Public Health Project Newsletter — Protect Our Care

Is it too much to ask that — just for one week — Trump health secretary RFK Jr. stop eroding our public health safeguards? This was not that week.

Here’s the CliffsNotes:

5 months after the measles outbreak in South Carolina began – now exceeding 1,000 cases mostly among the unvaccinated — RFK Jr.’s CDC finally bothered to deploy a handful of staffers on the ground to assist. Protect Our Care’s Kayla Hancock questioned what took so long: “It’s about damn time for the CDC to lend a hand with this historic measles crisis, but in the meantime, so much damage has been done with months of inaction and continued anti-vax propaganda from the Trump administration.”
Ignoring the consequences of the administration’s anti-vax agenda appears to be part of a larger plan. A Trump DOJ lawyer actually argued in court this week that RFK Jr. has the right to push measles herd immunity (i.e. – let countless unvaccinated kids get super sick and send health costs to the moon).
RFK Jr. continues to dubiously claim “Good food is not expensive” on his self-promotional road show, and if families can’t afford beef prices that are 15% higher than a year ago, he has a novel solution: just eat liver. Mmm, liver.
On Joe Rogan’s podcast, RFK Jr. repeated his completely debunked Tylenol-pregnancy myth, but now adds “it’s better than taking Ibuprofen or aspirin because of Reye’s Syndrome.” Rogan queried: ‘What’s Reye’s Syndrome?’ “I’m not sure exactly what it does,” admitted Trump’s Health Secretary blankly. Now STAT reports: “Across ERs, Tylenol orders for pregnant people dropped after health officials linked drug to autism.” Reminder: After RFK’s previous Rogan show appearance, ‘Newborn vaccination against hepatitis B declined’. Health misinformation to a mass audience is so dangerous, but acting dangerously with other people’s lives is just how RFK Jr. rolls.
RFK Jr.’s move to pack a federal autism advisory committee with anti-vax quacks earlier this year has now spurred prominent scientists to launch an independent autism advisory panel to counter the disproven autism claims espoused by RFK Jr. and his handpicked cabal of science deniers.
Former NIH scientists “run out by Trump” and RFK Jr. are speaking out about the consequences of the department losing “more than 20% of its workforce”. KFF reports: “Scientists say the departures harm the U.S.’ ability to respond to disease outbreaks, develop treatments for chronic illnesses, and confront the nation’s most pressing public health problems.”

All in all, a truly horrific week for public health, even for the Trump-RFK Jr. HHS. Every day, their actions confirm the latest warning from the world-leading medical journal The Lancet that: “The destruction that Kennedy has wrought in 1 year might take generations to repair”.

Kennedy may feel free to keep going ‘wild’ under Donald Trump, with his aggressive anti-science schemes, but it’s only decimated public trust in our health institutions – with RFK Jr. at the very bottom, according to a major new survey. Only “9% of Americans say they are very confident in RFK Jr,” raising an important question: Why hasn’t he resigned yet?

In The News

RFK’s Disastrous Tenure At HHS

Infectious Disease Outbreaks and Public Health Threats

Measles

Other Infectious Disease Threats

Make America Toxic Again

The GOP War on Vaccines Will Have Deadly Consequences

Autism

Opinion

Surgeon General Nominee Casey Means

Chaos At HHS

CDC