• PUBLIC HEALTHHealth Officials from 10 Northeast States Officially Band Together

    By William Skipworth

    More states are responding to – and rebuking — Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s antivaccine efforts by pulling their resources so they can provide evidence-based, science-informed vaccine guidance and coordinate public health efforts which are independent of the federal government.

  • PUBLIC HEALTHAs Tensions Over RFK Jr.’s Vaccine Policy Mount, States Act to Secure Access to Vaccines

    In an effort to secure the health of their citizens, several states have acted quickly to preserve vaccine access through legislation, bills, executive orders, and regional collaborations that can issue independent recommendations and expand pharmacy-based administration of vaccines regardless of federal guidance. The action reflects a loss of confidence in the CDC and its vaccination committee which HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has stacked with vaccine skeptics.

  • ASSAULT ON SCIENCEVaccine Death and Side Effects Database Relies on Unverified Reports – and Trump Officials and Right-Wing Media Are Applying It Out of Context

    By Matt Motta and Dominik Stecuła

    In its meeting over the last two days, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) has discussed reports linking 25 child deaths to COVID-19 vaccines. These death reports are derived from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, a database the anti-vaccine movement and conspiracy theorists have used to spread misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine.

  • QUICK TAKES // By Ben FrankelThe Future of Malign Influence Campaigns Is Here: In Moldova, the U.S. Allows Russia a Free Play

    The Trump administration has dismantled the U.S. capabilities built to track, thwart, and respond to Russian disinformation and influence campaigns both around the world and in the United States. Russia will not be the only one to exploit this unilateral U.S. disarmament: China, Iran, North Korea, and other adversaries of the United States will readily, and gratefully, exploit it, too.

  • DISASTERSTwo Decades Later, the Experience of Katrina Continues to Shape How the Nation Prepares for and Responds to Disasters

    By Lauren Alexander Augustine

    Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath exposed profound gaps in multiple systems, including flood protection, emergency response, health care, and housing. It marked a turning point in the way we understand the impacts of natural disasters.

  • PUBLIC HEALTHKennedy Hearing Deepens Crisis Over Dismantling of CDC Leadership - Health Scholar Explains Why the Agency’s Ability to Protect Public Health Is Compromised

    By Jordan Miller

    CDC, long considered the nation’s –if not the world’s –premier public health organization, is unraveling. The reason: HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr.’s effort to emasculate the agency, undermine its scientific foundations, replace scientists in the agency with unqualified anti-vaxxers, do away with its evidence-to-recommendations framework, and promote skepticism, if not rejection, of science and scientific methods. Public health professionals are now warning the public that vaccine recommendations coming from the CDC may not be trustworthy.

  • PUBLIC HEALTHFormer NIH Officials File Whistleblower Complaint

    By Chris Dall

    Two former top NIH officials have filed whistleblower complaints, claiming they were removed from leadership positions over their objections to agency leadership’s hostility toward vaccines, politicization of scientific research, and suspension of funding for clinical trials and foreign research.

  • ARGUMENT: CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGERWe Ran the C.D.C.: Kennedy Is Endangering Every American’s Health

    Nine former leaders of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), who served as directors or acting directors under Republican and Democratic administrations, serving under presidents from Jimmy Carter to Donald Trrump, argue that HHS Secretary Roert F. Kennedy Jr. poses a clear and present danger to the health of Americans. He has placed anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists at top HHS positions, and he appears to be guided by a hostility to science and a belief in bizarre, unscientific approaches to public health.

  • PUBLIC HEALTHFlorida Plans to Scrap Kid Vaccine Mandates as HHS Employees Demand RFK Jr Resignation

    In ongoing upheaval over antivaccine policies espoused by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his allies in Florida today—in a national first—announced plans to scrap requirements for school-based vaccination.

  • PUBLIC HEALTHHealth Leaders, Medical Groups: CDC Leader Exodus Puts Nation's Health at Risk

    By Lisa Schnirring

    As news broke of the ouster of newly confirmed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Susan Monarez, PhD, and the resignations of some of the agency’s top scientists, reactions came fast and furious from public health leaders, professional groups, and lawmakers.

  • PUBLIC HEALTHChaos Continues at CDC

    RFK Jr. has replaced the scientists who served on the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) with individuals who share his skepticism about the efficacy of vaccines in fighting disease. These vaccine-skeptics have formed a new working group to review the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, and named an operation research professor with no background in medicine, or in science more generally, to chair the working group. Chaos ensued.

  • ARGUMENT: ON DOING NOTHINGStanding Around in Washington, D.C.

    What, exactly, is the National Guard really doing in Washington, D.C.? Benjamin Wittes writes in Lawfare that they just stand around. “This deployment isn’t really about doing anything. It’s not going to do anything about D.C.’s crime problem, though I’m sure the president will make up whatever numbers he needs to claim otherwise.” The answer is: “It’s a way of showing who owns whom. And doing it over nothing, for no reason other than that the president can do it, shows who’s boss in a way that doing it for a reason never could.”

  • HURRICANE KATRINA: 20 YEARS ONHurricane Katrina: 3 Painful Lessons for Emergency Management Are Increasingly Important 20 Years Later

    By Eric Kevin Stern

    Hurricane Katrina looms large in the history of American emergency management, both for what went wrong as the disaster unfolded and for the policy changes it triggered. As efforts to reform –and possibly rebalance –the U.S. emergency management system continue, it is essential to remember and heed the costly lessons of Hurricane Katrina.

  • COMMON-SENSE NOTES // By Idris B. OdunewuA Shining Star in a Contentious Legacy: Could Marty Makary Be the Saving Grace of a Divisive Presidency?

    While much of the Trump administration has sparked controversy, the FDA’s consumer-first reforms may be remembered as its brightest legacy. From AI-driven drug reviews to bans on artificial dyes, the FDA’s agenda resonates with the public in ways few Trump-era policies have.

  • REFUGEESMost Refugees and Asylees Will Be Denied Food Stamps Under Trump’s New Law

    By Shalina Chatlani

    Many noncitizens have historically been eligible for food aid, but now most refugees and asylees, who entered the country legally, including B., are no longer eligible for food stamps.