How Kennedy is already weakening America's childhood vaccine system
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Department of Health and Human Services cut $2 billion from a program that supports vaccines for vulnerable children.
Last week, Jackie Griffith showed up at her office at the Collin County Health Care Clinic in north Texas ready to start her day — answering emails from local doctors before heading to a nearby high school to go over the latest vaccine record requirements.
Instead, the 60-year-old registered nurse was called into her director’s office and told to pack up her belongings. The federal government had yanked funding, she learned, and her position — supporting vaccination efforts for uninsured children through a network of more than 60 providers — was gone.
Across the country in New Hampshire, Kayla Hogan, 27, was hearing the same. She worked for the state’s Department of Health and Human Services, onboarding clinics and hospitals into a data system that would help them administer free childhood vaccines. Now that project was in jeopardy, threatening the process of getting children vaccinated.
The cuts that ensnared Griffith, Hogan and many others whose work touches vaccines in dozens of states were part of $11.4 billion in funds that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Department of Health and Human Services pulled back from state and community health departments last week, included in the larger slashing of federal government under Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. More than $2 billion was taken from “Immunization and Vaccines for Children” grants, which support the delivery of vaccines to children whose families may not be able to afford them, according to a list HHS published.
Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist with a well-documented history of promoting misinformation, promised ahead of his confirmation as HHS secretary that he would not take away vaccines. Since taking office, however, he has repeatedly downplayed the severity of measles currently sweeping the country — outbreaks that have hospitalized scores of children and left at least two dead. He has publicly pushed unproven treatments, including vitamin A regimens that have reportedly sickened children, and offered limp public support for vaccines themselves — despite vaccines offering the safest, most effective way to prevent many infectious diseases. Under his leadership, HHS has overseen mass firings across federal health agencies, including staff responsible for outbreak response and vaccine access; canceled or postponed meetings of independent vaccine advisory committees; and ended vaccine education campaigns.
Rating: 5