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New agency head lays off staffers overseeing epidemics, cancels flu vaccine campaign and takes aim at chemicals in food.
By G. A. McNeeley
Photo by Ron Logan
February 22, 2025 (Washington D.C.) - The Senate last week confirmed anti-vaccine activist Robert F.. Kennedy Jr. to head the U.S. Health and Human Services Department on a party-line vote, with Mitch McConnell the only Republican voting against the controversial appointee opposed by every Democratic Senator.
Now at the helm of the nation’s largest public health agency, Kennedy is implementing major changes to remedy what he views as sources of chronic diseases.But healthcare professionals are raising concerns over some of Kennedy’s early actions, including ending a flu vaccine campaign and laying off employees in charge of investigating potential public health threats to ward off future epidemics.
Kennedy implored federal health agency workers to “let go” of preconceived notions of him and start from “square one,” but also promised that “nothing is going to be off limits” in his pursuit to reduce chronic disease, Politico reported. “Some of the possible factors we will investigate were formerly taboo or insufficiently scrutinized,” he told HHS staff, in his first address to the department he now leads. “I’m willing to subject them all to the scrutiny of unbiased science.”
What Is His Plan?
Hours after Kennedy pledged to Senators that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would not undergo a staff purge, it did.
The Trump administration laid off half of its Epidemic Intelligence Service. The lay off affected 1,260 staff members, NBC reported.
Kennedy made no mention of the dismissals, but hinted towards his previous comments threatening the jobs of federal agency staff resistant to his reforms. “Those who are unwilling to embrace those kinds of ideas can retire,” he said.
For years, Kennedy has cast doubt on the safety and efficacy of vaccines and spread misinformation linking vaccines to autism. During his Senate confirmation hearings, he refused to disavow those comments, only promising he would if “shown the data.”
He appeared to indirectly reference his vaccine comments to HHS employees, by asking that they be open minded to his views. In return, he said he would acknowledge that he’s asked “a lot of difficult questions and come to unpopular conclusions.”
Kennedy nevertheless signaled he would prioritize fresh efforts to question long-held health standards to reduce chronic disease, listing the nation’s childhood vaccine schedule as among the formerly “taboo” areas he planned to scrutinize.
Among the potential contributors to chronic disease, he suggested he would direct the HHS to investigate anti-depression drugs, ultra-processed foods, electromagnetic radiation and glyphosate pesticides found in some foods.
“We will remove conflicts of interest from the committees and research partners whenever possible or balance them with other stakeholders,” he said. “We will shut the revolving door.”
Kennedy’s role as secretary of HHS will have him oversee a budget of nearly $2 trillion and a staff of 90,000 federal employees, and give him control of other critical health programs under the fold of the HHS, such as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again (MAHA),” believes chronic disease is, in part, driven by additives in food and pollution in the environment. It also hasn’t been laid out in specifics, but he has vaguely promised to tackle the nation’s rising obesity rates and SNAP benefits, and has claimed he will work with the Department of Agriculture to eradicate
ultra-processed foods from the American market.
Flu Vaccination Campaign Halted
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is stopping a successful flu vaccination campaign that juxtaposed images of wild animals, such as a lion, with cute counterparts, like a kitten, as an analogy for how immunization can help tame the flu. This happened during Kennedy’s first week as head of the HHS.
The news was shared with staff during a meeting, according to two CDC staffers who spoke with NPR on the condition of anonymity.
During the meeting, leadership at the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases told CDC staff that the Department of Health and Human Services had reviewed the campaign and advised that it would not continue.
The "Wild to Mild" flu vaccination campaign sought to encourage people to get the flu vaccine. The campaign aimed to communicate that flu vaccination can lessen symptoms and the chance of getting severely ill, even if it doesn't prevent someone from catching the flu. The website for the campaign is already offline.
The campaign sought to "reset public expectations around what a flu vaccine can do in the event that it does not entirely prevent illness," according to the CDC's webpage describing the launch of the campaign in 2023. It was renewed for the current flu season.
The campaign was a response to falling flu vaccination rates since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and targeted groups at higher risk, "especially pregnant women and children."
"We found that it was very successful — people understood the message, [and] they were swayed by the message," Erin Burns, associate director for communications in the CDC's Influenza Division, told the trade website FiercePharma in October 2024.
The Trump administration's decision to pull the campaign comes in the midst of a brutal flu season that's still raging. More than 50,000 patients were admitted to hospitals for influenza during the week that ended on Feb. 8 (the highest level in 15 years).
It's unclear how much time was left in the campaign, but it would have at least gone through the end of this flu season and the materials would have stayed on the agency's website, one of the CDC staffers told NPR.
What About Those Staff Cuts?
Top-ranking officials with the CDC, the HHS sub agency that oversees the program, told CBS News that the cuts would have a devastating effect on the country’s ability to assess blooming diseases.
They are just some of the thousands of probationary workers taking a hit as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency combs the federal government for possible programs to slash, as Washington reels from firings and funding cuts. Musk has targeted those at the HHS, leaving career officials and lawmakers worried about the impact on public health.
“The country is less safe,” Dr. Anne Schuchat, an alumna of the disease research program said. “These are the deployable assets critical for investigating new threats, from anthrax to Zika.”
Many staffers that go through the program serve on the frontlines of public health responses before later rising through the ranks of the CDC.
In an interview with Fox News after he was sworn in, Kennedy pledged that employees who work in service of public health had “nothing to worry about” under his tenure fronting America’s health policy.
“If you’ve been involved in good science, you’ve got nothing to worry about,” Kennedy said. “If you care about public health, you’ve got nothing to worry about.”
What Are Opposers Saying?
U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) delivered remarks on the Senate floor to oppose the nomination of Kennedy to lead the HHS, raising the alarm on the disastrous public health implications before he was confirmed.
“I oppose this nomination for his wildly misinformed beliefs and his utter lack of experience. I believe he is fundamentally unfit and unprepared, and Americans will be less healthy if he is confirmed, Padilla said.
Kennedy has repeatedly spread dangerous conspiracy theories, even going as far as to say that “there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective.”
Padilla called him out for making false accusations that vaccines cause autism, and that COVID-19 targets specific racial and ethnic groups. Padilla also criticized Kennedy for founding his own anti-vaccine organization, authoring several books that push public health conspiracies, and making millions of dollars off of anti-vaccination lawsuits filed by Kennedy, an attorney.
“I get the fear. I’m proud to represent California in the Senate. I’m proud to have an engineering background. But I, too, am a parent of three boys. And I remember what it was like to hold a baby in your arms, and to worry every time there was a sniffle and a cough. I’d do anything to protect my children, just as you would do anything to protect yours,” Padilla said, on the senate floor, in a video press release from his website.
Padilla, a co-founder of the bipartisan Senate Mental Health Caucus, also highlighted the dangers Kennedy poses to mental health care access and Medicaid benefits. He slammed Kennedy for his dangerous lack of knowledge regarding Medicaid funding and benefits.
“At a time when Republicans are looking to cut funding for lifesaving services, I’d rather see a fierce defender of Medicaid at HHS. Yet, during his confirmation hearings, Mr. Kennedy failed to show even a basic understanding of Medicaid. Not the sources of funding, not the benefits, and at one point, he even seemed to conflate or confuse Medicaid and Medicare,” Padilla said.
As Republicans threaten major cuts to Medicaid, Padilla underscored the importance of confirming a nominee with the necessary qualifications and experience to protect public health. He urged his colleagues to vote against Kennedy’s confirmation.
What Are Supporters Saying?
Del Bigtree, who leads a group promoting Kennedy’s MAHA movement, dismissed widely replicated studies finding no link to autism because he alleged that they were conducted by scientists who wanted to find that result.
“Get scientists who say, ‘I think I can prove vaccines do cause autism,’” Bigtree said. “If they can’t pull that off, now you have a true safety profile.”
Bigtree said that the HHS has long approved “poisons” produced by industry for public consumption, and urged Kennedy to root out corporate influence.
Bigtree also said federal agencies should not be funded by industries, suggesting Kennedy’s advisers are pushing for major reforms to the current user fee system at the HHS agency that oversees food and drugs, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
“Finally we have someone at the head of HHS not owned by these corporations,” Bigtree said of Kennedy. “I think he’s looking for the right type of people.”
Bigtree said Kennedy should review HHS employees’ histories to see whether they worked for industry and also vet their views about the causes of chronic disease.
“Robert Kennedy Jr. has to sit down with the team and bring people and say, ‘What have you done over the last four years,’” Bigtree said. “If they’re not producing real results and good science, maybe there’s a better job for them somewhere else.”
Bigtree said that hiring scientists who are skeptical of the industry and existing vaccine science would help restore the public’s flagging trust in the government’s health care bureaucracy, adding that he thought Kennedy could safely downsize HHS’ 80,000-person staff.
Bigtree isn’t part of the administration, but he serves as a powerful leader of the MAHA movement. He also endorsed Kennedy’s comments to HHS staff that nothing was off limits for review.
Sources:
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/18/kennedy-lays-out-hhs-plan-00204675
https://newrepublic.com/post/191579/robert-f-kennedy-jr-cdc-infectious-disease-research
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=a_TNAPHiePM
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/19/rfk-jr-vaccine-scientists-00204870
Comments
MAHA
lets just
SMH