At a recent Senate hearing, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) asked Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. whether he accepted the fact that COVID vaccines had saved the lives of almost 2 million Americans.
“I don’t think anybody knows,” Kennedy replied, “because there was so much data chaos coming out of the CDC.” Aware of multiple studies confirming this assessment, Warner shot back, “How can you be so ignorant?”
In an exchange with Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Kennedy — who has frequently propagated discredited claims that childhood vaccines cause autism, which he now says is a “preventable disease” brought on by an “environmental toxin” — opined, without evidence, that mRNA vaccines produce “serious harm, including death, especially among young people.”
After listening to the testimony, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), a physician, stated he had “grown deeply concerned” about Kennedy’s leadership of HHS, because Americans now “don’t know who to rely on.”
The combative Senate hearing demonstrated that an infectious disease — one that rejects scientific expertise, metastasizes conspiracy theories and contaminates programs that track and treat illnesses — has entered the body politic of America’s public health agencies.
“In terms of working scientists,” Kennedy announced in May, “our policy was to make sure none of them were lost and that research continues.” A comprehensive study by ProPublica, however, reveals that more than 3,000 scientists and public health officials and 1,000 health and safety inspectors have resigned or been fired from the CDC, National Institutes of Health and FDA this year. That does not include those placed on administrative leave.
Reductions of 20,000 staff — 18 percent of the HHS’s allegedly “bloated bureaucracies” — have resulted in fewer clinical trials of new drugs; fewer specialists planning for the next outbreak of a deadly virus; fewer inspections of egg farms, seafood processers, drug manufacturers and blood banks; and less monitoring and development of treatments to prevent heart disease, strokes and HIV/AIDS, maternal and infant health problems and oral hygiene issues of children whose parents can’t afford to pay a dentist.
Draconian cuts in NIH and National Science Foundation grants have slowed or stopped vitally important research and may well end the careers of the next generation of first-rate scientists.
In late August, without consulting the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, Kennedy limited the approved cohort for updated COVID-19 vaccines to people 65 or over, anyone older than six months who has an underlying condition, and patients who get a recommendation from their doctor.
Although he had assured Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a physician, during his confirmation hearings that he would make no changes in the composition of the Advisory Committee, Kennedy then fired all 17 of its members. The director of the CDC was fired as well, after less than a month in office.
This infectious disease is now spreading to public agencies in the states. In April, Idaho Gov. Brad Little (R) signed legislation banning schools from mandating vaccines. Earlier this month, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced that he would work with the state legislature to repeal all vaccine requirements, including the immunization of public school students against diphtheria, measles, rubella, mumps, tetanus and hepatitis B.
“Every last one of them is wrong and drip with disdain and slavery,” Ladapo proclaimed. Vaccine mandates “take away your ability to choose what you put in your body and what you as a parent put in your child’s body.”
Until now, all 50 states and D.C. have mandated childhood vaccines. Many of them, including Florida, allow parents to request exemptions on religious grounds. In the 1905 case Jacobson v. Massachusetts, the Supreme Court ruled that compulsory vaccination laws do not violate the Constitution, stating that liberty “is not absolute in each person to be at all times and under all circumstances wholly freed from restraint.” The decision has been upheld several times since.
Vaccines “are among the most studied and scrutinized medical interventions in history,” the University of Florida Academic Health Center recently emphasized. “They are proven to be safe, effective and essential in the spread of many infectious diseases. Public safety is a shared responsibility.”
Since contact among children accelerates the spread of contagious diseases and the risk of serious side effects or death from vaccines is very small, removing the mandates, according to Lisa Gwynn, former president of the Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, “could lead to a resurgence of preventable diseases, putting countless lives at risk.”
Florida may already be on the cusp of a resurgence. People with a “conspiracy mindset,” a recent study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center concluded, are more likely to believe misinformation about vaccination. Perhaps for this reason, 5 percent of Florida’s parents requested vaccination exemptions for their children last year, above the national average. 88.1 percent of children in the state have been vaccinated for tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis (whooping cough), less than the 92 to 94 percent required to reach herd immunity for pertussis. In 2024, reported cases of the illness in Florida skyrocketed from 85 to 715.
The recent outbreak of measles in Texas — which, with few exceptions, was confined to unvaccinated children — could make its way to the Sunshine State. All the more so, since Kennedy, ignoring the danger the disease poses to children, believes that catching measles to get “lifetime protection” is better than vaccination, which he asserts “does cause death every year.”
For the record: Before 1963, about 500,000 Americans contracted measles each year, 500 of whom died. Following the introduction of vaccines, incidences declined by 95 percent and death became a very rare event.
President Trump promised to let RFK Jr. “go wild” on health and medicine. He has, alas, kept that promise. The result is that HHS agencies — once the envy of the world — and their counterparts in some states can no longer be relied upon to collect and disseminate accurate data, sponsor first-rate research, or implement policies to keep us healthy.
Glenn C. Altschuler is the Thomas and Dorothy Litwin Emeritus Professor of American Studies at Cornell University.
