Kennedy’s Vaccine Advisers Sow Doubts as Scientists Protest US Pivot on Shots
A new vaccine advisory panel appointed by the HHS secretary, a longtime anti-vaccine activist, reflected his unsupported claims about the safety of childhood inoculations.
The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.
with

201 - 220 of 3,667 Results
A new vaccine advisory panel appointed by the HHS secretary, a longtime anti-vaccine activist, reflected his unsupported claims about the safety of childhood inoculations.
Vaccines are under fire from the top of the Trump administration. Federal programs to monitor them and make them safer have always been underfunded.
While Congress fails to stave off cuts to HIV care, community leaders in Mississippi and beyond race to limit the damage.
Newer formulations are even more effective at preventing illnesses that commonly afflict seniors — perhaps even dementia.
The Center for Asbestos Related Disease in Libby, Montana, closed in May after a court judgment allowing BNSF Railway to seize its assets. Now, the clinic’s federal funding is in jeopardy, too.
Get our weekly newsletter, The Week in Brief, featuring a roundup of our original coverage, Fridays at 2 p.m. ET.
Researchers laid off in April were putting the finishing touches on in-depth HIV surveys that guide treatment and prevention. Some staff have been reinstated, but data remains in limbo.
A look inside the Department of Health and Human Services document citing vaccine misinformation that could influence congressional perceptions.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. this week did something he had promised not to do: He fired every member of the scientific advisory committee that recommends which vaccines should be given to whom. And he replaced them, in some cases, with vaccine skeptics. Meanwhile, hundreds of employees of the National Institutes of Health sent an open letter to the agency’s director, accusing the Trump administration of policies that “undermine the NIH mission.” Anna Edney of Bloomberg News, Sarah Karlin-Smith of the Pink Sheet, and Joanne Kenen of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Politico Magazine join ϳԹ News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more.
ϳԹ News gives readers a chance to comment on a recent batch of stories.
ϳԹ News’ Céline Gounder joined CBS Evening News to discuss the unprecedented move by the Health and Human Services secretary.
“Less lethal” weapons are once again being used in Los Angeles — against people protesting the Trump administration’s immigration raids. With terms like “foam,” “sponge,” and “bean bag,” the projectiles may sound harmless. They’re not.
A letter signed by more than 300 National Institutes of Health workers — some still working, others who were fired this year — is an extraordinary public rebuke of actions taken under Director Jay Bhattacharya and health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The Trump administration is eroding national pandemic flu defenses as it guts health agencies, cuts research and health budgets, and withdraws funding for bird flu vaccines, health security experts said.
The Trump administration wants to shutter the CDC’s National Asthma Control Program, which provides millions in funding to state-administered initiatives aimed at fighting the disease. The program’s closure, combined with massive cuts to environmental programs, could put the 28 million Americans with asthma at increased risk.
The House’s gigantic tax-and-spending budget reconciliation bill has landed with a thud in the Senate, where lawmakers are divided in their criticism over whether it increases the deficit too much or cuts Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act too deeply. Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that the bill, if enacted, could increase the ranks of the uninsured by nearly 11 million people over a decade won’t make it an easy sell. Alice Miranda Ollstein of Politico, Jessie Hellmann of CQ Roll Call, and Lauren Weber of The Washington Post join ϳԹ News’ Julie Rovner to discuss these stories and more. Also this week, Rovner interviews ϳԹ News’ Arielle Zionts, who reported and wrote the latest “Bill of the Month” feature, about a Medicaid patient who had an out-of-state emergency.
The U.S. Department of Justice canceled $500 million in grants to public safety organizations nationwide, including some that address gun violence. A clinic in St. Louis lost a $2 million award to develop a mobile clinic, increase mental health services, and engage the community.
The cuts will shutter two major HIV vaccine research efforts, and a National Institutes of Health senior official said the agency has been instructed not to issue any more HIV vaccine research funding in the next fiscal year, with few exceptions.
The Indian Health Service was mostly spared in the federal government’s widespread staffing cuts, but tribal governments and organizations have lost funding elsewhere in the melee of federal health agency cuts.
This episode was taped live on Friday, May 30, at the annual conference of the Association of Health Care Journalists in Los Angeles. Host Julie Rovner moderated a panel featuring Rachel Nuzum, senior vice president for policy at The Commonwealth Fund; Berenice Núñez Constant, senior vice president of government relations and civic engagement at AltaMed Health Services; and Anish Mahajan, chief deputy director of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. The panelists discussed the national, state, and local implications of funding cuts made over the first 100 days of the second Trump administration and the potential fallout of reductions that have been proposed but not yet implemented. The panelists also took questions from health reporters in the audience.
© 2026 KFF