Gabe Whisnant is a Breaking News Editor at Newsweek based in North Carolina. Prior to joining Newsweek in 2023, he directed daily publications in North and South Carolina. As an executive editor, Gabe led award-winning coverage of Charleston church shooter Dylan Roof’s capture in 2015, along with coverage of the Alex Murdaugh double murder trial. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. You can get in touch with Gabe by emailing g.whisnant@newsweek.com. Find him on Twitter @GabeWhisnant.
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America’s public health system is headed to a “very dangerous place” under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his team of anti-vaccine advisers, former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez told senators Wednesday.
Monarez and former CDC Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry described turmoil inside federal health agencies, saying Kennedy and his political advisers dismissed data showing vaccines are safe and effective.
Monarez, who was fired after 29 days in the job following disputes with Kennedy, warned that once-contained diseases such as polio and whooping cough could return in the United States.
“I believe preventable diseases will return, and I believe we will have our children harmed by things they don’t need to be harmed by,” she said.
This is a breaking news article. Updates to follow.
This article includes reporting by the Associated Press.
From left, attorney Abbe Lowell, and former CDC Director Susan Monarez arrive for the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on “Restoring Trust Through Radical Transparency: Reviewing Recent Events at the Centers for… From left, attorney Abbe Lowell, and former CDC Director Susan Monarez arrive for the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing on “Restoring Trust Through Radical Transparency: Reviewing Recent Events at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Implications for Children’s Health” in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Wednesday, September 17, 2025.
Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez testified before senators on Wednesday that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired her after she refused to endorse forthcoming vaccine recommendations without reviewing scientific evidence to support the guidance.Watch a livestream of the hearing in the video player above.Monarez was ousted just 29 days into the job, over disagreement with her boss on vaccine policies.Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, who chairs the powerful health committee Monarez is appearing before, expressed skepticism over the explanations Kennedy has given over her firing. He carefully praised President Donald Trump for his commitment to promoting health among Americans but made it clear he was befuddled by Monarez’s removal. He noted that senators had just approved Monarez’s confirmation with Kennedy praising her “unimpeachable scientific credentials.”“Like, what happened?” Cassidy said. “Did we fail? Was there something we should have done differently?”Monarez said in her testimony that Kennedy gave her an ultimatum: “Preapprove” new vaccine recommendations from an advisory CDC panel that Kennedy has stocked with some medical experts who doubt vaccine safety or be fired. That panel is expected to vote on new vaccine recommendations later this week. He also demanded Monarez fire high-ranking, career CDC officials without cause, she said.“He said if I was unwilling to do both, I should resign. I responded that I could not preapprove recommendations without reviewing the evidence, and I had no basis for firing,” Monarez told senators. “He said he had already spoken with the White House several times.”The senate hearing will focus on the impact the turmoil at the nation’s leading public health agency, which is responsible for making vaccine recommendations to the public, will have on children’s health. It will also undoubtedly serve as an opportunity for Monarez and former Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry, who was also testifying before the committee, to respond to a number of Kennedy’s contentious claims about their final days at the agency.Kennedy has denied Monarez’s accusations that he ordered “rubber-stamped” vaccine recommendations.He has described Monarez as admitting to him that she is “untrustworthy,” a claim Monarez has denied through her attorney. He did, however, acknowledge during a testy Senate hearing earlier this month that he ordered Monarez to fire several top officials at the CDC.The Senate hearing is taking place just a day before the vaccine panel starts its two-day session in Atlanta to discuss shots against COVID-19, hepatitis B and chickenpox. It’s unclear how the panel might vote on the recommendations, though members have raised doubts about whether hepatitis B shots administered to newborns are necessary and have suggested COVID-19 recommendations should be more restricted.The CDC director must endorse those recommendations before they become official. Health and Human Services Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill, now serving as the CDC’s acting director, will be responsible for that.Monarez and Houry are expected to face tense questions from Republicans over the CDC’s vaccine recommendations and COVID-19 policies. Democrats, meanwhile, are likely to seek more information on Kennedy’s approach to vaccines.The health committee’s hearing will be overseen by Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a physician who cast a key vote for Kennedy’s confirmation. He has expressed concern about “serious allegations” at the CDC and has called for oversight, without blaming Kennedy.
WASHINGTON —
Former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez testified before senators on Wednesday that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired her after she refused to endorse forthcoming vaccine recommendations without reviewing scientific evidence to support the guidance.
Watch a livestream of the hearing in the video player above.
Monarez was ousted just 29 days into the job, over disagreement with her boss on vaccine policies.
Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, who chairs the powerful health committee Monarez is appearing before, expressed skepticism over the explanations Kennedy has given over her firing. He carefully praised President Donald Trump for his commitment to promoting health among Americans but made it clear he was befuddled by Monarez’s removal. He noted that senators had just approved Monarez’s confirmation with Kennedy praising her “unimpeachable scientific credentials.”
“Like, what happened?” Cassidy said. “Did we fail? Was there something we should have done differently?”
Monarez said in her testimony that Kennedy gave her an ultimatum: “Preapprove” new vaccine recommendations from an advisory CDC panel that Kennedy has stocked with some medical experts who doubt vaccine safety or be fired. That panel is expected to vote on new vaccine recommendations later this week. He also demanded Monarez fire high-ranking, career CDC officials without cause, she said.
“He said if I was unwilling to do both, I should resign. I responded that I could not preapprove recommendations without reviewing the evidence, and I had no basis for firing,” Monarez told senators. “He said he had already spoken with the White House several times.”
The senate hearing will focus on the impact the turmoil at the nation’s leading public health agency, which is responsible for making vaccine recommendations to the public, will have on children’s health. It will also undoubtedly serve as an opportunity for Monarez and former Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry, who was also testifying before the committee, to respond to a number of Kennedy’s contentious claims about their final days at the agency.
Kennedy has denied Monarez’s accusations that he ordered “rubber-stamped” vaccine recommendations.
He has described Monarez as admitting to him that she is “untrustworthy,” a claim Monarez has denied through her attorney. He did, however, acknowledge during a testy Senate hearing earlier this month that he ordered Monarez to fire several top officials at the CDC.
The Senate hearing is taking place just a day before the vaccine panel starts its two-day session in Atlanta to discuss shots against COVID-19, hepatitis B and chickenpox. It’s unclear how the panel might vote on the recommendations, though members have raised doubts about whether hepatitis B shots administered to newborns are necessary and have suggested COVID-19 recommendations should be more restricted.
The CDC director must endorse those recommendations before they become official. Health and Human Services Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill, now serving as the CDC’s acting director, will be responsible for that.
Monarez and Houry are expected to face tense questions from Republicans over the CDC’s vaccine recommendations and COVID-19 policies. Democrats, meanwhile, are likely to seek more information on Kennedy’s approach to vaccines.
The health committee’s hearing will be overseen by Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a physician who cast a key vote for Kennedy’s confirmation. He has expressed concern about “serious allegations” at the CDC and has called for oversight, without blaming Kennedy.
Houry, who resigned after Monarez was removed, said that she made the decision to leave her post because “CDC leaders were reduced to rubber stamps, supporting policies not based on science and putting American lives at risk.”
She criticized Kennedy’s leadership as head of Health and Human Services and accused him of censoring CDC science, politicizing its processes and stripping the agency’s leaders of independence.
“I could not in good conscience remain under those conditions,” Houry said.
She said the nation is on track to see significant increases in preventive diseases and declines in health “due to the secretary’s actions.”
“Trust and transparency have been broken,” Houry said. “Here again, the problem is not too much science, but too little.”
Houry detailed the flow of information within the Department of Health and Human Services under Kennedy’s tenure, including learning that Kennedy had changed the CDC’s COVID-19 vaccine guidance through a social media post. She said CDC scientists have not seen the data or justification for those changes.
Houry also said the secretary’s office ordered the removal of a scientific document on thimerosal, an organic compound used as a preservative in drug products, from the CDC’s website and allowed an “unvetted presentation” on the additive before ACIP.
“That kind of last-minute alteration undermines confidence and the deliberations that follow, and is certainly not radical transparency,” Houry said.
Some of the newest members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine recommendations committee have questioned established medical research on immunizations and the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a press release shared Monday, the CDC and Department of Health and Human Services said five new members were appointed to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP — just days ahead of a scheduled meeting that is likely to discuss the fall season’s COVID vaccines and more.
“These appointments reflect the commitment of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to transparency, evidence-based science, and diverse expertise in guiding the nation’s immunization policies,” the release stated. But a look at the records of those selected shows some have voiced skepticism about vaccines and questioned evidence of their effectiveness.
This isn’t the first time Kennedy, known for raising doubts about vaccines, has appointed people aligned with his views since taking over as HHS secretary. In June, he named eight new advisers after firing all 17 of the committee’s previous members. His appointments include several allies he has worked with closely over the years and some members with a history as vaccine critics.
Kennedy appointed the new members directly, breaking with the past practice of agency officials vetting potential experts before sending them to the secretary for approval.
Here’s a look at the newest committee members:
Catherine M. Stein
Catherine M. Stein is an epidemiologist and professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. She received her doctorate in epidemiology and biostatistics from the same university in 2004 and has a focus on tuberculosis, according to her faculty page on the school’s website.
Stein has been openly critical of the U.S. response to COVID-19 and has downplayed the severity of the pandemic. According to Ohio Capital Journal, Stein told Ohio lawmakers that health officials were inflating COVID-19 death and hospitalization numbers. The journal also tied her to Health Freedom Ohio, which is affiliated with Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine nonprofit founded by Kennedy as well as Ohio Advocates for Medical Freedom, which the journal describes as an anti-vaccine advocacy group.
Dr. Evelyn Griffin
Dr. Evelyn Griffin is an obstetrician and gynecologist based in Louisiana, according to Baton Rouge General’s website. According to local reports, she has spoken against adding COVID-19 vaccines to the school immunization schedule as well as testified about adverse reactions of vaccines.
Hillary Blackburn
Hillary Blackburn, a clinically trained pharmacist, is also the daughter-in-law of Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee, according to Politico.
She is currently the director of medication access and affordability at online pharmacy company AscensionRx and hosts the podcast “Talk to Your Pharmacist,” the HHS release added. Her views on vaccines are unclear.
At a 2024 panel discussion on vaccine injuries convened by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican and vocal COVID vaccine skeptic, Milhoan claimed COVID shots pose more harm than good.
According to local news reports, he was also investigated by the Hawaii Medical Board in 2022 for disseminating medical misinformation but charges were eventually dropped.
Dr. Raymond Pollak
Dr. Raymond Pollak is a transplant surgeon and hospital whistleblower. In 1999 he reported the University of Illinois at Chicago’s hospital was diagnosing patients as sicker than they were to boost the number of transplants performed there, according to court documents.
Sara Moniuszko is a health and lifestyle reporter at CBSNews.com. Previously, she wrote for USA Today, where she was selected to help launch the newspaper’s wellness vertical. She now covers breaking and trending news for CBS News’ HealthWatch.
(CNN) — Dr. Susan Monarez, former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is expected to say in a Senate committee hearing this week that US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. put politics before public health when he required that all CDC policy and personnel decisions be cleared by political staff, according to her prepared testimony.
Monarez is set to appear before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions in a hearing Wednesday.
She was ousted last month, just 29 days into her tenure as CDC director, amid clashes with Kennedy over vaccine policies. She will be joined at the hearing by Dr. Debra Houry, who stepped down from her role as the CDC’s chief medical officer in protest after Monarez’s ouster.
“I was fired for holding the line on scientific integrity,” Monarez says in her prepared testimony. “I had refused to commit to approving vaccine recommendations without evidence, fire career officials without cause, or resign.”
HHS has not responded to CNN’s request for comment on Monarez’s claims.
In her prepared testimony, Monarez offers new details about her brief tenure as CDC director, including saying Kennedy issued a directive that CDC policy and personnel decisions required prior approval from political staff — a break from the practice of past administrations.
Bloomberg first reported on the prepared testimony Monday.
Monarez also says that on August 2, she learned from media reports that Kennedy had removed liaison members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP — an influential group of outside experts who advise the agency on vaccinations – essentially being blindsided by the news.
Then, “on the morning of August 25, Secretary Kennedy demanded two things of me that were inconsistent with my oath of office and the ethics required of a public official,” Monarez says. “He directed me to commit in advance to approving every ACIP recommendation regardless of the scientific evidence. He also directed me to dismiss career officials responsible for vaccine policy, without cause. He said if I was unwilling to do both, I should resign.”
Monarez says she told Kennedy that she could not “pre-approve recommendations without reviewing the evidence” and that she had no basis to fire scientific experts.
“On August 25, I could have stayed silent, agreed to demands, and no one would have known,” Monarez’s testimony says. “What the public would have seen were scientists dismissed without cause and vaccine protections quietly eroded — all under the authority of a Senate-confirmed Director with ‘unimpeachable credentials.’ I could have kept the office and the title. But I would have lost the one thing that cannot be replaced: my integrity.”
Kennedy removed all 17 sitting members of ACIP in June. The committee now includes an entirely new group of experts, who are scheduled to meet Thursday and Friday to discuss Covid-19 vaccines as well as immunizations against hepatitis B and measles, mumps, rubella and varicella.Several of the new members have made unproven claims about vaccines, including one who said, without evidence, that Covid shots are causing “unprecedented levels of death and harm in young people.”
Monarez says the new composition of the committee has “raised concerns from the medical community.”
“There is real risk that recommendations could be made restricting access to vaccines for children and others in need without rigorous scientific review,” she says. “With no permanent CDC Director in place, those recommendations could be adopted. The stakes are not theoretical. We have already seen the largest measles outbreak in more than 30 years, which claimed the lives of two children. If vaccine protections are weakened, preventable diseases will return.”
(CNN) — The interim CEO and director of drugmaker Kenvue, which makes the common pain reliever Tylenol, met with US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. privately this week in an attempt to dissuade him from including the drug as a potential cause of autism in an upcoming report, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
HHS officials have announced that the department is conducting a study of the causes of autism, and recent reports suggest that HHS will issue an analysis that links the development of autism to the mother’s use of Tylenol during pregnancy, among other potential causes. The report is expected to be released this month.
Tylenol is a brand name for the pain reliever acetaminophen.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has said that there is no proof of a causal link between Tylenol use in pregnancy and a child’s diagnosis of autism.
In a statement Friday, a spokesperson for HHS said that officials routinely meet with stakeholders for their perspectives.
“We are using gold-standard science to get to the bottom of America’s unprecedented rise in autism rates. HHS officials regularly meet with stakeholders to get their perspective about our agenda to Make America Healthy Again. Any claims regarding this or any other specific meeting, however, are nothing more than speculation unless officially discussed by HHS,” HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said.
Kenvue said in its own statement Friday that it engaged in a “scientific exchange” with HHS officials but that it is concerned about the forthcoming HHS report potentially causing confusion.
“As we would with any regulator who reaches out to us, we engaged in a scientific exchange with the Secretary and members of his staff as it relates to the safety of our products. Our position remains the same: in evaluating available science, we continue to believe that taking acetaminophen does not cause autism, and global health regulators, independent public health organizations, and medical professionals agree,” Kenvue said.
“We are concerned about the potential for consumer confusion and misinformation about the safety of taking acetaminophen during pregnancy, particularly as cough, cold and flu season approaches,” the statement said. “We encourage regulators to continue to objectively review the scientific evidence on this issue, as they have done for many years. FDA has been looking at this issue for over a decade and has conducted multiple reviews since 2014 and continues to recommend acetaminophen in pregnancy and maintain the same labeling requirements.”
The company also recommended that expecting mothers speak to their health care provider before taking any over-the-counter medications, including acetaminophen, which is also indicated on the product label.
Tylenol is widely used in the US, including during pregnancy. The US Food and Drug Administration recommends against using other common pain relievers, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, in pregnancy at 20 weeks or later because they can result in low amniotic fluid.
“There is no clear evidence that proves a direct relationship between the prudent use of acetaminophen during pregnancy and fetal developmental issues,” Dr. Christopher Zahn, chief of clinical practice for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said in a statement this month. “Neurodevelopmental disorders, in particular, are multifactorial and very difficult to associate with a singular cause. Pregnant patients should not be frightened away from the many benefits of acetaminophen, which is safe and one of the few options pregnant people have for pain relief.”
More good things are happening at Kennedy’s health agency.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has thrown the Department of Health and Human Services into turmoil through a series of bizarre and idiotic policy decisions, and now, to make things better, he’s apparently forcing everybody who remains at the pivotal health agency to use a chatbot. That should sort everything out.
404 Media reports that HHS employees received an email on Tuesday entitled “AI Deployment,” which explained that ChatGPT would now be available to everybody at the agency. 404 writes that the deployment of the chatbot will be overseen by HHS’s new CIO, former Palantir employee Clark Minor. The email was confirmed by otheroutlets.
“Artificial intelligence is beginning to improve health care, business, and government,” the email, sent by deputy secretary Jim O’Neill and seen by 404 Media, begins. “Our department is committed to supporting and encouraging this transformation. In many offices around the world, the growing administrative burden of extensive emails and meetings can distract even highly motivated people from getting things done. We should all be vigilant against barriers that could slow our progress toward making America healthy again.”
The email went on: “I’m excited to move us forward by making ChatGPT available to everyone in the Department effective immediately,” it adds. “Some operating divisions, such as FDA and ACF [Administration for Children and Families], have already benefitted from specific deployments of large language models to enhance their work, and now the rest of us can join them. This tool can help us promote rigorous science, radical transparency, and robust good health. As Secretary Kennedy said, ‘The AI revolution has arrived.’”
As Kennedy slashes staff and eradicates vital health programs, the notion that the “AI revolution” is going to provide anything even remotely helpful to the remaining HHS staff is laughable at best. That said, given Kennedy’s preference for relying on poorly sourced bullshit rather than long-established science, I guess relying on a chatbot prone to hallucination pretty much tracks. Gizmodo reached out to the HHS for more information on how it plans to integrate AI into its operations and will update this story when we hear back.
Kennedy has rolled out countless destabilizing policies at the HHS over the past year, including attacks on the agency’s vaccine program. Earlier this year, under his supervision, the agency fired many thousands of staff. More recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention saw many prominent staffers (including its director) step down in protest of Kennedy’s policies. The new director is Jim O’Neill, who—like HHS’s CIO—also previously worked for a company owned by rightwing billionaire Peter Thiel.
Moderna is one of the manufacturers of mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccines, and last month the company received approval from the Food and Drug Administration for an updated version of the shot. But as part of that approval, the FDA imposed new restrictions on who can receive the vaccine. Previously, Covid vaccines were recommended for anyone 6 months or older. Now, the FDA says they should only be given to individuals at high risk of serious disease, either because they are 65 and older or have other health problems.
“I think it complicates things for people,” Bancel said. “You might have somebody in your household—a parent, a spouse, a kid—who is at high risk” that you want to protect, he said. Before, healthy individuals could just go to a pharmacy to receive a Covid shot. Now, several states require a prescription to get a Covid shot because of the FDA’s changes.
Kennedy has been on a crusade against vaccines since he stepped into the role of HHS secretary in February; earlier this week, the Senate Finance Committee grilled him about his actions in office so far.
In May, Kennedy terminated a $590 million contract with Moderna for the development of an mRNA-based bird flu vaccine candidate. The contract was awarded during the final days of the Biden administration in January, just before President Donald Trump’s second term began. Bird flu is widespread in wild birds and has been causing outbreaks in poultry and US dairy cows since March 2024. It has caused sporadic cases in people, most of them farm workers, but poses a pandemic potential if it develops the ability to spread from person to person.
That same month, Kennedy announced that HHS would no longer recommend mRNA Covid-19 vaccines for healthy children and pregnant women. In June, the FDA said it would require new labels on mRNA vaccines to include safety information about the risks of myocarditis and pericarditis, rare side effects observed mostly in young men following administration of the shots.
In August, as a part of a “coordinated wind-down” of mRNA vaccine research, HHS canceled 22 related contracts and investments worth nearly $500 million. Kennedy incorrectly said in a statement these vaccines “fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like Covid and flu.” HHS is instead shifting funding to an older vaccine platform known as “whole-virus” vaccines.
Despite the administration’s backlash against mRNA vaccines, Bancel said he is “encouraged by the dialog” that the company has had with the FDA. In addition to getting updated Covid shots, albeit with limitations, Moderna also received expanded approval this year for its respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, vaccine to include adults ages 18 to 59 who are at increased risk of disease. The vaccine was initially approved in May 2024 for adults aged 60 years and older.
“I think a lot of people back in January, including my own team, were quite worried that we might not get those approvals,” Bancel said.
The administration’s crackdown on mRNA research so far has not extended to the cancer space, and Moderna is developing several mRNA therapies against cancer, including personalized cancer vaccines. The company has 45 cancer-related programs in the pipeline and has said it expects 10 FDA approvals in the next three years. “We are using exactly the same technology to go from infectious disease to cancer,” Bancel said.
He also addressed accusations that the Covid vaccines have not been well tested. “I don’t think there’s been a vaccine more studied for efficacy and safety in the history of vaccines,” he said. “In terms of vaccine efficacy and safety, there’s been studies done in literally millions of people in the real world.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. released a new “strategy” report from the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, outlining how the Trump administration wants to improve the health of American children. Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist who doesn’t believe in germ theory, has been destroying faith in America’s public health system since he was confirmed as the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Unlike MAHA’s first report back in May, the new report doesn’t include any fake studies that are cited. But that’s because the new report released Tuesday doesn’t cite any studies at all. Kennedy has completely hollowed out expertise at agencies like the FDA and CDC, which he oversees, through recent actions like firing CDC Director Susan Monarez, leading to a massive exodus of people who believe in science.
The new strategy report identifies four areas the MAHA commission believes are “behind the rise in childhood chronic disease,” including poor diet, chemical exposure, overmedication, and a lack of physical exercise combined with chronic stress. The report calls for further research into childhood vaccines, fluoride, and physical activity, among other topics.
As with all things MAHA, there is a mix of very real concerns about the health of Americans, combined with fringe ideas about what to do about it. There’s a particular emphasis in the report on “conflicts of interest,” a worthwhile topic of discussion when it comes to the revolving door of government regulators and drug companies. But Kennedy’s solution to potential conflicts of interest has been to fire real experts on things like vaccines in order to replace them with charlatans who are selling their own questionable alternative therapies.
The future of vaccines
The new report calls for developing a framework on vaccines that’s filled with all kinds of red flags for anyone who can read between the lines. The report says the framework will focus on:
Ensuring America has the best childhood vaccine schedule;
Addressing vaccine injuries;
Modernizing American vaccines with transparent, gold-standard science;
Correcting conflicts of interest and misaligned incentives; and
Ensuring scientific and medical freedom.
“Over 99% of vaccine injuries go unreported,” Kennedy said at a press conference on Tuesday without providing any evidence for his claim.
The government announced changes to covid-19 vaccine recommendations on Aug. 27 that will restrict who’s able to get the shot. The CDC only recommends the shot for people aged 65 and older, as well as those at higher risk of complications from getting covid-19. And we’re already seeing various states restricting who can get the shot.
Guns, screen time, social media, and video games
During the press conference, Kennedy was asked about guns and the public health issues they pose. He claimed there was a “sudden onset of violence” in the 1990s that he didn’t see as a kid—the kind of nostalgia he often engages in when it comes to food quality and various conditions like autism.
“It could be a connection with video games, social media, and we are looking at that,” Kennedy said, also stating that he was looking at “overmedication of kids” as another cause of mass shootings.
The report also mentions that the Surgeon General will launch an educational campaign about the effect of screen time on children and “actions being taken by states to limit screentime at school.” The U.S. doesn’t have a Senate-confirmed Surgeon General right now. President Trump withdrew his nominee for the position, Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, in May over questions about her credentials. And then he nominated Casey Means, a wellness influencer who hasn’t yet faced hearings from the Senate for her confirmation.
Means doesn’t currently have a medical license and started a company called Levels that sells a wearable for monitoring glucose levels. There’s no reason for someone who isn’t diabetic to be monitoring their glucose levels, but Kennedy has previously said that he wants all Americans to be sporting a wearable.
Sperm counts
The report also includes a section on fertility, with Secretary Kennedy claiming early in the press conference on Tuesday that, “Our young men have sperm counts that are half what they ought to be.”
From the report:
HHS will launch a MAHA education campaign to improve health and fertility in women and men looking to start a family. This will influence adolescent health through early adoption of lifestyles that help avoid the development of root cause issues that impact adult fertility in the 20s, 30s, and 40s.
The HHS Root Causes of Infertility Award Challenge Competition, a national call to action to address the root causes of infertility and improve maternal and infant health outcomes. This initiative seeks to identify new and existing solutions to prevent, diagnose, and treat root causes of infertility, including chronic reproductive health conditions, and provide answers to families, improve health outcomes, and ensure a brighter future for parents and infants across the U.S.
HHS will develop a partnership to create an Infertility Training Center to serve and train Title X clinics to identify, treat, and refer for the underlying causes of infertility, such as chronic reproductive health conditions.
It’s unclear what the “Root Causes of Infertility Award Challenge Competition” will entail exactly, but given the far right’s obsession with birth rates among white people right now, it’s sure to be something dystopian.
Criticism from allies over the report
Some of Kennedy’s traditional left-leaning allies are not happy with the new MAHA strategy report, which had leaked in a rough form last month before its final release. Critics believe the health industry had too much influence on its strategy conclusions, and Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit that sued the EPA over the fluoridation of water, released a statement Tuesday that was highly critical of Kennedy’s plan.
“The MAHA Commission report is a gift to Big Ag. Its deregulatory proposals read like an industry wish list. The truth is, industrial agriculture is making us sick. Making America healthy again will require confronting Big Ag corporations head on — instead, the Trump administration has capitulated,” Food & Water Watch senior food policy analyst Rebecca Wolf said in a statement.
The report doesn’t call for a ban on various pesticides, instead saying it will launch a “partnership with private-sector innovators to ensure continued investment in new approaches and technologies to allow even more targeted and precise pesticide applications.” And that also seemed to anger some activists who believe Kennedy is just bowing down to powerful corporate interests.
“The MAHA Commission report is most notable for what it lacks: any real action on toxic pesticides linked to rising cancer rates nationwide. Meanwhile, Trump’s allies in Congress are considering dangerous legislation to make it all worse. The White House’s feigned concern for our health is too little, too late — its weak response to the public health crisis we face will not stand,” wrote Food & Water Watch.
Where do we go from here?
What’s next for the MAHA gang? Kennedy has promised to announce the “cause” of autism at some point this month. And whatever report they produce will more than likely be tainted by Kennedy’s army of anti-vaccine advocates and MAHA kooks. But amidst it all, Kennedy still continues to insist he’s not against vaccines, even while he gets in front of Congress and insists vaccines haven’t been properly studied, a ridiculous lie.
(CNN) — President Donald Trump’s strategy to ‘Make America Healthy Again’ includes investigating vaccine injuries and pharmaceutical practices but stops short of new regulatory action, for now.
US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. unveiled the MAHA strategy on Tuesday, joined by Agriculture Department Secretary Brooke Rollins, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, and other top Trump officials.
The report hews closely to a draft document circulated in August that cites earlier Trump administration announcements — developing a definition for ultraprocessed foods, educating the public about synthetic kratom — but largely bypassed industry crackdowns.
Language around pesticides strategy also remained unchanged. Environmental and food activists had rallied for the administration to include steps to reduce pesticide usage and probe potential health risks of commonly used chemicals such as RoundUp.
The report says that USDA, EPA and the National Institutes of Health will develop a framework to study cumulative exposures to chemicals including pesticides and microplastics. USDA and EPA will also invest in new farming approaches to reduce chemical use, and EPA will launch a public awareness campaign about the limited risk of approved products.
The commission’s first report this May suggested a broad range of factors driving chronic disease in the US, including ultraprocessed foods, environmental exposures, and overprescription of pharmaceuticals like antidepressants.
The report noted previous announcements that HHS, the NIH and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are studying the causes of autism. Kennedy had previously promised some answers on the root causes in September; NIH is expected to announce autism research grants this month.
Recent reports suggest that HHS will issue a report that links the development of autism to taking Tylenol during pregnancy.
Medicines and vaccines
Kennedy has drawn criticism for suggesting antidepressants, particularly those that are part of a family known as SSRIs are as addictive as heroin and can be dangerous. Following the August 27 shooting in Minneapolis, he told Fox News that HHS is launching studies “on the potential contribution of some of the SSRI drugs and some of the other psychiatric drugs that might be contributing to violence.”
SSRIs, or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, are the most prescribed class of antidepressants for depression, anxiety disorders and many other mental health conditions. Several SSRIs have been on the market in the United States since the 1990s, including Prozac, Zoloft and Celexa. Experts agree that there is no scientific evidence or correlation between these drugs and violence towards others.
Tuesday’s report states that HHS will assemble a working group of federal officials to evaluate SSRI prescribing patterns, specifically among children. HHS will also “evaluate the therapeutic harms and benefits of current diagnostic thresholds,” or the current common practices doctors use to diagnose patients with mental health disorders.
Dr. Theresa Miskimen Rivera, president of the American Psychiatric Association said access to care, not over-medication is the bigger problem when it comes to helping kids’ mental health in the country, and there is no mention of the issue in the report. The report said addressing a child’s nutrition, screen time, and exercise can improve their mental health, but can’t address everything. “Psychiatric conditions are complex in nature,” she said. Extreme poverty, post traumatic stress disorder, trauma-related factors should also be addressed, but there is no mention in the report of any of those issues either.
“In terms of over medication, that’s not what we do. We have a comprehensive evaluation and we are evidence based. We diagnose than create a comprehensive treatment plan, “ Miskimen Rivera told CNN. “Medication can save lives, not only in children, but in adults and elderly.”
When asked about whether or not the commission chose to consider gun violence – the leading cause of death for children – as one of the issues to be investigated, Kennedy doubled down on the issue of prescription drugs, saying “We are doing studies now, or initiating studies to look at the correlation and the connection, potential connection between over medicating our kids and this violence.”
HHS will also work with the White House Domestic Policy Council on a new vaccine framework that, the report said, will ensure “America has the best childhood vaccine schedule” and ensure “scientific and medical freedom.”
The report comes as Kennedy continues to defend his shakeup of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over vaccine policy, including the ouster of CDC Director Dr. Susan Monarez.
The administration will also increase oversight of “deceptive” direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceutical products, including from social media influencers and telehealth companies, it said.
Food policy stays the course
FDA will continue work on developing a definition for ultraprocessed foods, but the report bypasses recommendations, like those of former FDA Director Dr. David Kessler, to essentially order certain additives off the market until they are reviewed.
Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, director of Tufts Food is Medicine Institute said a definition of ultraprocessed foods would be “really important.” With more than half of calories in the food supply coming from ultraprocessed foods, addressing this and other issues involving the nation’s diet would mean a “massive fight with the industry and is going to be incredibly controversial, but is much needed.”
“Overall, this is really quite thorough, quite specific, and even if parts of this are accomplished, this could have tremendous positive impact for Americans,” Mozaffarian told CNN.
Other experts, like Marion Nestle, agreed the report was ambitious in scope, but noted it fell short on regulatory action. “What’s still missing is regulation. So much of this is voluntary, work with, promote, partner,” said Nestle, who is the Paulette Goddard professor emerita of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University.
The report also nods to new, user-friendly dietary guidelines expected later this year. Kennedy has promised a vastly shortened set of recommendations that will emphasize whole foods.
The commission also cited ongoing work to reduce ultraprocessed foods in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Head Start.
While the report also touches on agriculture deregulation with the aim of making it easier for small farms to get greater access to markets and schools, Ken Cook, co-founder of the Environmental Working Group, a health advocacy organization said the report abandons earlier MAHA promises to ban toxic pesticides and instead “echoes the pesticide industry’s talking points.”
“Secretary Kennedy and President Trump cynically convinced millions they’d protect children from harmful farm chemicals – promises now exposed as hollow,” Cook said in a statement.
There were minor changes from the draft document leaked in August. For instance, the August 6 draft stated that the FDA and other agencies will crack down on “Illegal Chinese Vapes,” while the final version promises enforcement on vapes more broadly.
“We support the goal of making children healthier and addressing and preventing chronic disease, but unfortunately, the recommendations fall short in some really critical ways,” Laura Kate Bender, vice president nationwide advocacy and public policy for the American Lung Association told CNN.
“They continue to cast doubt on vaccines, one of the most, important, proven public health interventions that we can have for kids health. They don’t address some major contributors to diseases in kids like pollution, tobacco use, beyond the mention of vaping, and this report is coming out at the same time that we’re continuing to see dramatic cuts in staff and funding of a lot of the programs that could make the good parts of the report a reality.”
The report’s emphasis on kids’ health can help overall, Dr. Michelle Macy, director of the Mary Ann & J. Milburn Smith Child Health Outcomes, Research and Evaluation Center in Chicago told CNN. “I’m really trying to look for bright spots in this report, and I think that the focus on data and infrastructure for us to be able to answer big questions about what environmental and food exposures and medication exposures do to shape the trajectory of someone’s health and chronic disease across the lifespan is something that has promise and potential.”
Dr. Richard Besser, pediatrician and president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation said that having a focus on preventing chronic disease in children is a good thing, but he said, with Kennedy’s track record that includes firing thousands of federal health employees, slashing millions in health research funding, dismantling entire offices that managed important issues like smoking and chronic disease specifically, in addition to his “assault on vaccinations” will undermine any potential good of this kind of report.
“Neither RFK Jr.’s record, nor his policies outlined in the report give me confidence that he is going to make any difference whatsoever on chronic diseases in children,” Besser told CNN.
If there’s one thing that Donald Trump absolutely, positively despises, it’s bad publicity.
And after RFK Jr. got absolutely hammered at that hearing the other day–including by a member of the leadership, Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso–he realized that he had to cut his losses.
What was he going to do, say ignore those Republican senators, like Bill Cassidy, who’s a doctor, like Barrasso, when he says that vaccines work and he’s deeply concerned that Kennedy misled the Hill during his confirmation hearings?
So after months of letting him “go wild,” in his words, Donald has broken with Bobby.
“You have some vaccines that are so incredible. I think you have to be very careful when you say some people don’t have to be vaccinated…,” the president said.
“Look, you have vaccines that work. They just pure and simple work. They’re not controversial at all, and I think those vaccines should be used, otherwise some people are going to catch it, and they endanger other people,”
The president has had enough.
What’s more, Kennedy’s family–including his sister Kerry and former congressman Joe Kennedy III–demanded he resign, along with every Democrat on the Senate committee.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. appears before the Senate Finance Committee September 04, 2025, in Washington, D.C.(Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
There’s some chatter that Kennedy may be let go after a decent interval. Trump really likes him, and the magic of the Kennedy name, but let’s face it, he’s damaged goods right now.
He also was poorly briefed, or didn’t do his homework. Remember that he cut a deal in exchange for dropping out of the presidential race, and offered the same arrangement to Kamala Harris.
When asked how many Americans had died of COVID, I instantly knew it was 1.2 million. RFK said he didn’t know. Asked whether the COVID vaccine had been helpful, he mumbled that he’d have to look at the data. There’s plenty of data available.
And that’s the problem. The greatest achievement of Trump’s first term, as even his detractors admit, was Operation War Speed, bringing the COVID vaccine to market at the height of the pandemic.
But Kennedy is the same anti-vaccine crusader he’s always been. He has called COVID “the most dangerous vaccine” ever. He’s insisted that vaccines cause autism, completely debunked by mainstream science.
CDC performed miserably during the pandemic, but Kennedy fired CDC chief Susan Monarez just one month after praising her appointment, and then called her a liar for supposedly admitting she was not trustworthy.
The campus of Centers for Disease Control is located near the reported shooting location in Atlanta.(Mike Stewart/AP Photo)
So RFK was in effect denigrating Trump’s huge accomplishment by firing the mainstream members of a vaccine panel and replacing them with vaccine skeptics or outright anti-vaxxers.
Kennedy’s view is that everyone else is conflicted because of ties to Big Pharma and that only he is pure. But his actions speak louder than his words.
Meanwhile, the president won a double victory at the Supreme Court. The justices, in what Politico says were 6-3 rulings, gave ICE the ability to carry out “roving” arrests and raids in California against those believed to be illegal immigrants.
SCOTUS also said the president can fire FTC member Rebecca Slaughter, one of two Democratic commissioners he dismissed in March at the supposedly independent agency.
Rebecca Slaughter, commissioner at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), during a House Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington, DC, US, on Thursday, July 13, 2023. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images(Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Then Trump checks the conservative media.
The Wall Street Journal editorial page, in a piece titled “Operation Warped Speed,” asks whether RFK is suffering from long COVID. The usually supportive New York Post called RFK a “paranoid kook” with a “tinfoil hat” that is “blocking out all sense.”
So Trump got mostly booed at the U.S. Open, along with some cheers. Big deal. He’s endured far worse.
But having the nation’s highest court on your side is worth its weight in gold, Trump’s favorite decorating glitter.
Footnote: The Wall Street Journal has obtained Trump’s birthday message to Jeffrey Epstein, which he repeatedly insisted he never sent, prompting him to sue the paper.
Against the backdrop of a sketch of a naked woman–with Trump’s signature in the pubic area–there is this exchange: Donald: We have certain things in common, Jeffrey. Jeffrey: Yes we do, come to think of it. Donald: Enigmas never age, have you noticed that? Jeffrey: As a matter of face, it was clear to me the last time I saw you. Donald: A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy Birthday–and may every day be another wonderful secret.
By itself, I don’t think it’s that big a deal. Lots of friends and acquaintances were solicited to send messages for Epstein’s 50th birthday. He could have owned it. But Trump *still* insists it’s fake.
By vehemently insisting it wasn’t conceivable that he sent such a message, Trump now has a mess on his hands.
Howard Kurtz is the host of FOX News Channel’s MediaBuzz (Sundays 11 AM-12PM/ET). Based in Washington, D.C., he joined the network in 2013 and regularly appears on Special Report with Bret Baier and The Story with Martha MacCallum among other programs.
At the end of summer, Congress is often sleepy, and slowly gets back to work. But this past week was an exception. On Capitol Hill, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. arrived, and the controversial Health and Human Services Secretary sparked a reckoning over public health in America.
At a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday, Kennedy defended the Trump administration’s policies: “We at HHS are enacting a once-in-a-generation shift from a sick-care system, to a true health care system that tackles the root causes of chronic disease,” he said.
Tempers ran hot at the hearing. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) said, “This is not a podcast. It is the American people’s health that is on the line here.”
Democrats rebuked Kennedy, perhaps the most high-profile member of President Donald Trump’s cabinet. Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) asked Kennedy, “When were you lying, sir – when you told this committee that you were not anti-vax? Or when you told Americans that there’s no safe and effective vaccine?”
To which Kennedy replied, “Both things are true.”
There were Republicans who offered broad support for Kennedy. Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Ida.) said, “President Trump and Secretary Kennedy have made a steadfast commitment to make America healthy again.”
Yet some Republicans notably did push Kennedy on how his long-standing opposition to vaccine mandates is affecting policy, and on Kennedy’s doubts about the safety of various vaccines. Sen. John Barasso (R-Wyo.) said, “There are real concerns that safe, proven vaccines like measles, like hepatitis B and others, could be in jeopardy.”
The committee room standoff had been brewing for days. On August 27, the government announced new restrictions on eligibility for COVID vaccinations. That decision prompted some health organizations to warn the policy could cause confusion.
That same day, the Trump White House said Susan Monarez, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who had just been confirmed by the Senate weeks earlier, was fired.
The Trump White House stood by Secretary Kennedy’s sweeping changes, and by the firing. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said of Monarez, “She was not aligned with President Trump’s mission to make America healthy again.”
In a statement to “Sunday Morning,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said, “The White House maintains full confidence in Secretary Kennedy’s leadership at HHS to advance President Trump’s MAHA agenda. With Operation Warp Speed’s unprecedented success delivering COVID-19 vaccines in record time, President Trump proved that it’s possible to shake up the status quo of our broken and bureaucratic public health system to deliver real results for the American people. Now the second Trump administration is building on this record and experience to restore Gold Standard Science as the guiding principle of health decision-making at HHS to Make America Healthy Again.”
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Susan Monarez has written that she was pressured to “compromise science itself” – and to sign off on people who “have publicly expressed antivaccine rhetoric.”
This turbulence has put Kennedy, who was a key Trump ally during last year’s campaign, in the spotlight.
Asked whether there has been pressure within the Republican Party to stand by Kennedy, Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul said, “Nobody’s pressured me or ever called me on it. I sort of speak my mind. And these are long-standing beliefs for me.”
Paul, an ophthalmologist, supports Kennedy, and lays blame on scientists – not skeptics – for worries about vaccine safety. “All the doubt over vaccines is – there might be some doubt coming from those who don’t want you to take a vaccine, but quite a bit of doubt is coming from the establishment that I believe is authoritarian in nature,” said Paul. “You don’t care whether they tell you what to do. You should just do what you’re told. We know better than you.”
But some who have worked at the highest level are fighting back against criticism, and are sounding an alarm.
“A significant distrust of vaccines”
Four CDC officials – Doctors Jennifer Layden, Daniel Jernigan, Debra Houry, and Demetre Daskalakis – all have resigned in recent days, some citing Secretary Kennedy’s vaccine policies, others citing the upheaval at the CDC, which provides crucial health guidance nationwide.
And all four expressed concerns about their resulting trust in CDC information about vaccines and vaccine safety data. “It’s why I left; I’m very concerned,” said Dr. Daskalakis. “We’ve already crossed the line. The COVID recommendations for children and pregnant women are completely not based in any evidence that world experts agree on.”
I asked, “You know Secretary Kennedy would push back on that; what would you tell him?”
“Ah, easy,” Daskalakis replied. “The recommendation is that there should be no healthy kids that get the vaccine; it should only be in kids with underlying conditions. Kids that are six-months-old, 56% of them that are admitted to the hospital have no underlying condition. So, by not offering the vaccine to parents who are willing to do it, those kids that could have been protected won’t be.”
Asked how he would label Kennedy and his view of vaccines, Dr. Daniel Jernigan said, “I think he has a significant distrust of vaccines. I don’t know that he’s driving a get-rid-of-vaccines agenda. It’s more death by a thousand cuts, death by a thousand questions, calling into question data that has been accepted for many, many years, and simply that calling it into question brings into people’s minds that, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t get that vaccine.’”
Dr. Debra Houry said that when Kennedy began at HHS, “I read his books. I wanted to better understand his research and his background on it. So, we were open, you know, to having those discussions.”
In an additional statement to “Sunday Morning,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said:
“Americans haven’t forgotten how ‘the science’ was politicized and weaponized during the COVID era by unaccountable ‘health officials’ to push intrusive mandates and stifle any semblance of the skepticism that actual scientific inquiry is based on. The Trump administration is committed to restoring evidence-based, Gold Standard Science and answering the questions that Americans haven’t been allowed to ask to restore trust, confidence, and accountability in our public health bodies.”
Asked what the cost to Americans would be of doctors and other officials leaving the CDC, Dr. Jennifer Layden said, “We’re talking about the whole public health infrastructure of our nation. And I think when we start to see (and we will) outbreaks that normally don’t happen – more food-borne outbreaks, Legionella outbreaks, rising measles cases – people will start to care. That may take time for us to see some of those negative consequences, but that’s what the ripple effect of all this will do across our nation.”
I asked Dr. Atul Gawande, a surgeon who served in the Biden administration, “What is the consequence for the country when you have such a differentiation? It’s splintered.”
“It’s severely splintered, and I’m very worried about it,” Gawandea replied, “because diseases don’t obey borders.
For Gawande, Kennedy’s actions could upend not only federal agencies, but America’s standing in global health. “There isn’t always consensus, for sure, among our own medical community,” he said, “but we generally have been able to come together enough to be able to say, ‘Here is where we can assure getting – whether it’s COVID boosters, and making sure we don’t leave out the people who are most in need of vaccination – to making sure we’re not abandoning our childhood immunization. Other countries around the world are baffled by our now falling into a civil war over whether the discoveries that have saved the world mattered.”
At the end of the day, Gawande says, “Trust helps assuage doubt.”
But, I asked, “Is trust still possible in this environment?”
“Trust is still possible,” said Gawande, “but it is not possible while we have leaders who actively drive chaos, who actively are trying to create uncertainty and break down trust. But ultimately, people have to choose the leaders who have the track record of demonstrating better outcomes. And those leaders are scientists, health professionals, and others who have demonstrated over years that they actually get you better results.”
For more info:
Story produced by Ed Forgotson and Jack Weingart. Editor: Carol Ross.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to announce that the use of Tylenol by pregnant women may be linked to autism in children, according to a report Friday in the Wall Street Journal — which the Department of Health and Human Services said was “speculation.”
This comes after Kennedy said in April that HHS would undertake a “massive testing and research effort” to determine the cause of autism. Kennedy at the time said the plan was to release a comprehensive report in September. However, National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said later that month the findings could take up to a year.
Kennedy has in the past made the unfounded claim that autism is a “preventable disease,” drawing heavy criticism from many medical experts.
How did Tylenol maker Kenvue and HHS respond to the WSJ report?
In a statement provided to CBS News on Friday, an HHS spokesperson called the Journal’s report “speculation.”
“We are using gold-standard science to get to the bottom of America’s unprecedented rise in autism rates. Until we release the final report, any claims about its contents are nothing more than speculation,” the spokesperson said.
In a separate statement in response to the WSJ story, Kenvue, the maker of Tylenol — whose active ingredient is acetaminophen — said that “we have continuously evaluated the science and continue to believe there is no causal link between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and autism. To date, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and leading medical organizations agree on the safety of acetaminophen, its use during pregnancy, and the information provided on the label.”
Later Friday, Kenvue said in another statement that “we appreciate the Secretary acknowledging media coverage on the upcoming HHS report is ‘nothing more than speculation.’”
What do medical experts say?
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said in a statement provided to CBS News on Friday that “there is no clear evidence that proves a direct relationship between the prudent use of acetaminophen during pregnancy and fetal developmental issues.”
“Neurodevelopmental disorders, in particular, are multifactorial and very difficult to associate with a singular cause,” ACOG said. “Pregnant patients should not be frightened away from the many benefits of acetaminophen, which is safe and one of the few options pregnant people have for pain relief.”
CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook said he is looking forward to reading the upcoming report pledged by Kennedy, “especially the evidence behind any conclusions and recommendations.”
“I spoke this afternoon to a researcher who was part of a major study published just last year that followed 2.5 million children in Sweden over 25 years,” LaPook said. “He said use of acetaminophen … was not associated with an increased risk of autism in children.”
In an interview with CBS News on Friday, Dr. Christine Ladd-Acosta, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the vice director for the Wendy Klag Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities, said research shows that the causes of autism “are complex.”
“There have been a few dozen studies looking at Tylenol and whether use during pregnancy is associated with risk of autism in those women’s children, and the evidence has been really kind of conflicting,” Ladd-Acosta said. “Some studies have shown no association. Some have shown a positive association. Some have shown negative associations. And I think part of that is because it’s really hard to tease apart … whether it’s the medication itself that is influencing autism risk in the child, or if it has to do with the condition … the mother is using the medicine to treat that is the thing that is important in autism risk.”
Ladd-Acosta noted that the dosage, the length of time that pregnant women take Tylenol, and the “specific condition” they are taking it for are all factors that have been considered when attempting to determine if there is a potential association between the medication and autism.
“There have been some associations, but there has been no conclusive evidence I’ve seen to show that Tylenol itself causes autism definitively,” Ladd-Acosta said.
Joe Kennedy III on Friday denounced his cousin Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as “a threat to the health and wellbeing of every American” in a blistering social media post.
The rare public rebuke comes one day after RFK Jr.’s contentious Senate hearing, deepening a family feud that has fractured one of America’s most famous political dynasties.
Kennedy’s statement, viewed more than 1.2 million times, opens the curtain behind the extraordinary rift inside the political dynasty.
Once synonymous with Democrat unity, the Kennedys are now split over RFK Jr.’s embrace of President Donald Trump and his appointment to HHS Secretary under a “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. Joe Kennedy’s demand that his cousin resign marks a dramatic escalation of the feud.
Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy III and activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attend the 2016 Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation Restore Brooklyn Benefit at The Plaza Hotel on October 17, 2016 in New York City. (Bennett Raglin/Getty Images)
In 2024, five of RFK Jr.’s siblings issued a joint statement blasting his endorsement of Trump as “a betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold most dear. It is a sad ending to a sad story.”
Caroline Kennedy later urged senators to block her cousin’s cabinet nomination, writing in a January 2025 letter that he was a “predator” who was “addicted to attention and power” and “unqualified” to lead HHS.
On Sept. 4, RFK Jr. appeared in a hearing before the Senate Finance Committee. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., accused him of firing CDC scientists and replacing them with “cranks” and “conspiracy theorists” who were “endangering children, leaving parents confused and scared.”
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. arrives to testify before the Senate Finance Committee at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Sept. 4, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Andrew Harnik )
As Joe Kennedy wrote in his post, “None of us will be spared the pain he is inflicting… Those values are not present in the Secretary’s office. He must resign.”
His cousin Jack Schlossberg, President John F. Kennedy’s grandson, piled on in real time, mocking RFK Jr.’s testimony: “RFK LOSER is choking so badly LIVE.”
With Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s controversial tenure in Trump’s cabinet, the Kennedy dynasty’s divisions are now spilling into public view with some of the sharpest blows coming from within.
An upcoming report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human services is likely to link the development of autism in children to a common over-the-counter pain reliever, and it will reference a form of the vitamin folic acid as a way to reduce symptoms of autism in some people, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
(CNN) — An upcoming report from the US Department of Health and Human services is likely to link the development of autism in children to a common over-the-counter pain reliever, and it will reference a form of the vitamin folic acid as a way to reduce symptoms of autism in some people, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
The report is said to highlight the pain reliever Tylenol, when taken during pregnancy, along with low levels of folate, a vitamin that is important for proper development of a baby’s brain and spine, as potential causes of autism, according to the Wall Street Journal. It will also name folinic acid, a form of folate also known as leucovorin, as a way to decrease symptoms of autism.
Folate supplements are already recommended for women during pregnancy to prevent neural tube defects, such as spina bifida, in infants.
Tylenol, which is the brand name of the generic pain reliever acetaminophen, is widely used in the US, including during pregnancy. Drugmaker Kenvue said in a statement Friday, “Nothing is more important to us than the health and safety of the people who use our products. We have continuously evaluated the science and continue to believe there is no causal link between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and autism.”
Experts generally agree.
“There is no clear evidence that proves a direct relationship between the prudent use of acetaminophen during pregnancy and fetal developmental issues,” Dr. Christopher Zahn, chief of clinical practice for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said in a statement Friday. “Neurodevelopmental disorders, in particular, are multifactorial and very difficult to associate with a singular cause. Pregnant patients should not be frightened away from the many benefits of acetaminophen, which is safe and one of the few options pregnant people have for pain relief.”
The incidence of autism in the US is on the rise. About 1 in every 31 children was diagnosed with autism by age 8 in 2022, up from 1 in 36 in 2020, according to a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report published in April.
There are two primary reasons for the increase, according to Dr. Christine Ladd-Acosta, vice director of the Wendy Klagg Center for Autism at John Hopkins.
The first is that the definition of autism was broadened by the psychiatric community in 2013, so more people now qualify for an autism diagnosis.
Secondly, there has been a push for better screening of children, especially babies, for signs of autism. That push for increased awareness of the symptoms has been accompanied by a greater acceptance of the disorder, so people are not as afraid to seek help or to be identified as having autism, Ladd-Acosta said on the Johns Hopkins podcast “Public Health on Call.”
An HHS spokesperson said Friday that the agency is “using gold-standard science to get to the bottom of America’s unprecedented rise in autism rates. Until we release the final report, any claims about its contents are nothing more than speculation.”
Several studies have looked at the association between acetaminophen use in pregnancy and the development of autism in children, but experts say the science behind this theory is not settled.
A 2024 study published in JAMA looked at more than 2 million children born in Sweden between 1995 and 2019, about 185,000 of the whom were born to mothers who used acetaminophen during pregnancy. The study compared autism rates between these children with their siblings and with children who were not exposed, and it found that acetaminophen use during pregnancy was not associated with an increased risk of autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or other neurodevelopmental disorders.
A meta-analysis published in August in the journal BMC Environmental Health looked at 46 studies on the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy and neurodevelopmental disorders in children. Six of the studies looked specifically at acetaminophen and autism. Overall, the analysis concluded that there was “strong evidence of an association” between taking acetaminophen during pregnancy and the development of autism in children, but the authors caution that their paper can show only associations, not that acetaminophen causes autism.
“We recommend judicious acetaminophen use — lowest effective dose, shortest duration — under medical guidance, tailored to individual risk–benefit assessments, rather than a broad limitation,” the researchers wrote.
The US Food and Drug Administration reviewed the risks of certain types of pain relievers during pregnancy in 2015 and said that all the studies it reviewed had methodological flaws. As a result, the agency said it would not change its recommendations for pain medications during pregnancy at that time.
The Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine also reviewed the issue in 2017. It concluded that “the weight of evidence is inconclusive regarding a possible causal relationship between acetaminophen use and neurobehavioral disorders in the offspring.”
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has previously promoted debunked theories linking vaccines to autism, and he pledged in April that his agency would have answers this month on the causes of autism. Thousands of researchers from top universities and institutions have applied for federal funding for autism research that Kennedy announced in April, and the US National Institutes of Health is expected this month to announce up to 25 awardees for the $50 million effort.
“We’re finding … certain interventions now that are clearly, almost certainly causing autism, and we’re going to be able to address those in September,” Kennedy said in a Cabinet meeting last month, to which President Donald Trump responded, “There has to be something artificial causing this, meaning, a drug or something.”
Dr. Peter Hotez, a pediatrician who co-directs the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital, said it would be irresponsible for Kennedy to cast any one or two things as a “smoking gun” cause of autism.
“That’s not how it works,” said Hotez, who has a daughter with autism and has written a book about the condition.
“We have autism genes, and it’s really important to look at some of the environmental toxins out there that are interacting with autism genes. And it may be possible to compile a list. … But I think it would be reckless to hone in just on those two, at least in terms of the publicly available data,” he said.
Shares of Kenvue fell about 10% midday after the Wall Street Journal report came out.
CNN’s Ramishah Maruf, Sarah Owermohle and Nadia Kounang contributed to this report.
Senators grill HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over his policies on vaccinations. Meanwhile, conservative Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett speaks exclusively to Norah O’Donnell. More of the interview with the Justice will air on “CBS Sunday Morning” and “CBS Mornings” next week. All that and all that matters in today’s Eye Opener.
U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., facing pointed bipartisan questioning at a rancorous three-hour Senate committee hearing on Thursday, tried to defend his efforts to pull back COVID-19 vaccine recommendations and explain the turmoil he has created at federal health agencies.Kennedy said the fired CDC director was untrustworthy, stood by his past anti-vaccine rhetoric, and disputed reports of people saying they have had difficulty getting COVID-19 shots.A longtime leader in the anti-vaccine movement, Kennedy has made sweeping changes to agencies tasked with public health policy and scientific research by laying off thousands of workers, firing science advisers and remaking vaccine guidelines. The moves — some of which contradict assurances he made during his confirmation hearings — have rattled medical groups and officials in several Democratic-led states, which have responded with their own vaccine advice.Medical groups and several Democrats in Congress have called for Kennedy to be fired, and his exchanges with Democratic senators on the panel repeatedly devolved into shouting, from both sides.But some Republican senators also expressed unease with his changes to COVID-19 policies.The GOP senators noted that Kennedy said President Donald Trump deserved a Nobel Prize for the 2020 Operation Warp Speed initiative to quickly develop mRNA COVID-19 vaccines — and that he also had attacked the safety and continued use of those very shots.”I can’t tell where you are on Operation Warp Speed,” said Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis.Tillis and others asked him why the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was fired last week, less than a month into her tenure.Kennedy said she was dishonest, and that CDC leaders who left the agency last week in support of her deserved to be fired.He also criticized CDC recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic tied to lockdowns and masking policies, and claimed — wrongly — that they “failed to do anything about the disease itself.””The people at CDC who oversaw that process, who put masks on our children, who closed our schools, are the people who will be leaving,” Kennedy said. He later said they deserved to be fired for not doing enough to control chronic disease.Democrats express hostility from the startThe Senate Finance Committee had called Kennedy to a hearing about his plans to “Make America Healthy Again,” but Democratic senators pressed Kennedy on his actions around vaccines.At the start of the hearing, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon tried to have Kennedy formally sworn in as a witness, saying the HHS secretary has a history of lying to the committee. The committee’s chair, Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, denied the Democrat’s request, saying “the bottom line is we will let the secretary make his own case.”Wyden went on to attack Kennedy, saying he had “stacked the deck” of a vaccines advisory committee by replacing scientists with “skeptics and conspiracy theorists.”Last week, the Trump administration fired the CDC’s director — a Trump appointee who was confirmed by the Senate — less than a month into her tenure. Several top CDC leaders resigned in protest, leaving the agency in turmoil.The ousted director, Susan Monarez, wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Thursday that Kennedy was trying to weaken public health protections.”I was told to preapprove the recommendations of a vaccine advisory panel newly filled with people who have publicly expressed antivaccine rhetoric,” Monarez wrote. “It is imperative that the panel’s recommendations aren’t rubber-stamped but instead are rigorously and scientifically reviewed before being accepted or rejected.”Kennedy told senators he didn’t make such an ultimatum, though he did concede that he had ordered Monarez to fire career CDC scientists. Monarez’s attorneys later responded that she stood by the op-ed and “would repeat it all under oath.”Kennedy pushed back on concerns raised by multiple Republican senators, including Tillis and Sens. John Barrasso of Wyoming and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. Both Barrasso and Cassidy are physicians.Shouting matches and hot comebacksThe health secretary had animated comebacks as Democratic senators pressed him on the effects of his words and actions.When Sen. Raphael Warnock, of Georgia, questioned Kennedy about his disparaging rhetoric about CDC employees before a deadly shooting at the agency this summer, Kennedy shot back: “Are you complicit in the assassination attempts on President Trump?”Kennedy called Sen. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico “ridiculous,” said he was “talking gibberish” and accused him of “not understanding how the world works” when Lujan asked Kennedy to pledge to share protocols of any research Kennedy was commissioning into autism and vaccines.He also engaged in a heated, loud exchanges with Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Tina Smith of Minnesota.”I didn’t even hear your question,” Kennedy replied to Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto as the Nevada Democrat repeatedly asked what the agency was doing to lower drug costs for seniors.He also told Sen. Bernie Sanders that the Vermont independent was not “making any sense.”Some senators had their own choice words.”You’re interrupting me, and sir, you’re a charlatan. That’s what you are, ” said Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat. “The history on vaccines is very clear.”As the hearing neared its end, Kennedy pulled his cellphone from his pocket and then tapped and scrolled as Wyden asked about mifepristone, a drug used for medication abortion.Kennedy disputes COVID-19 dataIn May, Kennedy announced COVID-19 vaccines would no longer be recommended for healthy children and pregnant women, a move opposed by medical and public health groups.In June, he abruptly fired a panel of experts that had been advising the government on vaccine policy. He replaced them with a handpicked group that included several vaccine skeptics, and then shut the door to several doctors groups that had long helped form the committee’s recommendations.Kennedy has voiced distrust of research that showed the COVID-19 vaccines saved lives, and at Thursday’s hearing even cast doubt on statistics about how people died during the pandemic and on estimates about how many deaths were averted — statistics produced by the agencies he oversees.He said federal health policy would be based on gold standard science, but confessed that he wouldn’t necessarily wait for studies to be completed before taking action against, for example, potential causes of chronic illness.”We are not waiting for everything to come in. We are starting now,” he said.A number of medical groups say Kennedy can’t be counted on to make decisions based on robust medical evidence. In a statement Wednesday, the Infectious Diseases Society of America and 20 other medical and public health organizations issued a joint statement calling on him to resign.”Our country needs leadership that will promote open, honest dialogue, not disregard decades of lifesaving science, spread misinformation, reverse medical progress and decimate programs that keep us safe,” the statement said.Many of the nation’s leading public health and medical societies, including the American Medical Association, American Public Health Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics have decried Kennedy’s policies and warn they will drive up rates of vaccine-preventable diseases.___Stobbe reported from New York. Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.___The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
WASHINGTON —
U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., facing pointed bipartisan questioning at a rancorous three-hour Senate committee hearing on Thursday, tried to defend his efforts to pull back COVID-19 vaccine recommendations and explain the turmoil he has created at federal health agencies.
Kennedy said the fired CDC director was untrustworthy, stood by his past anti-vaccine rhetoric, and disputed reports of people saying they have had difficulty getting COVID-19 shots.
A longtime leader in the anti-vaccine movement, Kennedy has made sweeping changes to agencies tasked with public health policy and scientific research by laying off thousands of workers, firing science advisers and remaking vaccine guidelines. The moves — some of which contradict assurances he made during his confirmation hearings — have rattled medical groups and officials in several Democratic-led states, which have responded with their own vaccine advice.
Medical groups and several Democrats in Congress have called for Kennedy to be fired, and his exchanges with Democratic senators on the panel repeatedly devolved into shouting, from both sides.
But some Republican senators also expressed unease with his changes to COVID-19 policies.
The GOP senators noted that Kennedy said President Donald Trump deserved a Nobel Prize for the 2020 Operation Warp Speed initiative to quickly develop mRNA COVID-19 vaccines — and that he also had attacked the safety and continued use of those very shots.
“I can’t tell where you are on Operation Warp Speed,” said Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis.
Tillis and others asked him why the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was fired last week, less than a month into her tenure.
Kennedy said she was dishonest, and that CDC leaders who left the agency last week in support of her deserved to be fired.
He also criticized CDC recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic tied to lockdowns and masking policies, and claimed — wrongly — that they “failed to do anything about the disease itself.”
“The people at CDC who oversaw that process, who put masks on our children, who closed our schools, are the people who will be leaving,” Kennedy said. He later said they deserved to be fired for not doing enough to control chronic disease.
Democrats express hostility from the start
The Senate Finance Committee had called Kennedy to a hearing about his plans to “Make America Healthy Again,” but Democratic senators pressed Kennedy on his actions around vaccines.
At the start of the hearing, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon tried to have Kennedy formally sworn in as a witness, saying the HHS secretary has a history of lying to the committee. The committee’s chair, Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, denied the Democrat’s request, saying “the bottom line is we will let the secretary make his own case.”
Wyden went on to attack Kennedy, saying he had “stacked the deck” of a vaccines advisory committee by replacing scientists with “skeptics and conspiracy theorists.”
Last week, the Trump administration fired the CDC’s director — a Trump appointee who was confirmed by the Senate — less than a month into her tenure. Several top CDC leaders resigned in protest, leaving the agency in turmoil.
The ousted director, Susan Monarez, wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Thursday that Kennedy was trying to weaken public health protections.
“I was told to preapprove the recommendations of a vaccine advisory panel newly filled with people who have publicly expressed antivaccine rhetoric,” Monarez wrote. “It is imperative that the panel’s recommendations aren’t rubber-stamped but instead are rigorously and scientifically reviewed before being accepted or rejected.”
Kennedy told senators he didn’t make such an ultimatum, though he did concede that he had ordered Monarez to fire career CDC scientists. Monarez’s attorneys later responded that she stood by the op-ed and “would repeat it all under oath.”
Kennedy pushed back on concerns raised by multiple Republican senators, including Tillis and Sens. John Barrasso of Wyoming and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana. Both Barrasso and Cassidy are physicians.
Shouting matches and hot comebacks
The health secretary had animated comebacks as Democratic senators pressed him on the effects of his words and actions.
When Sen. Raphael Warnock, of Georgia, questioned Kennedy about his disparaging rhetoric about CDC employees before a deadly shooting at the agency this summer, Kennedy shot back: “Are you complicit in the assassination attempts on President Trump?”
Kennedy called Sen. Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico “ridiculous,” said he was “talking gibberish” and accused him of “not understanding how the world works” when Lujan asked Kennedy to pledge to share protocols of any research Kennedy was commissioning into autism and vaccines.
He also engaged in a heated, loud exchanges with Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Tina Smith of Minnesota.
“I didn’t even hear your question,” Kennedy replied to Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto as the Nevada Democrat repeatedly asked what the agency was doing to lower drug costs for seniors.
He also told Sen. Bernie Sanders that the Vermont independent was not “making any sense.”
Some senators had their own choice words.
“You’re interrupting me, and sir, you’re a charlatan. That’s what you are, ” said Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat. “The history on vaccines is very clear.”
As the hearing neared its end, Kennedy pulled his cellphone from his pocket and then tapped and scrolled as Wyden asked about mifepristone, a drug used for medication abortion.
Kennedy disputes COVID-19 data
In May, Kennedy announced COVID-19 vaccines would no longer be recommended for healthy children and pregnant women, a move opposed by medical and public health groups.
In June, he abruptly fired a panel of experts that had been advising the government on vaccine policy. He replaced them with a handpicked group that included several vaccine skeptics, and then shut the door to several doctors groups that had long helped form the committee’s recommendations.
Kennedy has voiced distrust of research that showed the COVID-19 vaccines saved lives, and at Thursday’s hearing even cast doubt on statistics about how people died during the pandemic and on estimates about how many deaths were averted — statistics produced by the agencies he oversees.
He said federal health policy would be based on gold standard science, but confessed that he wouldn’t necessarily wait for studies to be completed before taking action against, for example, potential causes of chronic illness.
“We are not waiting for everything to come in. We are starting now,” he said.
A number of medical groups say Kennedy can’t be counted on to make decisions based on robust medical evidence. In a statement Wednesday, the Infectious Diseases Society of America and 20 other medical and public health organizations issued a joint statement calling on him to resign.
“Our country needs leadership that will promote open, honest dialogue, not disregard decades of lifesaving science, spread misinformation, reverse medical progress and decimate programs that keep us safe,” the statement said.
Many of the nation’s leading public health and medical societies, including the American Medical Association, American Public Health Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics have decried Kennedy’s policies and warn they will drive up rates of vaccine-preventable diseases.
___
Stobbe reported from New York. Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
When U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified before the Senate Finance Committee on Sept. 4, several senators criticized him for restricting the COVID-19 vaccine after promising in November he wouldn’t “take away anybody’s vaccines.”
“Did you hold up a big sign saying that you were lying when you said that?” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., asked Kennedy.
On Aug. 27, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration updated its COVID-19 vaccine guidance, limiting the groups of people approved to get the updated shot to anyone age 65 and older and any person 6 months and older who has at least one underlying health condition that increases their risk of severe COVID-19 infection.
Kennedy pushed back, “Anybody can get the booster,” he said, later adding that “it’s not recommended for healthy people.”
Warren said, “If you don’t recommend, then the consequence of that in many states is that you can’t walk into a pharmacy and get one. It means insurance companies don’t have to cover the $200 or so cost.”
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Warren and Kennedy continued to speak over each other debating the vaccine’s availability.
“It depends on the states,” Kennedy said. “But they can still get it. Everybody can get it. Everybody can get it, senator.”
Asked for evidence, the Health and Human Services Department pointed us to an Aug. 27 X post from Kennedy that said, “These vaccines are available for all patients who choose them after consulting with their doctors.”
Kennedy’s blanket statement to senators is misleading and premature.
Under current guidance, healthy people under 65 years old might need a doctor’s prescription to get the shot. If they successfully get a prescription, they may need to pay out of pocket.
Further, whether the vaccine is available at pharmacies and covered by insurance is largely dependent on a vaccine panel that has so far issued no recommendations.
What was the status quo for years — that the majority of Americans, regardless of age, could easily make an appointment at their local pharmacy for the vaccine at little to no out-of-pocket cost — is no longer guaranteed in the 2025-26 season.
FDA limited COVID-19 vaccine approval, CDC has yet to issue guidance
The FDA’s approval is not the only step in the process of making vaccines available to the public.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a panel of independent experts that guides vaccine policy, has not voted on or issued current guidance. Typically, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends vaccines based on the panel’s guidance.
And that guidance affects insurance coverage and vaccine access. Federal law requires that most health insurance plans fully cover vaccines recommended by the CDC. Some states also require these recommendations before they allow vaccines to be offered over-the-counter at pharmacies.
On June 9, Kennedy fired all 17 members of the CDC’s immunization advisory committee and replaced some with new members, many of whom have expressed antivaccine views. CDC Director Susan Monarez was fired Aug. 27 over what Monarez described as a dispute about vaccine policy.
According to the CDC’s website, the advisory panel is scheduled to meet Sept. 18 to 19.
Whether people in FDA-approved groups can get the vaccine over the counter depends on the state
People in the FDA-approved groups should be able to schedule vaccinations as soon as authorized health care providers receive it, likely in the next few weeks.
Even if you are in these approved groups, where you can get the COVID-19 vaccine varies by state. By law, pharmacies in certain states won’t be able to offer the vaccine or will only administer it with a doctor’s prescription until the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel issues its recommendations.
That means even though the FDA has issued its approval for some groups, in 18 states and Washington D.C., “pharmacists cannot administer it because it isn’t on the CDC immunization schedule yet,” Brigid Groves, American Pharmacists Association vice president of professional affairs, previously told PolitiFact.
As of Sept. 4, the scheduling apps for Walgreens and CVS notified patients in some locations that they could not schedule a COVID-19 vaccine appointment because of state restrictions, inventory or the need for a prescription.
People not in FDA-approved categories may require off-label prescriptions
People who are not in the FDA’s approved group are not banned from getting the COVID-19 vaccine, per se. But accessing the vaccine will likely require navigating some barriers.
Doctors can legally prescribe a COVID-19 vaccine for people who fall outside the FDA categories.
That’s true for adults and children — and the practice of prescribing medications and vaccines for “off-label” use is fairly common in pediatrics, Dr. William Schaffner, Vanderbilt University Medical Center professor of infectious diseases, previously told PolitiFact.
That requires making and paying for a doctor’s appointment, and finding a doctor willing to prescribe it off-label.
Depending on ACIP’s guidance, pharmacists might be able to vaccinate people not in an FDA-approved group through a process called “shared clinical decision making.”
That means, for example, “If you were 52 years old and otherwise healthy, but you nonetheless wanted to get the vaccine, you could discuss that with your doctor — shared clinical decision making — and you could receive the vaccine,” Schaffner said.
Pharmacists are considered clinicians who can conduct that shared decision making, Groves said.
But again, without CDC recommendations, “We don’t know if that provision is still there,” Schaffner said.
Vaccine insurance coverage is dependent on CDC guidance that is not yet available
Insurance coverage for the vaccine is still up in the air, too, and will largely depend on what the CDC recommends.
Insurance coverage is more probable for people in an FDA-approved category. But, if the CDC recommendations include giving vaccines to healthy people through the shared clinical decision making process, insurance companies will generally honor that, Schaffner said.
COVID-19 vaccines cost about $142, according to the CDC’s price lists. It’s unclear whether that would be the out-of-pocket cost for patients receiving a COVID-19 vaccine not covered by insurance.
Our ruling
Kennedy said “everybody can get” the COVID-19 vaccine.
The FDA limited the groups of people who are eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine, which has already diminished the shot’s drugstore availability in some states. People who are not in those groups aren’t banned from getting the shot, but are likely to face additional barriers. For example, people may need a doctor to prescribe the vaccine “off-label,” making the process more challenging and potentially more costly.
Kennedy’s blanket statement also is premature.
A CDC vaccine panel has not issued recommendations for the vaccine. The group’s guidance might affect insurance coverage and over-the-counter access.
The statement contains an element of truth — the vaccine has not been banned and some people are approved to get it. But it ignores critical facts about the barriers others could face accessing and paying for it. We rate it Mostly False.
PolitiFact Staff Writer Madison Czopek contributed to this report.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert. F. Kennedy Jr. faced hours of intense questioning from the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday morning, firing back at the senators with his own rebuttals and accusations. His appearance comes nearly one week after he forced the ouster of Susan Monarez, the director of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, after the two clashed over vaccine policy. Several top officials at the CDC also resigned following her firing, leaving the nation’s most powerful public-health agency in crisis. Below are the latest developments from the Hill.
On Wednesday afternoon, Florida surgeon general Joseph Ladapo announced that he would advocate for ending all vaccine mandates in the state. This would include, among other things, the end of vaccine requirements for children in school. Within minutes of Ladapo’s announcement, members of a private anti-vaccine Facebook group called The Vaccine Free Child were rejoicing.
“Amen, stop the application of poison given to our precious children,” one member wrote, with another adding: “F yah! About time. Let the revolution begin.”
“I shouldn’t have to inject my kids with poison because you’ve been brainwashed to live in fear,” another member wrote, adding: “Hopefully more will follow Florida’s lead.”
Soon, group members from other parts of the country expressed their desire to have similar measures in their own states. “I am so jealous! I hope GA is next,” one member wrote, with another adding: “Ugh I wish Mississippi would do this but I don’t see it happening.” Another added: “Hopefully VA follows suit.”
While many members were celebrating, others were seeking medical help. That same day in the group, one member was seeking advice for treating whooping cough in their child. Responses included various vitamin supplements and “onion socks.” (Some people believe, without evidence, that sliced onions held close to the body absorb viruses and toxins.) Elsewhere in the group, members recommended an hourly administration of chlorine dioxide—a toxic bleach solution—to treat a baby’s possible case of meningitis. The groups don’t just boost anti-vaccine content; they also spread unproven and often dangerous medical advice.
The outpouring of joy in The Vaccine Free Child group echoed a celebratory mood online among the anti-vaccine community.
“This is how you make America healthy again. Will other states follow Florida’s lead?” Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group founded by US health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., posted to its X account. Moments later, the group hosted a live X Space with Dr. Memhet Oz, who heads up the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and Kennedy’s wife, actress Cheryl Hines. (Oz didn’t discuss the announcement from Florida.)
While the anti-vaccine community celebrated, public health experts slammed Florida’s decision, saying it will possibly endanger the lives of children who will be left unprotected from diseases like measles, mumps, chickenpox, polio, and hepatitis—all of which can be prevented by safe, affordable vaccines.
“There is short-term damage as this announcement alone will further undermine trust in vaccines around the world,” says Alex Morozov, an oncologist who has overseen hundreds of drug trials at multiple companies including Pfizer.
For Natalia Solenkova, a Miami-based critical care physician who has been fighting anti-vaccine disinformation for years, Ladapo’s announcement and the ensuing celebrations came as no surprise—and she believes the outcome will be just as predictable.
“Florida has been moving in this direction for several years,” says Solenkova. “We know from history that before vaccines, children died from measles, polio, whooping cough, and other vaccine-preventable diseases. Without vaccines, children will die again.”
With vaccination rates across the US already dropping in recent years, the impact of Florida’s proposed vaccine mandate ban could be devastating. “Long-term, we don’t know the impact. There is very little data on what happens when mandates are lifted. That is the danger of doing this so abruptly,” says Morozov. “Maybe vaccination rates will drop by 10 percent? Or maybe by 50 percent? Nobody knows. Higher drops could lead to devastating epidemics.”
