WASHINGTON—In a move that could be interpreted as an intentional policy designed to kill people, the Food and Drug Administration, under the rule of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, has ordered an end to COVID vaccinations for most Americans. Vaccines that medical experts almost unanimously say have saved the lives of millions are, under the new rules, now unavailable to the majority of the population.
The FDA rules issued yesterday approve the vaccines only for one age group – people over 65 years of age. People in that age group, of course, have been known to be the most vulnerable to severe illness and death from COVID. Younger people would be eligible only if they suffer from underlying medical conditions that put them at higher risk of severe disease or death, and those conditions would have to be certified by a doctor.
It puts an end to the ability of millions to simply go to their pharmacists and access the vaccines. Pharmacists across the country are already stopping administration of the vaccines out of fear that they might do something to violate the law and jeopardize their licenses. The U.S. is now the only advanced industrial country to deny the COVID vaccine to the majority of its population.
Advocates for children, in particular, have expressed shock and opposition to the new rules, coming as they do on the same day that a mass shooting at a school in Minneapolis took the lives of two children and injured 14 others. “Between having to live in a society where 500 million guns are floating around in the population and they take a risk by just going to school and now life-saving vaccines are increasingly out of reach, it is no exaggeration to say that the nation’s children are under the most severe attack they have ever been under in at least a century,” Dr. Iwin Redlener, a public health analyst, said yesterday on MSNBC. “These rules will kill people,” he said.
The CDC Director, Dr. Susan Monarez, on the job for only three weeks, objected to putting the new rules into effect before she could check with medical advisors. She was fired, and the top four CDC officials just below her resigned in protest, throwing the agency into chaos and further endangering the nation’s health. In addition to COVID vaccines, there is concern about the flu vaccines usually administered in the fall since RFK Jr. is a known opponent of vaccinations across the board.
Kennedy’s coronavirus shot ban flies in the face of medical need, tweeted Dr. Anthony Fauci, the recently retired chief of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, before and during the coronavirus pandemic. His tweet just days earlier said that prior coronavirus boosters lose strength over time. He urged everyone to get new shots.
Dr. Monarez hired notable D.C. lawyers Mark Zaid and Abbe Lowell to sue to get her job back. “Contrary to government statements, Dr. Monarez has neither resigned nor yet been fired. She will not resign,” the attorneys said on her behalf.
“First, it was independent advisory committees” on vaccines “and career experts,” whom Kennedy canned wholesale in March. His advisory committee also includes ideological vaccine skeptics.
Seasoned scientists dismissed
“Then it was the dismissal of seasoned scientists. Now, Secretary Kennedy and HHS set their sights on weaponizing public health for political gain and putting millions of American lives at risk.
“When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated public health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted.”
Three of Dr. Monarez’s top CDC department heads promptly quit their jobs in principle, and their memos explaining why were leaked to various media. All made the same points.
“For the good of the nation and the world, the science at CDC should never be censored or subject to political pauses or interpretations. Vaccines save lives—this is an indisputable, well-established, scientific fact,” wrote Dr. Deborah Houry, the CDC’s chief medical officer, as she headed out the door.
Strong language also came from the National Nurses United, the only medically oriented union, so far, to criticize Kennedy. It first slammed him for trashing the non-partisan and non-political vaccine advisory committee several months ago.
“The Trump administration is undermining well-established science by lifting up science deniers, including HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,” NNU said then. “Because Kennedy is a vaccine skeptic who promotes misinformation, children are getting not only measles but also liver damage from being given too much vitamin A.
“We are fighting back in court against the harms the Trump administration is causing and in the court of public opinion, which we need to sway members of Congress to care more about their constituents than bowing to Trump.”
NNU fired a second salvo at Kennedy on August 7, when he axed $500 million earmarked for research into mRNA-created vaccines. Use of mRNA methods let the coronavirus vaccines come quickly to the public early in the pandemic, NNU said, saving countless patients and nurses’ lives.
Even so, thanks to Trump’s denial of the pandemic in his first term, 1.1 million people died. His other medical adviser, Dr. Deborah Birx, a career specialist in infectious diseases, calculated the first 100,000 were not preventable, but the rest were.
An estimated 22 million people have been left permanently disabled in various ways due to “long COVID.”
RFK is using “deceptive claims that cast doubts on the scientifically irrefutable fact that vaccines save lives” to justify yanking the mRNA research money, NNU said.
“Covid-19 [the coronavirus] will not be the last pandemic. While we can’t get back the lives lost or months and years of suffering from long Covid, our political leaders can and must take steps now to do everything possible to prepare our health care system for the next pandemic.
Enabling of researchers
“mRNA vaccine technology enables researchers and scientists to develop vaccines far more quickly and accurately than older technologies, RFK Jr. is promoting.”
That’s important, NNU said, because “scientists have predicted the frequency and severity of pandemics will grow as climate change and biodiversity losses progress.”
The American Medical Association also pre-emptively sued Kennedy’s anti-vaccine plans. It blasted him in U.S. District Court in Boston in early July. Five other professional medical organizations joined in. The suit has yet to come to trial.
American Public Health Association (APHA) Executive Director Dr. George Benjamin declared Kennedy is such a risk to public health that he should be fired. Dr. Benjamin recommended constituents push lawmakers to push for Kennedy’s ouster.
Kennedy engages in “reckless mismanagement. His tenure has been marked by chaos, disorganization, and blatant disregard for science and evidence-based public health,” Dr. Benjamin said.
“Pushing Dr. Monarez out underscores his administrative incompetence and his disdain for the expertise the public and our public health agencies rely on.
Dr. Benjamin also noted Project 2025, the infamous blueprint/ Trump platform created by the far-right Heritage Foundation, significantly weakens the CDC.
Project 2025 would ban the CDC “from issuing prescriptive guidance on vaccines and masks, leaving such decisions entirely to parents and medical providers. It also advocates for limiting the CDC’s role to evaluating only health-related costs and benefits of interventions, without considering social impacts.”
And Project 2025 would split the CDC in two. One half would collect data and the other would recommend policy, “suggesting that CDC is not equipped to make policy decisions. This would slow emergency responses and remove the already limited authority the CDC has.”
But in the end, Dr. Benjamin wrote, the decisions on the future of public health in the U.S. are up to Trump.
“If Dr. Monarez is forced out, one has to wonder who could possibly possess the training, skills, and expertise necessary to effectively lead CDC that will not run into the same issues with RFK Jr.,” he mused.
“President Trump, you must step in and protect the American people. Remove RFK Jr. from his position and appoint a true public health leader—someone committed to science, integrity, and the well-being of our nation.”
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