This is a dangerous moment for public health in America. On 1 April, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who heads the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), began overseeing of an estimated 10,000 people at the agency. The cuts are not just wide but deep 鈥� they jeopardise studies that have been running for decades and threaten laboratories that are and influenza both within the US and around the world.
Dozens of senior leaders of HHS agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), have been placed on leave or offered reassignment to other agencies. These departures leave a public health apparatus in chaos and headed by a longtime vaccine sceptic.
Peter Marks resigned as head of the FDA shortly before the layoffs, citing Kennedy鈥檚 鈥渕isinformation and lies鈥� in his 28 March resignation letter. 鈥淯ndermining confidence in well-established vaccines that have met the high standards for quality, safety, and effectiveness that have been in place for decades at FDA is irresponsible, detrimental to public health, and a clear danger to our nation鈥檚 health, safety, and security,鈥� he wrote.
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It is a hazardous time to lose leaders dedicated to the science behind vaccines. The US is in the midst of a measles outbreak that has killed an unvaccinated child and an unvaccinated adult. 聽National vaccination rates declined during the covid-19 pandemic and have not bounced back. Rates of routine childhood vaccines that are normally required to enter kindergarten 鈥� including measles, mumps and rubella (MMR); diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTaP); polio; and varicella 鈥� have dropped to 93 per cent of incoming students on average. Idaho has reported the lowest MMR vaccination rate of . To reach herd immunity, public health officials aim for a 95 per cent rate.
And yet, under Kennedy鈥檚 leadership, HHS is undertaking a study into the widely debunked claim that there is a connection between vaccination and autism, led by long-standing vaccine critic David Geier.
To be clear, no rigorous studies have found such a link. This fear can be traced back to a single infamous study led by Andrew Wakefield and published 27 years ago in the prestigious scientific journal The Lancet, which looked at 12 children and implied their autism was linked to having had the MMR vaccine. Twelve years after it was published, The Lancet retracted the study, on the grounds that the findings were incorrect.
The retraction was far too late to extinguish the anti-vaccine scare it had sparked. A generation later, the US is haunted by the study鈥檚 legacy. The US anti-vaccine movement has gained so much momentum that it is now firmly embedded within the highest levels of government. When contacted for comment, a spokesperson for HHS responded that 鈥渢his overhaul is about realigning HHS with its core mission: to stop the chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again鈥�.
But the truth is that Kennedy鈥檚 decimation of the public health agencies and erosion of trust in vaccines is unleashing a dangerous national experiment. It is the stuff of nightmares for the millions of researchers and public health workers who for decades have used the instruments of science to render many of humanity鈥檚 worst illnesses 鈥� once widespread causes of childhood mortality 鈥� a distant memory.
Chelsea Whyte is 快猫短视频鈥檚 US Editor.
