RFK Jr. confirmed to lead HHS. Louisiana immediately ends mass vaccination campaigns. Plus, analysis of the new "Make American Healthy Again" Commission, and other updates.
Four stories for you today:
Reactions to RFK Jr.’s Senate confirmation.
An analysis of President Trump’s new executive order creating a “Make America Healthy Again” Commission.
A judge ordered the CDC and FDA to restore key websites. Have they obeyed the ruling?
The CDC’s MMWR was back again yesterday with papers on H5N1 and mpox. These papers are examples of important work by federal employees whose jobs are under threat by the Trump administration.
Let’s get to it…
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RFK Jr. confirmed as HHS Secretary. Reactions.
The United States Senate confirmed RFK Jr. as the next Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services in a vote mostly along party lines. The sole Republican vote against RFK Jr. came from Senator Mitch McConnell, who survived polio, which is now a vaccine-preventable illness.
Republican Senator and physician Bill Cassidy of Louisiana also voted yes, after previously “struggling” with the decision as chair of the Senate Health Committee. Not missing a beat, the Louisiana Department of Health announced yesterday that it would no longer promote mass vaccinations.
Here’s how several organizations reacted to the expected RFK Jr. news…
The American Public Health Association:
“We are disappointed, but not surprised, by the Senate’s decision to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is our hope that RFK Jr. stands on what he promised during his testimony and prioritizes making America healthier, rather than sowing distrust. More energy should be spent on developing evidence-based solutions to address our most pressing health issues, instead of discrediting proven methods that save lives. The health secretary must put the American people first so that all can have optimal health and live a full life. We will find productive ways to work with the administration to achieve that.” —American Public Health Association statement on Instagram.
Doctors For America (abridged):
“[We are] deeply disappointed by today’s Senate vote confirming Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). At every stage of this confirmation process, we have expressed our significant concerns about Kennedy’s previous rhetoric and false assertions regarding the safety and efficacy of life-saving preventive health care.
….During his confirmation hearings to become America’s top health official, he further reinforced our collective concerns as his responses provided no reassurance that he would listen to experts about established scientific principles, that he understands the basic and critical operations of the department he would be leading, and that he would defend the agencies’ capabilities and capacity to provide healthcare and conduct biomedical research against ongoing threats. Now that he has been confirmed, we implore Mr. Kennedy to leverage the expertise at his disposal, prioritize the voices and perspectives of scientific experts and medical professionals, and rely on peer reviewed scientific data to guide his decisions.
To that end, Doctors for America stands ready to partner with Secretary Kennedy and his team on their efforts to improve the health of the American people…. —Doctors For America. (The full statement can be found here.)
The American Medical Association:
Register now to be part of #HIMSS25, the premier health care event driving #healthIT innovation and digital transformation. March 3-7, 2025, in Las Vegas.
In other words, the AMA is once again MIA, as it largely has been during the Trump administration. Based on what the AMA is posting online, it seems the organization is saving all of its clout for a small number of issues where it believes it might have impact, including protecting Medicaid. Will that pay off?
One more reaction: Today, all HHS employees received an email inviting them to attend a “welcoming ceremony” for RFK Jr. at the HHS headquarters in Washington D.C., this coming Tuesday. The reaction of the HHS employee who shared the email with Inside Medicine: “Barf.”
President Trump announces “Make America Healthy Again Commission.” Analysis.
Yesterday, President Trump released an executive order establishing a new “Make America Healthy Again Commission.” The president cited America’s lagging life expectancy compared to similar nations. Of course, in December, new data showed that US life expectancy had finally begun to increase again, after a marked decrease during the Covid-19 emergency.
Beyond that, the order covered a lot of ground, including a somewhat confusing tangent regarding the “burdens” and “dire threats” of ADHD medications—which, if you care about data—have been correlated with lower odds of death, and meta-analyses (studies of studies) have found no robust connection between ADHD medications and cardiovascular disease, meaning that studies that had small signals in one direction have been offset by those with opposite signals. That means that if any such correlations actually exist, the effect size is small compared to the leading cause of death in US children ages 1 and up: firearms.
Shocking nobody, firearms were not mentioned in the document, despite being the leading cause of death in US children ages 1 and up.
As epidemiologist Dr. Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz pointed out on Bluesky, “the two biggest killers of children [ages] 1-18 in the US—automobiles and firearms—kill more kids than all forms of chronic disease combined.” Indeed, document highlighted chronic disease, hardly a new concern in medicine or public health, despite RFK Jr.’s attempt to colonize it.
The Commission’s agenda…
The order set forth four policy action items. Here they are, followed by my thoughts:
(a) all federally funded health research should empower Americans through transparency and open-source data, and should avoid or eliminate conflicts of interest that skew outcomes and perpetuate distrust;
Commentary: Okay. But a judge had to force the Trump administration to restore the very kinds of transparent and open-source data and websites that this directive implies. (More on this in the next story.) Plus, the administration has already seriously undermined the academic research landscape through its draconian moves at the NIH. These moves will leave industry-funded studies as the only game in town. So the administration has contradicted itself by asking for reduced conflicts of interest immediately after undermining academic research—precisely the kind of research where avoiding conflicts is possible.
(b) The National Institutes of Health and other health-related research funded by the Federal Government should prioritize gold-standard research on the root causes of why Americans are getting sick.
Commentary: The Trump administration just squandered mountains of gold-standard research when its decimation of USAID shuttered numerous clinical trials in progress. So, yes, please do this. But start by salvaging what’s left of what the administration already destroyed.
(c) Agencies shall work with farmers to ensure that United States food is the healthiest, most abundant, and most affordable in the world;
Commentary: Perhaps we should protect our dairy and poultry farms from deadly diseases like H5N1 so that our food prices don’t continue to go through the roof.
(d) Agencies shall ensure the availability of expanded treatment options and the flexibility for health insurance coverage to provide benefits that support beneficial lifestyle changes and disease prevention.
Commentary: On this one, I agree. The problem, as my friend Jeff Davis of McDermott+ pointed out on LinkedIn is that among the initial members of the Commission, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) was not included. Normally, the head of CMS would be expected to make important contributions in discussions on expanding treatment options. On the other hand, the nominee for CMS Administrator is Dr. Oz.
One final comment. There are chronic diseases that we already prevent in the United States, including Hepatitis B and HPV strains that cause cervical cancer. How do we achieve that? Vaccines.
CDC and FDA obey judge’s ruling, restoring censored datasets.
Earlier this week, a judge ordered that the CDC and FDA restore specific webpages and datasets that had been removed as a result of a broad censorship campaign ordered by the Trump administration. It was an early win for Doctors For America (DFA) who brought the action.
A ruling is one thing, but have the CDC and FDA actually obeyed it? (This is not a given, as other judicial rulings against the Trump administration have been ignored.) Indeed, many of the thousands of axed websites had already been coming back online anyway, making it unclear whether restored websites and datasets were due to CDC and FDA adherence to the judge’s ruling or, alternatively, as part of an ongoing data thaw. To find out, I spoke to Dr. Reshma Ramachandran, who serves on the board of DFA. According to Dr. Ramachandran, a number of websites were specifically restored this week in response to the legal victory:
CDC pages restored:
FDA pages restored:
To confirm that the webpages had been restored specifically in response to the judge’s ruling, I spoke to a CDC official with knowledge of the agency’s response to the Trump gag order and the judicial restraining order reversing it. That official indeed confirmed the DFA’s view.
As you can see, many of the restored resources contain information that the Trump administration considers “woke ideology.” It’s great news to see these websites have (for now) been restored and, apparently, unmodified.
CDC MMWR update. One H5N1 and an mpox manuscript gets published.
The CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) was again published yesterday, and, as reported in Monday’s Inside Medicine, a manuscript on H5N1 bird flu was included. The report described antibody testing results among 150 bovine veterinarians in the US and Canada, none of whom had flu symptoms, including conjunctivitis (the most common unusual finding among H5N1 cases so far, though that may be due to detection bias). Of these, three vets had antibodies against H5N1, suggesting recent infections. This is both good news (the cases were asymptomatic) and bad news (2% is pretty high prevalence, and high prevalence means that mutations or dangerous co-infections are more likely). Notably, all three vets who tested positive said they wore gloves and protective clothing during their work, but not masks.
A second study in this week’s MMWR described the first case of the Ib strain of mpox in the Americas, including helpful clinical information that could help clinicians identify future cases and potentially curb an outbreak. The study was a collaboration between California and CDC officials.
As the CDC braces for massive personnel cuts, it bears mentioning that studies like these are crucial in our understanding of emerging threats like H5N1 and mpox. If major CDC cuts go forward—including “probationary staff” who are often younger “disease hunters” that the CDC sends out for field research—the risk of other terrible outbreaks will dramatically increase.
Indeed the Washington Post reported that the Trump administration seeks to fire 200,000 probationary staff. This would not be draining the swamp. It would be suffocating our pipeline of hungry, young talent.
That’s what we know for now. If you have information about any of the unfolding stories we are following, please email me or find me on Signal.
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Again, thank you for sharing credible information. It IS REASSURING that the courts are doing their job & that at least for now, the administration is complying with most court orders relative to health. Let’s hope that vigilance will sustain that.
Health care professionals understand the concept of triage better than the lay public. All of these losses will have impact but we understand that “they are not created equal”. Surviving this time with the least harm will depend on our ability to prioritize & focus our efforts.
Sadly, we have a long road ahead!
Thank you for your dedication and hard work. I am wondering how to have hope, and I know that having hope is very important during difficult times. I have called my congresswoman and senators multiple times. 52% of the country voted for this. What are we missing? I understand that we need to curb spending AND this is not the way. What is it that made the Dr. from Louisiana change his mind even though he knows better. Please continue to let us know what we can do to. Thank you again for all that you and your fellow healthcare professionals do for us everyday!