A Democracy Drive Thread
A vaccine skeptic running the nation’s health agencies — mass layoffs, a measles outbreak, the CDC vaccine panel purged, mRNA research cancelled, and junk science elevated.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a longtime vaccine skeptic — was confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services in February 2025 and set about remaking the nation’s health agencies around his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda. This thread tracks, in chronological order and with sources, the consequences: the staff and programs cut, the vaccine infrastructure dismantled, and fringe claims given the weight of federal authority. It is one of a set of threads on the damage done by the president’s appointees.
March 12, 2021
On the ground
“Medical Racism: The New Apartheid,” produced by Kennedy’s Children’s Health Defense in March 2021, featured claims that Black children have a stronger immune system that vaccines overstimulate and that they should follow a different vaccine schedule. Kennedy had said in 2020 that “people with African American blood react differently to vaccines than people with Caucasian blood.” FactCheck.org found the film pushed known vaccine misrepresentations. It was released as COVID-19 was killing Black Americans at disproportionate rates.
February 13, 2025
The Senate confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who had spent years promoting the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism and chaired an anti-vaccine nonprofit — as Secretary of Health and Human Services, placing him atop the CDC, FDA, NIH and the nation’s public-health apparatus.
March 4, 2025
In his own words
In a Fox Nation interview that aired March 4, 2025, Kennedy said the government should consider “letting it run through the flock so that we can identify the birds and preserve the birds that are immune to it.” He repeated the idea to Sean Hannity later in March. Veterinarians and virologists said letting a highly pathogenic virus circulate among millions of birds would cause mass suffering and give it more chances to adapt to mammals. House Democrats called the approach “dangerous and reckless.”
“letting it run through the flock so that we can identify the birds and preserve the birds that are immune to it”
March 10, 2025
On the ground
NIH terminated or cut back more than 40 awards after adopting a policy not to “prioritize research activities that focus on gaining scientific knowledge on why individuals are hesitant to be vaccinated and/or explore ways to improve vaccine interest.” The cuts came as measles spread in Texas, where an unvaccinated child had died. Researchers warned mRNA vaccine research could be next.
March 24, 2025
On the ground
HHS said it would no longer “waste billions” on “a non-existent pandemic.” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said the cuts would hit mental health, addiction treatment and disease prevention.
March 27, 2025
Kennedy announced a restructuring cutting about 10,000 HHS jobs, with another 10,000 lost to buyouts and early retirements — shrinking the workforce from roughly 82,000 to 62,000 and hitting the CDC, FDA and NIH. Whole offices were eliminated, including ones handling HIV/AIDS policy and sexual-violence prevention.
March 28, 2025
In his own words
Appearing with Morrisey on March 28, 2025 to promote the state’s health initiatives, Kennedy told the crowd: “The first time I met him, I said, ‘Governor Morrisey, you look like you ate Governor Morrisey.’” He made other remarks about the governor’s weight during the joint appearance.
“Governor Morrisey, you look like you ate Governor Morrisey.”
April 1, 2025
On the ground
As layoff notices reached thousands of HHS employees on April 1, 2025, Freedom of Information Act teams were eliminated outright at several agencies, including the CDC’s FOIA office. The same day, programs on HIV, minority health, gun-violence and injury prevention, smoking, lead poisoning and occupational safety were cut. Rep. Gerry Connolly demanded answers. The FDA later rehired some of its records staff after requests piled up.
April 6, 2025
As a measles outbreak grew past 1,000 cases — producing the first U.S. measles deaths in a decade, including two unvaccinated children in Texas — Kennedy called the situation “not unusual,” gave only a lukewarm endorsement of the MMR vaccine, promoted unproven treatments, and falsely suggested the vaccine itself causes deaths “every year.” In April he also falsely claimed measles outbreaks happen because “the vaccine wanes very quickly” — two MMR doses give about 97% protection, typically for life.
April 14, 2025
On the ground
The Biden-era proposal would have barred sale of chicken with high salmonella levels or dangerous strains. Salmonella causes more than a million illnesses a year in the U.S.
April 17, 2025
On the ground
CBS News reported the FDA was planning to stop most routine “surveillance” inspections of food facilities, effectively outsourcing them to states it already contracts with. The April layoffs had removed about 170 staff from the Office of Inspections and Investigations, including the team that arranged inspectors’ travel. The FDA later reversed some layoffs after food and drug safety work was disrupted.
April 23, 2025
On the ground
NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya first described a “new autism registry” with “broad coverage” of the population, then said it was a data platform linking federal and commercial records. HHS later said it would start with Medicare and Medicaid enrollees diagnosed with autism. Autism groups asked whether data would identify individuals or allow opt-outs; STAT reported providers were deluged by parents canceling evaluations or asking to scrub records.
April 28, 2025
Beyond formal policy, Kennedy used his platform to elevate long-debunked claims: he asserted the MMR vaccine contains “aborted fetus debris” (it does not), vowed on Dr. Phil to stop “chemtrails,” and promoted raw milk — lending federal credibility to ideas the scientific community had repeatedly rejected. The pattern traces to his rejection of germ theory itself: in his 2021 book he dismissed it in favor of the discredited idea that disease comes from the body’s “terrain,” not microbes.
April 30, 2025
On the ground
The proposed cut targeted SAMHSA’s First Responders-Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act grant, which in 2023 distributed more than 101,000 naloxone kits and trained nearly 77,000 people. About two dozen substance-use prevention and treatment programs were on the list, even as an administration document promised to “expand access” to naloxone. Kennedy, who has spoken about his own recovery from heroin addiction, backed the restructuring.
May 13, 2025
On the ground
The project, announced as cancellations of mRNA work were mounting, focuses on inactivated whole-virus vaccines, an approach dating to Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine. Vaccine scientists said they were puzzled by the choice; federal officials said the announcement skipped the usual review by career scientists at NIH and BARDA. CBS reported the money was steered to a project led by appointees.
May 20, 2025
On the ground
Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, the two officials said the U.S. would no longer approve shots for everyone 6 months and older without placebo-controlled trials in healthy people, aligning more with countries such as the U.K. and Canada. By late August the FDA restricted the updated shots accordingly, leaving many healthy adults and parents unsure whether they could get them or whether insurers would pay. CBS reported political appointees overruled career reviewers.
May 22, 2025
Kennedy’s “MAHA” commission released its marquee report on children’s health — and researchers quickly found it cited multiple studies that do not exist, with dozens more broken or wrong citations bearing the hallmarks of AI generation (the marker “oaicite” appeared in footnotes). The White House called them “formatting issues.”
May 25, 2025
In his own words
Promoting the MAHA Commission report on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures on May 25, 2025, Makary said: “We’ve got to talk about environmental toxins that cause cancer, not just the chemo to treat it, and maybe we need to treat more diabetes with cooking classes, not just throwing insulin at people.” People with type 1 diabetes cannot survive without insulin, and many with type 2 need it.
“Maybe we need to treat more diabetes with cooking classes, not just throwing insulin at people.”
May 28, 2025
On the ground
The contracts, signed under Biden, funded development and testing of mRNA vaccines against flu strains with pandemic potential, including H5N1. Moderna had reported “positive interim” results from a 300-person study. An HHS spokesman said continued investment was “not scientifically or ethically justifiable.” A global vaccine coalition later funded part of the work.
June 5, 2025
In his own words
Speaking on Fox Business in June 2025, Oz said able-bodied adults should “at least try to get a job or at least volunteer or take care of loved-one who needs help or go back to school.” He added: “Go out there, do entry-level jobs, get into the workforce, prove that you matter. Get agency into your own life.” The bill was projected to cost millions of people their coverage.
“Go out there, do entry-level jobs, get into the workforce, prove that you matter.”
June 9, 2025
Kennedy abruptly removed all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — the panel that recommends vaccines and shapes what insurers must cover — calling it a “clean sweep,” then named replacements including prominent vaccine skeptics. The American Medical Association said the unprecedented move undermined a process that had “saved countless lives.”
June 25, 2025
On the ground
Redwood, a nurse, joined the Immunization Safety Office as a special government employee. Children’s Health Defense, founded by Kennedy, has sued to curb vaccine requirements and spread vaccine misinformation. At the first meeting of Kennedy’s hand-picked vaccine advisers that week, Redwood presented on the preservative thimerosal; CNN found the presentation cited a study that does not exist.
June 30, 2025
In his own words
In a wide-ranging interview released June 30, 2025, Kennedy repeated anti-vaccine claims and said the preemptive pardon Biden gave Fauci reflected Fauci’s “liability” for creating the virus. No investigation has found that Fauci created the virus; the origins of COVID-19 remain disputed among intelligence agencies and scientists.
“he had a lot of liability on creating coronavirus”
July 7, 2025
On the ground
After touring the company’s Oklahoma facility, Kennedy thanked it in an official video for sending meals “without additives” to Medicaid and Medicare enrollees. The Associated Press found the $7 heat-and-eat meals contain chemical additives and many are high in sodium, sugar or saturated fat.
“This is really one of the solutions for making our country healthy again.”
July 10, 2025
On the ground
HHS declared that the Clinton administration had “impermissibly” exempted community-wide programs from the 1996 welfare law’s limits on “federal public benefits.” Head Start, federally funded health centers, Title X family planning, substance-use and mental-health block grants and other programs were reclassified, requiring providers to check immigration status. Twenty-one states sued; a judge later blocked the Head Start restriction. In September 2026 the judge, a Trump appointee, made the injunction permanent; the rule was never implemented.
July 14, 2025
On the ground
The agreement said it would help ICE find “the location of aliens.” A federal judge later issued a preliminary injunction blocking the sharing in a suit by 22 states.
July 21, 2025
In his own words
The Congressional Budget Office estimated millions would lose Medicaid coverage under the new law. Sen. Mark Warner replied, “pry carrot cake out of my cold, dead hands and give us back Medicaid coverage for millions instead.”
August 5, 2025
On the ground
GAO concluded the administration violated the Impoundment Control Act by cutting off grants under Trump’s executive orders against “equity-related” activities and by releasing $8 billion less in new and continuing awards from February to June than in prior years, a drop of more than a third. A federal judge had already ruled in June that the grant terminations were illegal. The New York Times had mapped thousands of canceled NIH grants across the country.
August 6, 2025
HHS announced it was winding down mRNA vaccine development under BARDA, cancelling 22 projects worth nearly $500 million — including a Moderna bird-flu vaccine — citing safety claims contradicted by the evidence. A former BARDA director called it “a huge blow to our national security.”
August 20, 2025
On the ground
Epidemiologist Erin McCanlies at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health had spent two decades studying links between parental chemical exposures and autism. Her entire division was eliminated three weeks before Kennedy announced in April that he would find the cause of autism by September. ProPublica found tens of millions of dollars in autism research cuts, including on environmental causes.
September 6, 2025
In his own words
Speaking on CNN after a contentious Senate hearing and the ouster of CDC Director Susan Monarez, Adams said Trump should fire Kennedy “for the sake of the nation and the sake of his legacy.” Several top CDC officials had resigned in protest over Kennedy’s vaccine policies.
“I absolutely believe he is uniquely damaging the credibility of federal agencies like the CDC, NIH, FDA, and he’s putting us at risk.”
September 22, 2025
After promising in April to identify the cause of the “autism epidemic” by September — and floating a registry to track autistic people — Kennedy and HHS announced a claimed link between Tylenol (acetaminophen) use in pregnancy and autism, recommending a folate-based treatment. Scientists said the evidence did not support the claims. Within hours, Trump’s own FDA undercut him: its notice to doctors said “a causal relationship has not been established and there are contrary studies,” and that acetaminophen remains reasonable to use in pregnancy — while Trump repeatedly told pregnant women not to take it.
September 23, 2025
On the ground
Baccarelli billed more than 200 hours at $700 an hour for plaintiffs in litigation against Johnson & Johnson. Judge Denise Cote of the Southern District of New York dismissed the case and excluded his testimony, writing that he “cherry-picked and misrepresented study results and refused to acknowledge the role of genetics” in autism. He confirmed he consulted with the administration before its September 22 announcement. In July 2026 the 2nd Circuit ruled Cote had improperly excluded testimony from three doctors, including Baccarelli, reviving more than 500 lawsuits; the court stressed it was not deciding whether acetaminophen causes autism, and there is still no firm scientific evidence of a link.
September 25, 2025
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary announced a new safety review of mifepristone — used in about two-thirds of U.S. abortions — a step anti-abortion groups had pressed as a path to restricting or banning it.
September 27, 2025
On the ground
The video, made to look like a segment on Lara Trump’s Fox News show, had an AI Trump saying: “Every American will soon receive their own medbed card. With it, you’ll have guaranteed access to our new hospitals led by the top doctors in the nation.” He called it “the beginning of a new era in American healthcare.” Fox never aired any such segment. The post was not labeled as AI and was deleted hours later.
October 6, 2025
On the ground
Acting CDC Director Jim O’Neill, Kennedy’s deputy, signed off on the changes from the reconstituted Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, declaring “informed consent is back.” Kennedy had already removed the recommendation for healthy children and pregnant women in May by video, without the committee’s input. Medical groups including the American Academy of Pediatrics continued to recommend COVID shots.
“Informed consent is back.”
October 28, 2025
On the ground
The state-court suit accuses the companies of violating consumer-protection laws by marketing Tylenol as safe for pregnant women and of shifting liabilities to Kenvue. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Academy of Pediatrics have found no proven link between acetaminophen in pregnancy and autism or ADHD. Kenvue said it stands with the global medical community on the drug’s safety.
October 31, 2025
Consistent with the MAHA agenda, the FDA acted to remove ingestible prescription fluoride drops and tablets for young children from the market, advising against them for kids under three — reversing decades of guidance on a public-health measure credited with preventing tooth decay.
December 11, 2025
On the ground
Court filings reveal the Office of Head Start told preschool programs to strip nearly 200 words from their funding applications, including “disability,” “women,” “Black,” “tribal” and “mental health.” Federal law requires Head Start to serve children with disabilities and pregnant women, and the application asks programs to report on those services.
December 16, 2025
On the ground
The outbreak, confirmed October 2, 2025, was spreading through community transmission, with some cases lacking a known source. By early 2026 it had surpassed the size of the Texas outbreak that killed two children, growing past 550 cases. The U.S. was at risk of losing its measles-elimination status, held since 2000.
January 5, 2026
On the ground
The overhaul followed a presidential memorandum ordering a review of the schedule. Officials confirmed it skipped the usual process through the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and public comment; the Washington Post reported CDC staff were “blindsided.” The shots remain covered by insurance. The American Academy of Pediatrics called the changes “dangerous and unnecessary.” A federal judge later blocked the changes.
On the ground
State health data through December 6, 2025 showed 1,454 cases, up from 715 in all of 2024. Pediatricians pointed to vaccine hesitancy and waning immunity among older adults. In September 2025, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced plans to end the state’s vaccine requirements for schools, calling them “immoral.”
January 13, 2026
On the ground
Grant recipients across the country received termination letters on Jan. 13, 2026 from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. By the next evening, news reports said the cuts would be reversed, but providers instead got confusing emails duplicating the termination notices or telling them how to shut down their grants within 30 days, before being told the second letter was sent in error. “It’s mass chaos,” said Elizabeth Woike, CEO of a Buffalo treatment provider.
January 28, 2026
On the ground
The AAP continued to recommend vaccination against 18 diseases, including RSV, hepatitis A and B, rotavirus, influenza and meningococcal disease, after the CDC cut its universal recommendations to 11. The American Academy of Family Physicians, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Medical Association endorsed the AAP guidance. Many states said they would not follow the new CDC schedule.
February 18, 2026
On the ground
The FDA had issued a rare “refuse-to-file” letter over a dispute about Moderna’s trial design, a decision Prasad made personally after vaccine-center staff had decided to review the application. A 40,000-person trial had found the shot more effective than a standard flu vaccine in adults 50 and older. After the reversal, an FDA committee recommended it and it became the first approved mRNA flu vaccine.
March 10, 2026
On the ground
In September 2025, Makary said “hundreds of thousands of kids, in my opinion, will benefit,” and Kennedy announced “an exciting therapy that may benefit large numbers of children.” Senior FDA officials concluded: “Right now, we don’t have sufficient data to say that we can establish efficacy for autism more broadly.” Parents had already been demanding prescriptions.
“Right now, we don’t have sufficient data to say that we can establish efficacy for autism more broadly.”
March 19, 2026
On the ground
The withdrawn rules would have barred under-18s from indoor tanning and required adult users to sign forms acknowledging skin-cancer risk. HHS cited “scientific and technical concerns” and “possible unintended consequences.” Dermatologists criticized the decision.
April 22, 2026
In his own words
At a Senate Finance hearing, Warren noted a 600% price cut would mean drug companies paying patients. Kennedy answered: “If you have a $600 drug and you reduce it to $10, that’s a 600% reduction” — it is a 98.3% reduction. Warren showed TrumpRx listing Protonix at $200 while its generic, pantoprazole, costs $16 at Costco, and said shoppers had better than a one-in-four chance of paying more on TrumpRx.
“President Trump has a different way of calculating.”
June 4, 2026
On the ground
CNN reported HHS was seeking identifiable patient data from state systems that let hospitals and clinics share records, linked with pharmacy, lab, genomic, insurance and wearable-device data. HHS gave no detail on privacy protections. Maryland’s exchange declined, saying such sharing would require approvals from hospitals, state leaders and research boards.
June 24, 2026
The Department of Health and Human Services moved to cancel 53 of the 67 active Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program grants — awarded under the Biden administration to curb unintended pregnancies — after a review branded many of their curricula “sexually explicit,” “age-inappropriate,” and “medically inaccurate.” The roughly $72 million was redirected into new grant streams oriented toward promoting childbearing. In August 2026 a federal judge halted the overhaul.