate. Kennedy then linked to a press release announcing a joint-effort by the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Education, and the General Services Administration to “end anti-semitic harassment on college campuses,” beginning with a “comprehensive review of Columbia University’s federal contracts and grants in light of ongoing investigations for potential violations of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.”
Reuters: Exclusive: US Marshals providing security to health secretary Kennedy, email shows The U.S. Marshals Service is providing security to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an email seen by Reuters on Wednesday showed, in what sources described as an unusual arrangement. The arrangement was disclosed in a February 12 email, in which the HHS Office of the Inspector General said it was winding down its protective services operations. The email said Attorney General Pam Bondi would arrange security for Kennedy going forward.
Disastrous, Dangerous Appointments
Bloomberg: Key Republican Disagrees With Trump CDC Pick’s Vaccine Views Maine Senator Susan Collins said she has “areas of disagreement” with President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, making the moderate Republican’s position key to the vote’s outcome. Collins expressed concern about physician Dave Weldon’s views on childhood vaccines. In his days as a former congressman, Weldon promoted the idea that a mercury-containing vaccine preservative caused children to become autistic. That runs counter to CDC’s stance that there is no link between the preservative and autism. “There are some areas of disagreement, and I look forward to the public hearing when I will be able to question him in public and in more depth on issues like vaccine recommendations,” Collins said in a brief interview with Bloomberg at the US Capitol on Wednesday. The position of CDC director will be Senate-confirmed for the first time this year. A hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee has been scheduled for March 13.
Stat: NIH nominee is ‘convinced’ vaccines don’t cause autism, but won’t rule out more studies on the issue Jay Bhattacharya, President Trump’s nominee to lead the National Institutes of Health, stated during his confirmation hearing Wednesday that he’s “convinced” by the data showing there is no link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism, but nevertheless left the door open to funding further studies investigating the question, clearly frustrating a key Republican senator. That the presumptive leader of the NIH would endorse that autism isn’t linked to vaccines would not normally be notable. But Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime vaccine critic and now the country’s health secretary, refused to say as much during his own confirmation hearing in January. If Bhattacharya is confirmed, he would work under RFK Jr.
- Politico: Democrats press Trump’s pick to lead health research to push back on DOGE Dr. Jay Bhattacharya deflected Democratic questions about whether he’d reverse the Trump administration’s slowdown in grantmaking and the firing of more than 1,000 staffers directed by Elon Musk if senators confirm him to lead the National Institutes of Health. Democrats on the Senate panel considering his nomination, with an assist from Maine Republican Susan Collins, repeatedly pressed Bhattacharya, the Stanford Medical School professor that President Donald Trump named to the job in November, to say he’d restore the pre-Trump status quo. Bhattacharya repeatedly responded that he wasn’t involved in the administration’s early moves and that he’d revisit them, follow the law and ensure NIH researchers get the money they need. But he also said it made sense for the NIH to audit how it uses its resources to restore flagging trust in public health.
New York Times: Senators Press Makary on Abortion Pills and Vaccines At a confirmation hearing for Dr. Marty Makary on Thursday, senators focused heavily on the safety of the abortion pill, with Republican lawmakers urging him to restrict access and Democratic lawmakers demanding that he maintain its current availability. Dr. Makary, President Trump’s nominee to lead the Food and Drug Administration, signaled that he shared Republicans’ concerns about the current policy, issued during the Biden administration, which expanded access by allowing people to obtain the pills without an in-person medical appointment. Several Democrats pointed to volumes of studies showing that the drugs are safe. Dr. Makary told members of the Senate health committee, which held the hearing, that he would review the pill’s safety and the policy at issue.
Mother Jones: Trump’s NIH Pick Advised South African Group That Claimed There Was No Covid Pandemic Jay Bhattacharya, the Stanford professor of medicine and economics who President Donald Trump has tapped to lead the National Institutes of Health, became prominent during the Covid pandemic as a contrarian. He was a fierce foe of the restrictive measures advocated by public health officials for combatting the deadly virus. As one of the three authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, which was developed at an October 2020 meeting of a libertarian think tank, he recommended the United States strive for Covid herd immunity through mass infection instead of fighting the disease with lockdowns, masking, and other countermeasures—a position widely opposed by medical experts as dangerous. And at the outset of Covid, he lowballed the severity of the pandemic, saying it was “likely” that the outbreak would be of a “limited scale” and cause 20,000 to 40,000 deaths, not the million or more predicted by public health officials. (Covid deaths have so far totaled 1.2 million.) During the Covid crisis, Bhattacharya’s controversial and much-criticized views became well-known. Not as public was his role advising a group in South Africa that has claimed there was no Covid pandemic and that has pushed the conspiracy theory that Covid and climate change are “fabricated global crises” orchestrated to implement “centralized control.”
New York Times: He Fought Claims of Harm From Infant Formula. Now He Regulates It. The new head of the Food and Drug Administration division that regulates infant formula was in recent months a corporate lawyer defending a top formula maker from claims that its product gave rise to debilitating harm to premature babies. Kyle A. Diamantas joined the F.D.A. last month to lead the food division, leaving the law firm Jones Day, which has served as a pipeline of talent to both Trump administrations. As a partner in Jones Day’s Miami office, Mr. Diamantas’s recent work included defending Abbott Laboratories in a lawsuit accusing the company of failing to adequately warn parents that its specialized formula for premature infants was associated with an elevated risk of a deadly bowel condition.
E&E News: Can Trump ‘Make America Healthy Again’ with this EPA? Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took the helm of the nation’s health agency this month with a promise to “Make America Healthy Again” by purging the Department of Health and Human Services of industry influence while reducing kids’ exposure to toxic chemicals. But it’s a different story at EPA, the agency tasked with regulating environmental and industrial chemicals. Political appointees who spent much of President Donald Trump’s first term rolling back regulations that prevent chemical exposure and other forms of pollution are back at the agency, in some cases bringing with them more ties to industry than they had the first time around. The appointments highlight an underlying tension inherent in Trump’s partnership with Kennedy. While Trump has vowed that EPA will enact “fair and swift deregulatory decisions,” Kennedy, a former environmental attorney turned anti-vaccine advocate, staked much of his own presidential campaign on promises to root out corporate influence across the federal government and reduce chronic diseases, in part, by reducing chemicals exposure.
Public Health Threats
Washington Post: Second death reported in growing measles outbreak An unvaccinated New Mexico adult who tested positive for measles has died, the second death in a growing measles outbreak centered along the West Texas-New Mexico border, officials said Thursday. The individual did not seek medical care before death, New Mexico health department officials said. The official cause of death is still under investigation by New Mexico’s Office of the Medical Investigator. However, the state health department scientific laboratory has confirmed the presence of the measles virus in the person, the state health department said.
New York Times: As Measles Continues to Spread in Texas, Cases Jump in New Mexico A raging measles outbreak in West Texas, which has so far killed one child, has not abated and may have taken root in New Mexico, state health officials reported on Friday. The outbreak has sickened nearly 200 people — roughly 40 more cases than were reported on Tuesday — and has left 23 hospitalized in West Texas. Local health officials say even that number may be an undercount. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary, has faced criticism for his handling of the worsening outbreak. A prominent vaccine skeptic, Mr. Kennedy has offered muted support for vaccination and has emphasized untested treatments for measles, like cod liver oil. The outbreak has largely spread within a community of Mennonites in Gaines County, Texas, who historically have had lower vaccination rates and often avoid interacting with the health care system. Last year, roughly 82 percent of the county’s kindergarten population had received the measles vaccine. Experts say that vaccination rates must reach at least 95 percent to stave off outbreaks in a community. In a news release on Friday, Texas health officials wrote that more cases are “likely to occur,” because of the contagiousness of the virus. Health officials in Lea County, N.M. — which borders Gaines County — reported 30 measles cases on Friday, a substantial jump from the nine cases reported on Tuesday.
Axios: States push fight against mRNA vaccines The mRNA vaccines that helped to end the COVID pandemic — and stoked a considerable amount of vaccine skepticism and misinformation — are now a target of legislators in some conservative-led states. Why it matters: The efforts risk further politicizing science and illustrate how the pandemic experience we all want to put in the rearview continues to drive policymaking. Driving the news: No state has enacted a ban on mRNA so far. But Iowa, Montana and Idaho have all introduced legislation this year aimed at cutting the use of mRNA vaccine technology. In Iowa this week, a bill advanced out of a legislative subcommittee that would penalize providers with fines of as much as $500 for each shot of mRNA-based vaccine they provide. After pushback, state Sen. Doug Campbell, who introduced the bill, backtracked and reworked it to instead require mRNA vaccine makers to waive federal liability protections in order to distribute within the state.
Scientific American: Why This Year’s Flu Season Is the Worst in More Than a Decade It’s been a brutal flu season. Rates of hospitalizations and outpatient visits for influenza are at a 15-year high, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The season got off to a typical, relatively late start, but the CDC has now classified it as “high severity.” And as measured by outpatient visits for flulike symptoms, the level of illness in the U.S. has been comparable to that of the 2009 H1N1 (swine flu) pandemic. Kids have been hit especially hard: as of February 22, 98 children—most of them unvaccinated—have died from flu in the U.S. this season. There has also been an increase in severe neurological complications in kids, including seizures, hallucinations and other symptoms. And amid these high rates of illness, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently canceled an advisory committee meeting to determine the flu vaccine strain to be used later this year, ahead of the next influenza season. (The Food and Drug Administration was allowed to participate in a World Health Organization meeting to determine the vaccine’s composition despite President Donald Trump’s ban on government employees working with the agency.)
Public Health Threats Around The World:
Opinion and Commentary
Stat: Former chairs of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices on the panel’s role The recent postponement of a key federal advisory committee meeting is deeply alarming and signals that it may no longer be able to provide independent scientific guidance to federal agencies. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), has served the American people since 1964. ACIP advises the director of the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention on how to use vaccines in the U.S. population to prevent the spread of infections, such as measles, influenza, whooping cough, and polio, and how to prevent serious complications from infections such as hearing loss, cancer, or death. But the ACIP meeting planned for three days in late February was recently delayed, reportedly to allow for public comment. But we remain worried. Since the delay, an unvaccinated child in Texas died from measles, highlighting the vacuum that has been created in scientific leadership and communication. As past chairs of the ACIP, we want to share why this committee matters to the health care profession, and to all Americans.
Credit: Georgetown CCF
