health – Page 2

RFK Jr.’s CDC may limit COVID shots to 75 and up, claim they killed kids

CDC, COVID-19, fda, health, kennedy, mRNA, vaccines / Shannon Garcia / September 13, 2025

While some experts and health care providers had hoped that next week’s ACIP meeting would add clarity to the situation and allow healthy adults and children better access to the shots, the Post’s reporting suggests that’s unlikely. According to their sources, Kennedy’s ACIP is considering recommending the vaccines to those 75 and older, while instructing those 74 and younger to speak with their doctor about getting a shot. Another reported option is to not recommend the vaccine to people under the age of 75 at all, unless they have a preexisting condition.

Backlash

Such additional restrictions would likely intensify the backlash against Kennedy’s anti-vaccine agenda. Already, medical organizations have taken the unprecedented action to release their own evidence-based guidances that maintain COVID-19 vaccine recommendations for healthy children, particularly those under age 2, pregnant people, and healthy adults. Many medical and health organizations, as well as lawmakers, and over 1,000 current and former HHS employees have also called for Kennedy to resign.

Criticism of Kennedy’s actions has spread across party lines. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a vaccine-supporting physician who cast a critical vote for Kennedy’s confirmation, had accused Kennedy of denying people vaccines and called for next week’s ACIP meeting to be postponed.

“Serious allegations have been made about the meeting agenda, membership, and lack of scientific process being followed for the now announced September ACIP meeting,” Cassidy said. “These decisions directly impact children’s health, and the meeting should not occur until significant oversight has been conducted. If the meeting proceeds, any recommendations made should be rejected as lacking legitimacy given the seriousness of the allegations and the current turmoil in CDC leadership.”

Meanwhile, in a clear rebuff of Kennedy’s cancellation of mRNA vaccine funding, the Republican-led House Committee on Appropriations this week passed a 2026 spending bill that was specifically amended to inject the words “including of mRNA vaccines” into a sentence about pandemic preparedness funding. The bill now reads: “$1,100,000,000, to remain available through September 30, 2027, shall be for expenses necessary to support advanced research and development, including of mRNA vaccines, pursuant to section 319L of the PHS Act and other administrative expenses of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.”

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Child dies of horrifying measles complication in Los Angeles

CDC, child, death, health, Infectious disease, Los Angeles, measles, sspe, vaccine / Beth Washington / September 12, 2025

A child in Los Angeles has died of a measles-related brain disorder stemming from an infection in infancy, the Los Angeles County health department reported Thursday.

Specifically, the child died of subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE), a rare but always fatal complication that strikes years after an initial measles infection. The health department’s announcement offered few details about the child, including the child’s age, but said that the child had contracted the virus before they were old enough to be vaccinated against measles. The first of two recommended doses of measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine is given between 12 and 15 months.

“This case is a painful reminder of how dangerous measles can be, especially for our most vulnerable community members,” Muntu Davis, a Los Angeles County health officer, said in a statement. “Infants too young to be vaccinated rely on all of us to help protect them through community immunity. Vaccination is not just about protecting yourself—it’s about protecting your family, your neighbors, and especially children who are too young to be vaccinated.”

SSPE is caused by a persistent measles infection in the central nervous system. Children infected with the virus may go through the standard disease progression—flu-like symptoms, high fever, the telltale rash—and then appear to fully recover. But, for a small few, the virus remains, and SSPE emerges years later, often seven to 10 years after the initial infection.

The Los Angeles health department noted that SSPE generally affects about 1 in 10,000 people with measles, but the risk may be much higher—about 1 in 600—for those who get measles as infants, such as the child who recently died.

With widespread vaccination, which led to measles being declared eliminated from the US in 2000, SSPE has virtually disappeared in the US. However, with vaccination rates slipping and anti-vaccine misinformation and views gripping the country, health experts fear seeing more of these devastating cases. Already, the US measles case count for the year is at a 33-year high, and two other children, as well as an adult, died from the acute infection this year.

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Ousted CDC director to testify before Senate after RFK Jr. called her a liar

ACIP, CDC, COVID-19, health, robert f kennedy jr, Senate, vaccines / 9u50fv / September 11, 2025

Kennedy is reportedly vetting seven additional members for ACIP, who may be added before the next meeting. They include additional anti-vaccine voices and fringe members of the medical community, such as Kirk Milhoan, who promoted the de-worming drug ivermectin to treat COVID-19, despite several clinical trials finding it is not effective. There is also Joseph Fraiman, who has repeatedly called for COVID-19 vaccines to be pulled from the market.

Also on the list is Catherine Stein, who, The Washington Post noted, has advocated against vaccine mandates and wrote a 2021 article arguing that people should not be afraid of contracting COVID-19 because: “Our Lord has given us a mission to share the gospel. If we live in fear of death, that weakens our testimony. Remember, the Lord Jesus did not fear lepers, and leprosy was (and continues to be) a highly contagious infectious disease.”

Leprosy, or Hansen’s disease, is, in fact, not a highly contagious disease. It does not spread easily from person to person, is not spread through casual contact, and about 95 percent of people are immune to it naturally. COVID-19, meanwhile, is estimated to have caused more than 7 million deaths worldwide since the start of the pandemic.

Regardless of whether these candidates are added to the roster, Cassidy has called for the ACIP meeting scheduled for September 18 and 19 to be postponed.

“Serious allegations have been made about the meeting agenda, membership, and lack of scientific process being followed for the now announced September ACIP meeting,” Cassidy said. “These decisions directly impact children’s health and the meeting should not occur until significant oversight has been conducted. If the meeting proceeds, any recommendations made should be rejected as lacking legitimacy given the seriousness of the allegations and the current turmoil in CDC leadership.”

After Monarez and Houry testify before the HELP committee, Cassidy said that Senators are planning to invite current health officials to respond in a subsequent hearing.

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Who can get a COVID vaccine—and how? It’s complicated.

ACIP, CDC, COVID-19, fda, health, mRNA, pharmacists, robert f kennedy jr, vaccines / Mike M. / September 6, 2025

We’re working with a patchwork system, and there are a lot of gray areas.

Vaccinations were available at CVS in Huntington Park, California, on August 28, 2024. Credit: Getty | Christina House

As fall approaches and COVID cases tick up, you might be thinking about getting this season’s COVID-19 vaccine. The annually updated shots have previously been easily accessible to anyone over 6 months of age. Most people could get them at no cost by simply walking into their neighborhood pharmacy—and that’s what most people did.

However, the situation is much different this year with an ardent anti-vaccine activist, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as the country’s top health official. Since taking the role, Kennedy has worked diligently to dismantle the country’s premier vaccination infrastructure, as well as directly hinder access to lifesaving shots. That includes restricting access to COVID-19 vaccines—something he’s done by brazenly flouting all standard federal processes while providing no evidence-based reasoning for the changes.

How we got here

In late May, Kennedy unilaterally decided that all healthy children and pregnant people should no longer have access to the shots. He announced the unprecedented change not through official federal channels, but via a video posted on Elon Musk’s X platform. Top vaccine and infectious disease officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—which sets federal vaccination recommendations—said they also learned of the change via X.

Medical experts—particularly the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG)—immediately slammed the change, noting that data continues to indicate pregnant women and children under age 2 are particularly vulnerable to severe COVID-19. Both medical groups have since released their own vaccination guidance documents that uphold COVID-19 vaccine recommendations for those patient groups. (AAP here, ACOG here)

Nevertheless, in line with Kennedy, officials at the Food and Drug Administration signaled that they would take the unprecedented, unilateral step of changing the labels on the vaccines to limit who could get them—in this case, people 65 and over, and children and adults with health conditions that put them at risk of severe COVID-19. Kennedy’s FDA underlings—FDA Commissioner Martin Makary and top vaccine regulator, Vinay Prasad—laid out the plans alongside a lengthy list of health conditions in a commentary piece published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The list includes pregnancy—which is evidence-based, but odd, since it conflicts with Kennedy.

What was supposed to happen

When there isn’t a zealous anti-vaccine activist personally directing federal vaccine policy, US health agencies have a thorough, transparent protocol for approving and recommending vaccinations. Generally, it starts with the FDA, which has both its own scientists and a panel of outside expert advisors to review safety and efficacy data submitted by a vaccine’s maker. The FDA’s advisory committee—the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC)—then holds a completely public meeting to review, analyze, and discuss the data. They make a recommendation on a potential approval and then the FDA commissioner can decide to sign off, typically in accordance with internal experts.

Resulting FDA approvals or authorizations are usually broad, basically covering people who could safely get the vaccine. The specifics of who should get the vaccine fall to the CDC.

Once the FDA approves or authorizes a vaccine, the CDC has a similar evaluation process. Internal experts review all the data for the vaccine, plus the epidemiological and public health data to assess things like disease burden, populations at risk, resource access, etc. A committee of outsides expert advisors do the same—again in a totally transparent public meeting that is livestreamed with all documents and presentations available on the CDC’s website.

That committee, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), then makes recommendations to the CDC about how the shots should be used. These recommendations can provide nuanced clinical guidance on exactly who should receive a vaccine, when, in what scenarios, and in what time series, etc. The recommendations may also be firm or soft—e.g., some people should get a vaccine, while others may get the vaccine.

The CDC director then decides whether to adopt ACIP’s recommendations (the director usually does) and updates the federal immunization schedules accordingly. Those schedules set clinical standards for immunizations, including routine childhood vaccinations, nationwide. Once a vaccine recommendation makes it to the ACIP-guided federal immunization schedules, private health insurance companies are required to cover those recommended vaccinations at no cost to members. And—a key catch for this year—19 states tie ACIP vaccine recommendations to pharmacists’ ability to independently administer vaccines.

What actually happened

Days after Kennedy’s X announcement of COVID-19 vaccine restrictions in late May, the CDC changed the federal immunization schedules. The recommendation for a COVID-19 shot during pregnancy was removed. But, for healthy children 6 months to 17 years, the CDC diverged from Kennedy slightly. The updated schedule doesn’t revoke access outright; instead, it now says that healthy children can get the shots if there is shared decision-making with the child’s doctor, that is, if the parent/child wants to get the vaccine and the doctor approves. ACIP was not involved in any of these changes.

On August 27, the FDA followed through with its plans to change the labels on COVID-19 vaccines, limiting access to people who are 65 and older and people who have an underlying condition that puts them at high risk of severe COVID-19.

FDA’s advisory committee, VRBPAC, met in late May, just a few days after FDA officials announced their plans to restrict COVID-19 vaccine access. The committee was not allowed to discuss the proposed changes. Instead, it was limited to discussing the SARS-CoV-2 strain selection for the season, and questions about the changes were called “off topic” by an FDA official.

ACIP, meanwhile, has not met to discuss the use of the updated COVID-19 vaccines for the 2025–2026 season. Last year, ACIP met and set the 2024–2025 COVID-19 shot recommendations in June. But, instead, in June of this year, Kennedy fired all 17 members of ACIP, falsely claiming members were rife with conflicts of interest. He quickly repopulated ACIP with anti-vaccine allies who are largely unqualified and some of whom have been paid witnesses in lawsuits against vaccine makers, a clear conflict of interest. While Kennedy is reportedly working to pack more anti-vaccine activists onto ACIP, the committee is scheduled to meet and discuss the COVID-19 vaccine on September 18 and 19. The committee will also discuss other vaccines.

Outside medical and public health experts view ACIP as critically compromised and expect it will further restrict access to vaccines.

With this set of events, COVID-19 vaccine access is in disarray. Here’s what we do and don’t know about access.

Getting a vaccine

FDA vaccine criteria

Prior to Kennedy, COVID-19 vaccines were available to all people ages 6 months and up. But that is no longer the case. The current FDA approvals are as follows:

Pfizer’s mRNA COVID-19 vaccine (COMIRNATY) is only available to people:

65 years of age and older, or
5 years through 64 years of age with at least one underlying condition that puts them at high risk for severe outcomes from COVID-19.

Moderna’s mRNA COVID-10 vaccine (SPIKEVAX) is only available to people:

65 years of age and older, or
6 months through 64 years of age with at least one underlying condition that puts them at high risk for severe outcomes from COVID-19.

Novavax’s protein subunit COVID-19 vaccine NUVAXOVID is only available to people:

65 years of age and older, or
12 years through 64 years of age with at least one underlying condition that puts them at high risk for severe outcomes from COVID-19.

Who can get a COVID-19 vaccine and where now depends on a person’s age, underlying conditions, and the state they reside in.

States-based restrictions

The fact that ACIP has not set recommendations for the use of 2025–2026 COVID-19 vaccines means vaccine access is a messy patchwork across the country. As mentioned above, 19 states link pharmacists’ ability to independently provide COVID-19 vaccines to ACIP recommendations. Without those recommendations, pharmacies in those states may not be able to administer the vaccines at all, or only provide them with a doctor’s prescription—even for people who fit into the FDA’s criteria.

Last week, The New York Times reported that CVS and Walgreens, the country’s largest pharmacy chains, were either not providing vaccines or requiring prescriptions in 16 states. And the list of 16 states where CVS had those restrictions was slightly different than where Walgreens had them, likely due to ambiguities in state-specific regulations.

The National Alliance of State Pharmacy Associations (NASPA) and the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) have a state-by-state overview of pharmacist vaccination authority regulations here.

For people meeting the FDA criteria

In the 31 states that allow for broader pharmacist vaccination authority, people meeting FDA’s criteria (65 years and older, and people with underlying conditions), should be able to get the vaccine at a pharmacy like usual. And once ACIP sets recommendations later this month—assuming the committee doesn’t restrict access further—people in those groups should be able to get them at pharmacies in the remaining states, too.

Proving underlying conditions

People under 65 with underlying health conditions who want to get their COVID-19 shot at a pharmacy will likely have to do something to confirm their eligibility.

Brigid Groves, APhA’s vice president of professional affairs and the organization’s expert on vaccine policy, told Ars that the most likely scenario is that people will have to fill out forms prior to vaccination, indicating the conditions they have that make them eligible, a process known as self-attestation. This is not unusual, Groves noted. Other vaccinations require such self-attestation of conditions, and for years, this has been sufficient for pharmacists to administer vaccines and for insurance policies to cover those vaccinations, she said.

“APhA is a strong supporter of that patient self-attestation, recognizing that patients have a very good grasp of their medical conditions,” Groves said.

For people who don’t meet the FDA criteria

There are a lot of reasons why healthy children and adults outside the FDA’s criteria may still want to get vaccinated: Maybe they are under the age of 2, an age that is, in fact, still at high risk of severe COVID-19; maybe they live or work with vulnerable people, such as cancer patients, the elderly, or immunocompromised; or maybe they just want to avoid a crummy respiratory illness that they could potentially pass on to someone else.

For these people, regardless of what state they are in, getting the vaccine would mean a pharmacist or doctor would have to go “off-label” to provide it.

“It’s very gray on how a pharmacist may proceed in that scenario,” Groves told Ars. Going off-label could open pharmacists up to liability concerns, she said. And even if a patient can obtain a prescription for an off-label vaccine, that still may not be enough to allow a pharmacist to administer the vaccine.

“Pharmacists have something called ‘corresponding responsibility,’ Groves explained. “So even if a physician, or a nurse practitioner, or whomever may send a prescription over for that vaccine, that pharmacist still has that responsibility to ensure this is the right medication, for the right patient, at the right time, and that they’re indicated for it,” she said. So, it would still be going outside what they’re technically authorized to do.

Doctors, on the other hand, can administer vaccines off-label, which they might do if they choose to follow guidance from medical organizations like AAP and ACOG, or if they think it’s best for their patient. They can do this without any heightened professional liability, contrary to some suggestions Kennedy has made (doctors prescribe things off-label all the time). But, people may have to schedule an appointment with their doctor and convince them to provide the shot—a situation far less convenient than strolling into a local pharmacy. Also, since pharmacies have provided the vast majority of COVID-19 vaccines so far, some doctors’ offices may not have them on hand.

Pregnancy

It’s unclear if pregnancy still falls under the FDA’s criteria for a high-risk condition. It was included in the list that FDA officials published in May. However, the agency did not make that list official when it changed the vaccine labels last month. Some experts have suggested that, in this case, the qualifying high-risk conditions default to the CDC’s existing list of high-risk conditions, which includes pregnancy. But it’s not entirely clear.

In addition, with Kennedy’s previous unilateral change to the CDC’s immunization schedule—which dropped the COVID-19 vaccine recommendation during pregnancy—pregnant people could still face barriers to getting the vaccine in the 19 states that link pharmacist authorization to ACIP recommendations. That could change if ACIP reverses Kennedy’s restriction when the committee meets later this month, but that may be unlikely.

Insurance coverage

It’s expected that insurance companies will continue to cover the full costs of COVID-19 vaccines for people who meet the FDA criteria. For off-label use, it remains unclear.

Groves noted that in June, AHIP, the trade organization for health insurance providers, put out a statement suggesting that it would continue to cover vaccines at previous levels.

“We are committed to ongoing coverage of vaccines to ensure access and affordability for this respiratory virus season. We encourage all Americans to talk to their health care provider about vaccines,” the statement reads.

However, Groves was cautious about how to interpret that. “At the end of the day, on the claims side, we’ll see how that pans out,” she said.

Rapidly evolving access

While the outcome of the ACIP meeting on September 18 and 19 could alter things, a potentially bigger source of change could be actions by states. Already, there have been rapid responses with states changing their policies to ensure pharmacists can provide vaccines, and states making alliances with other states to provide vaccine recommendations and vaccines themselves.

Beth is Ars Technica’s Senior Health Reporter. Beth has a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and attended the Science Communication program at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She specializes in covering infectious diseases, public health, and microbes.

Who can get a COVID vaccine—and how? It’s complicated. Read More »

RFK Jr. says COVID shots still available to all as cancer patients denied access

CDC, COVID-19 vaccine, health, kennedy, robert f kennedy jr, Senate / Shannon Garcia / September 5, 2025

Here are some key moments from today’s hearing:

Untrustworthy

With the fallout ongoing from the abrupt ouster of CDC Director Susan Monarez last week, many senators focused on what led to her downfall. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published two hours before the hearing, Monarez confirmed media reports that she had been fired by Kennedy for refusing to rubber-stamp changes to CDC vaccine guidance based on recommendations from Kennedy’s hand-selected advisors.

“I was told to preapprove the recommendations of a vaccine advisory panel newly filled with people who have publicly expressed antivaccine rhetoric,” Monarez wrote in the op-ed. She said she refused, insisting that the panel’s recommendations be “rigorously and scientifically reviewed before being accepted or rejected.”

In today’s hearing, Senators directly confronted Kennedy with that statement from the op-ed. Kennedy repeatedly said that she is lying and that he never directed her to preapprove vaccine recommendations. Instead, he claims, he told her to resign after he asked her directly if she was a trustworthy person, and she replied, ‘No.”

After several exchanges about this with other senators, Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) picked it apart further, saying:

“Are you telling us that the former head of CDC went to you, you asked her, ‘Are you a trustworthy person?’ And she said, ‘No, I am not a trustworthy person,'” Sanders asked.

“She didn’t say ‘No, I’m not a trustworthy person,'” Kennedy replied. “She said, ‘No.’ I’m giving a quote.”

After that, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who seemed skeptical of Kennedy’s arguments generally, pointed out the absurdity of the claim, quoting Kennedy’s previous praise of Monarez. “I don’t see how you go—over four weeks—from a public health expert with ‘unimpeachable scientific credentials,’ a longtime champion of MAHA values, caring and compassionate and brilliant microbiologists, and four weeks later fire her,” Tillis said. “As somebody who advised executives on hiring strategies, number one, I would suggest in the interview you ask ’em if they’re truthful rather than four weeks after we took the time of the US Senate to confirm the person.”

RFK Jr. says COVID shots still available to all as cancer patients denied access Read More »

Putin: “Immortality” coming soon through continuous organ transplants

china, health, immortality, Putin, russia / DJ Henderson / September 4, 2025

In a later press conference, Putin confirmed the discussion and said that “life expectancy will increase significantly” in the near future and “we should also think about this” in terms of political and economic consequences. (In Russia, life expectancy has actually decreased significantly in recent years, and the overall population is declining.)

The brief snippets of conversation suggest that immortality is on the minds of the world’s strongmen, though it’s interesting to see how it takes a different form than in Silicon Valley, where robots and software are more often seen as the key to longevity instead of, say, recurring organ transplants into an aging bag of skin.

Shows like Upload and Alien: Earth present visions of a world in which consciousness can be scanned by machines and perhaps even loaded into other machines. Meanwhile, Putin and Xi are thinking more about repeated organ transplants and life extension rather than “the Singularity.”

So, which dystopic future are we more likely to get? (Yes, I am presuming, based on the current state of the world, that the near future will be pretty dystopic. I think it’s a good bet.) Clones being raised for organ transplants, as in Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go? Or some kind of “download your consciousness into this machine” situation in which the mind of Elon Musk inhabits one of his beloved Tesla robots for all eternity? Given either alternative, I’m not entirely sure I’d want to live forever.

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OTC nasal spray seemed to cut COVID infections by 67% in mid-sized trial

allergies, COVID-19, health, nasal spray, respiratory infections, robert f kennedy jr / Shannon Garcia / September 3, 2025

COVID context

Like all trials, there are limitations. As mentioned, the number of infections here is small—the impressive efficacy numbers could potentially vanish in a larger trial with more infections. And, while the trial had a high-quality design, it was undertaken in just one location in Germany and mostly involved healthy white women between the ages of 20 and 46, so the findings are not generalizable. The study was also funded by a pharmaceutical company that makes an azelastine nasal spray (though not the one that is sold over the counter in the US).

Still, with the previous studies, the trial offers some hope that this accessible nasal spray could be used as a viral prophylactic for respiratory seasons in the future. And the results land at a time when access to COVID-19 vaccines—which have firmly proven to be safe and highly effective—has been severely restricted in the US by health secretary and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

As it stands now, it appears that only people ages 65 and over, and those at higher risk of COVID-19 will have access to the shots this year, though some aspects of that access are murky, including how people will prove they’re at high risk. For healthy children, teens, and adults under 65, there may be no access or extremely limited access. That includes groups that medical experts recommend get vaccinated, namely healthy pregnant people and children ages 6 months to 23 months, both of which are considered at high risk from COVID-19 by medical experts, but not federal guidance under Kennedy. Experts also recommend access for healthy people who have contact with vulnerable people, such as cancer doctors, people who live with immunocompromised family members, and people who work in nursing homes.

With limited vaccine access and the normal slew of respiratory viruses on the horizon, a simple nasal spray is an appealing addition to the defenses. The main side effects are fairly minor, including bitter taste in the mouth, nosebleeds, and tiredness.

OTC nasal spray seemed to cut COVID infections by 67% in mid-sized trial Read More »

CDC spiraled into chaos this week. Here’s where things stand.

CDC, health, rfk jr / 9u50fv / August 30, 2025

CDC is in crisis amid an ouster, resignations, defiance, and outraged lawmakers.

Demetre Daskalakis, former director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), center, embraces a supporter during a clap out outside of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, US, on Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025. Credit: Getty | Dustin Chambers

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention descended into turmoil this week after Health Secretary and zealous anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ousted the agency’s director, Susan Monarez, who had just weeks ago been confirmed by the Senate and earned Kennedy’s praise for her “unimpeachable scientific credentials.”

It appears those scientific chops are what led to her swift downfall. Since the Department of Health and Human Services announced on X late Wednesday that “Susan Monarez is no longer director” of the CDC, media reports have revealed that her forced removal was over her refusal to bend to Kennedy’s anti-vaccine, anti-science agenda.

The ouster appeared to be a breaking point for the agency overall, which has never fully recovered from the public pummeling it received at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. In its weakened position, the agency has since endured an onslaught of further criticism, vilification, and misinformation from Kennedy and the Trump administration, which also delivered brutal cuts, significantly slashing CDC’s workforce, shuttering vital health programs, and hamstringing others. Earlier this month, a gunman, warped by vaccine misinformation, opened fire on the CDC’s campus, riddling its buildings with hundreds of bullets, killing a local police officer, and traumatizing agency staff.

Monarez’s expulsion represents the loss of a scientifically qualified leader who could have tried to shield the agency from some ideological attacks. As such, it quickly triggered a cascade of high-profile resignations at the CDC, a mass walkout of its staff, and outrage among lawmakers and health experts. While the fallout of the ouster is ongoing, what is immediately clear is that Kennedy is relentlessly advancing his war against lifesaving vaccines from within the CDC and is forcing his ideological agenda on CDC experts.

Some of those very CDC experts now warn that the CDC can no longer be trusted and the country is less safe.

Here’s what we know so far about the CDC’s downturn:

The ouster

Late Wednesday, The Washington Post reported that, for days prior to her ouster, Monarez had stood firm against Kennedy’s demands that she, and by extension the CDC, blindly support and adopt vaccine restrictions put forward by the agency’s vaccine advisory panel—a panel that Kennedy has utterly compromised. After firing all of its highly qualified, extensively vetted members in June, Kennedy hastily installed hand-selected allies on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), who are painfully unqualified but share Kennedy’s hostility toward lifesaving shots. Already, Kennedy’s panel has made recommendations that contradict scientific evidence and public health.

It is widely expected that they will further undo the agency’s evidence-based vaccine recommendations, particularly for COVID-19 and childhood shots. Experts fear that such changes would undermine public confidence in both vaccines and federal guidance, and make vaccines more difficult, if not impossible, for Americans to obtain. Kennedy has already restricted access to COVID-19 vaccines, prompting medical associations to produce divergent recommendations, which raises a slew of unanswered questions about access to the vaccines.

Amid the standoff over rolling back vaccine policy, Kennedy urged Monarez to resign. She refused, and instead called key senators for help, including Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who cast a critical vote in favor of Kennedy’s confirmation in exchange for concessions that Kennedy would not upend CDC’s vaccine recommendations.

Cassidy then called Kennedy, which angered the anti-vaccine advocate, who then chastised Monarez. The beleaguered director was then presented with the choice to resign or be fired. She continued to refuse to resign. On Wednesday evening, HHS wrote of her termination on X. But Monarez, speaking through her lawyers, reiterated that she would not resign and had not been notified of her termination. Late Wednesday night, her lawyers confirmed that White House officials had sent notification of termination, but she still refused to vacate the role.

“As a presidential appointee, senate confirmed officer, only the president himself can fire her,” her lawyers, Mark Zaid and Abbe Lowell said in a statement emailed to Ars Technica. “For this reason, we reject the notification Dr. Monarez has received as legally deficient and she remains as CDC Director. We have notified the White House Counsel of our position.”

On Thursday, the Post reported that the White House had already named a replacement. Jim O’Neill, currently the deputy secretary of HHS, is to be the interim leader of the CDC. O’Neill was previously a Silicon Valley investor and entrepreneur who became a close ally of Peter Thiel. He also worked as a federal official in the George W. Bush administration. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he was a frequent critic of the CDC, but at his Senate confirmation hearing in May, he called himself “very strongly pro-vaccine.”

Kennedy, meanwhile, went on Fox News’ Fox and Friends program Thursday and said the CDC is “in trouble” and that “we’re fixing it. And it may be that some people should not be working there anymore.”

Kennedy’s ACIP is now scheduled to meet September 18–19 to discuss COVID-19 shots, among other vaccines.

Response at the CDC

Soon after news broke of Monarez’s removal, three high-ranking CDC officials resigned together: Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; Debra Houry, chief medical officer; and Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

Their resignation letters spoke to the dangers of Kennedy’s anti-vaccine, anti-science agenda.

“For the good of the nation and the world, the science at CDC should never be censored or subject to political pauses or interpretations,” Houry wrote in her resignation letter. “Vaccines save lives—this is an indisputable, well-established, scientific fact. … It is, of course, important to question, analyze, and review research and surveillance, but this must be done by experts with the right skills and experience, without bias, and considering the full weight of scientific evidence. Recently, the overstating of risks and the rise of misinformation have cost lives, as demonstrated by the highest number of US measles cases in 30 years and the violent attack on our agency.”

In his resignation letter, Daskalakis slammed Kennedy for his lack of transparency, communication, and interest in evidence-based policy. He accused the anti-vaccine advocate of using the CDC as “a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health.” He also blasted ACIP’s COVID work group members as having “dubious intent and more dubious scientific rigor.”

“The intentional eroding of trust in low-risk vaccines favoring natural infection and unproven remedies will bring us to a pre-vaccine era where only the strong will survive and many if not all will suffer,” Daskalakis wrote. “I believe in nutrition and exercise. I believe in making our food supply healthier, and I also believe in using vaccines to prevent death and disability. Eugenics plays prominently in the rhetoric being generated and is derivative of a legacy that good medicine and science should continue to shun.”

In a conversation with The New York Times published Friday, Daskalakis revealed that Kennedy has never accepted a briefing from his center’s experts and said the resignations should indicate that “there’s something extremely wrong [at CDC].

“And also I think it’s important for the American public to know that they really need to be cautious about the recommendations that they’re hearing coming out of ACIP,” he added.

As the three leaders were escorted out of the CDC on Thursday, the staff held a boisterous rally to show support for them and their agency. On his way out, Jernigan, who worked at CDC for more than 30 years, praised his colleagues.

“What makes us great at CDC is following the science, so let’s get the politics out of public health,” he said to cheers. “Let’s get back to the objectivity and let the science lead us, because that’s how we get to the best decisions for public health.”

While those three resignations made news on Wednesday and Thursday, they are part of a steady stream of exits from the agency since Kennedy became secretary. Earlier on Wednesday, Politico reported that Jennifer Layden, director of the agency’s Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology, had also resigned.

Response outside the CDC

Lawmakers have expressed concern and even outrage over Monarez’s firing and what’s going on at the CDC.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) quickly demanded a bipartisan investigation into Monarez’s firing, calling Kennedy’s actions “reckless” and “dangerous.”

He went on to blast Kennedy’s work as health secretary. “In just six months, Secretary Kennedy has completely upended the process for reviewing and recommending vaccines for the public,” Sanders said. “He has unilaterally narrowed eligibility for COVID vaccines approved by the FDA, despite an ongoing surge in cases. He has spread misinformation about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines during the largest measles outbreak in over 30 years. He continues to spread misinformation about COVID vaccines. Now he is pushing out scientific leaders who refuse to act as a rubber stamp for his dangerous conspiracy theories and manipulate science.”

Sanders called on Cassidy, chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, to immediately convene a public hearing with Kennedy and Monarez.

Cassidy called for the upcoming ACIP meeting to be postponed.

“Serious allegations have been made about the meeting agenda, membership, and lack of scientific process being followed for the now announced September ACIP meeting,” Cassidy said in a statement. “These decisions directly impact children’s health and the meeting should not occur until significant oversight has been conducted. If the meeting proceeds, any recommendations made should be rejected as lacking legitimacy given the seriousness of the allegations and the current turmoil in CDC leadership.”

Outside health organizations also expressed alarm about the situation at the CDC.

The American Medical Association said it was “deeply troubled” by the agency’s turmoil and called Monarez’s ouster and the other resignations “highly alarming at a challenging moment for public health.”

In a joint press conference on Thursday of the Infectious Disease Society of America and the American Public Health Association, leaders for the groups spoke of the ripple effects in the public health community and the American public more broadly.

“When leadership decisions weaken the CDC, every American becomes more vulnerable to outbreaks, pandemics, and bioterror threats,” Wendy Armstrong, vice president of the Infectious Disease Society of America said in the briefing. “We’re speaking out because protecting public health is our responsibility as physicians and scientists. It’s imperative that the White House and Congress take action to ensure a functioning CDC as the current HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy has failed.”

Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, echoed the call, saying, “We’ve had enough.”

CDC spiraled into chaos this week. Here’s where things stand. Read More »

CDC director has been ousted just weeks after Senate confirmation

CDC, health, Monarez, robert f kennedy jr / Beth Washington / August 28, 2025

Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, told the outlet that Monarez “values science, is a solid researcher, and has a history of being a good manager. We’re looking forward to working with her.”

A low point for the agency

The reported ouster comes at what feels like a nadir for the CDC. The agency has lost hundreds of staff from layoffs and buyouts. Vital health programs have been shuttered or hampered. Dangerous rhetoric and health misinformation from Kennedy and other health officials in the Trump administration have made once-respected CDC experts feel vilified by the public and like targets of hate. Kennedy himself has falsely called the COVID-19 shots the “deadliest vaccine ever made” and the CDC a “cesspool of corruption,” for example.

On August 8, a gunman warped by vaccine disinformation opened fire on the CDC campus. Of nearly 500 shots fired, about 200 struck six CDC buildings as terrified staff dove for safety. One local police officer was killed in the incident. The gunman had specifically targeted the CDC for the shooting and blamed COVID-19 vaccines for his health problems.

Additional exits reported

After news broke of Monarez’s removal, Stat News reported that a wave of CDC leadership has resigned. The high-ranking resignations include: Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; Deb Houry, Chief Medical Officer; and Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

“I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponization of public health,” Daskalakis said in a message to staff seen by Stat.

“I am committed to protecting the public’s health, but the ongoing changes prevent me from continuing in my job as a leader of the agency,” Houry wrote in a message to staff. Houry added that science should “never be censored or subject to political interpretations.”

Earlier today, Politico reported that Jennifer Layden, director of the agency’s Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology, has also resigned.

8/27/2025 8: 15 pm ET: This post has been updated to include the social media post from HHS, reporting from the Washington Post on the circumstances around Monarez’s exit, additional resignations reported by Stat and Politico, and the statement from Monarez’s lawyers.

CDC director has been ousted just weeks after Senate confirmation Read More »

CDC slashed food safety surveillance, now tracks only 2 of 8 top infections

CDC, food safety, foodborne, foodnet, health, infections / Shannon Garcia / August 28, 2025

In July, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention dramatically, but quietly, scaled back a food safety surveillance system, cutting active tracking from eight top foodborne infections down to just two, according to a report by NBC News.

The Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet)—a network of surveillance sites that spans 10 states and covers about 54 million Americans (16 percent of the US population)—previously included active monitoring for eight infections from pathogens. Those include Campylobacter, Cyclospora, Listeria, Salmonella, Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC), Shigella, Vibrio, and Yersinia.

Now the network is only monitoring for STEC and Salmonella.

A list of talking points the CDC sent the Connecticut health department (which is part of FoodNet) suggested that a lack of funding is behind the scaleback. “Funding has not kept pace with the resources required to maintain the continuation of FoodNet surveillance for all eight pathogens,” the CDC document said, according to NBC. The Trump administration has made brutal cuts to federal agencies, including the CDC, which has lost hundreds of employees this year.

A CDC spokesperson told the outlet that “Although FoodNet will narrow its focus to Salmonella and STEC, it will maintain both its infrastructure and the quality it has come to represent. Narrowing FoodNet’s reporting requirements and associated activities will allow FoodNet staff to prioritize core activities.”

CDC slashed food safety surveillance, now tracks only 2 of 8 top infections Read More »

Horrifying screwworm infection confirmed in US traveler after overseas trip

health, infection, larvae, Maryland, parasites, screw worms, texas / DJ Henderson / August 26, 2025

Flesh-eating screwworm larvae poised to invade the US have snuck into Maryland via the flesh of a person who had recently traveled to El Salvador, upping anxiety about the ghastly—and economically costly—parasite.

Reuters was first to report the case early Monday, quoting Andrew Nixon, spokesperson for the US Department of Health and Human Services, who said in an email that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had confirmed the case on August 4 in a person who had returned from a trip to El Salvador.

While other outlets have since reported that the screwworm case found in Maryland is the first human case in the US, or first travel-related case in the US, or the first case in years—none of those things are true. Screwworms are endemic in parts of South America and the Caribbean and travel-related cases have always been a threat and occasionally pop up in the US. While the CDC doesn’t keep a public tally of the cases, experts at the agency have noted several travel-related human cases in the US in recent years, including one as recent as last year.

The new case in Maryland doesn’t change anything in the US. “The risk to public health in the United States from this introduction is very low,” Nixon wrote to Reuters. But, what has changed is that the risk of an incursion at the US-Mexico border is no longer low—in fact it’s rather high currently.

Savage parasites

Screwworms were once endemic to the US before a massive eradication effort that began in the 1950s drove the population out of the US and Central America. The flies were held at bay with a biological barrier of constant releases of sterile male flies along the Darién Gap at the border of Panama and Colombia. The flies were declared eradicated from Panama in 2006. But, in 2022, the barrier was breached and the flies have worked their way back up through Central America, including El Salvador, since then. Now they are merely 370 miles or less from the Texas border, and state and federal agencies are preparing for an invasion, including with plans to build a sterile fly facility in the state.

Horrifying screwworm infection confirmed in US traveler after overseas trip Read More »

Two men fell gravely ill last year; their infections link to deaths in the ’80s

CDC, Georgia, health, hurricane helene, Infectious disease, melioidosis, soil bacterium / DJ Henderson / August 23, 2025

Doctors soon discovered they were infected with the rare soil bacterium, which causes a disease called melioidosis.

Dangerous infection

Generally, melioidosis can be difficult to diagnose and tricky to treat, as it is naturally resistant to some antibiotics. It can infect people if they breathe it in or get it into open cuts. Sometimes the infection can stay localized, like a lung infection or a skin ulcer. But it can also get into the blood and become a systemic infection, spreading to various organs, including the brain. Fatality rates can be as high as 90 percent in people who are not treated but fall to less than 40 percent in people who receive prompt, proper care.

Both men in 2024 were quickly hospitalized and diagnosed with sepsis. Both were treated with heavy antibiotic regimens and recovered, though patient 2 relapsed in November, requiring another hospital stay. He ultimately recovered again.

According to the CDC, about a dozen melioidosis cases are identified each year in the US on average, but most occur in people who have traveled to areas known to harbor the bacterium. Neither of the men infected last year had recently traveled to any such places. So the researchers turned to genetic sequencing, which revealed the link to two cases in the 1980s.

In those cases, both men died from the infection. The man dubbed Patient 3 died in October of 1989. He was a veteran who fought in Vietnam—where the bacterium is endemic—two decades prior to his infection. The researchers note that such a long latency period for a B. pseudomallei infection is not entirely out of the question, but it would be rare to have such a large gap between an exposure and an infection. More suspiciously, the researchers note that in the month prior to Patient 3’s death, Hurricane Hugo made landfall in Georgia as a Category 4 storm, dumping three to five inches of rain.

Two men fell gravely ill last year; their infections link to deaths in the ’80s Read More »