With the CDC in disarray and its future uncertain, this episode explores what’s driving the exodus of agency staff and what this means for national health security.
TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) – There’s mixed reaction among Floridians following Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo’s push to end vaccine mandates.
One person against this new push is Dr. Scott Rivkees, who was state Surgeon General from 2019 to 2021 with the DeSantis Administration.
“From a public health, medical, and view as a parent, this is a sad day for Florida,” Rivkees said.
The former state health official is now a professor at Brown University in Rhode Island. Rivkees questions the purpose of the state’s push for vaccine mandate elimination.
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The Pandemic Center celebrated its inaugural cohort of Biosecurity Game Changers with a completion ceremony highlighting the far-reaching impact of the fellows’ work.
(TNND) — Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defended his "Make America Healthy Again" agenda during a heated congressional hearing on Thursday against members of both parties.
Kennedy testified before the Senate Finance Committee, where he faced tough questions amid the ouster of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director and big changes in vaccine policy.
Susan Monarez was ousted as CDC director after less than a month on the job.
A decades-long, nationwide commitment to a wholesale vaccination policy began unraveling Wednesday, with some states moving to preserve broad access to inoculations while others lurched in the opposite direction.
In Massachusetts, Governor Maura Healey essentially wrote a prescription for COVID shots for every person in the state over the age of 5, a move that would blunt potential federal restrictions on COVID boosters.
Meanwhile, Florida’s surgeon general announced a plan to phase out vaccine mandates altogether, including those for children attending its public schools.
(TNND) — President Donald Trump called on drug companies to "justify" the success they claim over COVID-19 vaccines.
“Many people think they are a miracle that saved Millions of lives. Others disagree! With CDC being ripped apart over this question, I want the answer, and I want it NOW,” Trump said in a Truth Social post Monday.
Trump said he’s seen “extraordinary” information from drugmakers that hasn’t been shared publicly.
Trump specifically mentioned Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. among those who “rip themselves apart” to figure out if the COVID-19 vaccines work as advertised.
There are many reasons for the widespread condemnation of the decision by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to cancel half a billion dollars in research and development of mRNA vaccines. Indeed, halting work on one of the most promising areas of biomedical innovation—one that brought an end to the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic and also promises treatments even for non-respiratory diseases like cancer—represents an astounding level of short-sightedness.
The Trump Administration has made significant changes to the departments in charge of public health. Dr. Craig Spencer, an emergency medicine physician who teaches public health policy at Brown University, discusses the impact he expects on the health of average Americans and for the future of public health research.
"There is no American health without a strong, vibrant and evidence-based U.S. CDC."Jennifer Nuzzo on who families can turn to for reliable medical info after the firing of the CDC head and resignation of several officials
The White House’s AI Action Plan, released in July, mentions “health care” only three times. But it is one of the most consequential health policies of the second Trump administration. Its sweeping ambitions for AI—rolling back safeguards, fast-tracking “private-sector-led innovation,” and banning “ideological dogmas such as DEI”—will have long-term consequences for how medicine is practiced, how public health is governed, and who gets left behind.
In addition to Covid prevention, medical researchers are discovering ways mRNAs could treat various cancers, HIV, and sickle cell anemia. But RFK Jr. and the Trump administration are threatening their efforts.
Turmoil at the nation’s preeminent public health institution reverberated across the country Thursday as a sudden purge of top leaders and abrupt policy changes threatened to confuse Americans on a myriad of health issues and risked leaving the country unprepared for the next pandemic, medical and public health experts said.
On Wednesday, US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired Susan Monarez, who was confirmed as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention just one month ago. President Trump affirmed her dismissal Wednesday night.
Rattling departures of high-ranking officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention appear to be sending the U.S. public health agency into unsettling disarray, experts say, after the White House abruptly dismissed CDC director Susan Monarez on Wednesday evening following alleged disagreements on health policy.
Arguably, one of humanity’s most dramatic successes has been the application of science to understand and then decisively intervene to improve these harrowing conditions. The global infant mortality rate is now less than 25 per 1000, with the US at 5.2 per 1000. Although clean water, sanitation, improved nutrition, and advances in neonatal and perinatal care have all played crucial roles in this progress, the greatest single contributor has been the development and widespread use of vaccines. The World Health Organization (WHO) Expanded Programme on Immunization is estimated to account for a 40% reduction in global infant mortality rate over the last 50 years, not including the dramatic effects of smallpox eradication.
It’s been a tumultuous week for US health agencies, with the departure of several top officials, uncertainty around new Covid vaccine restrictions, and even more experts calling for the removal of top health official Robert F Kennedy Jr.
The director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Susan Monarez, was fired by the Trump White House after some controversy, and four other top officials also resigned.
“[The] CDC basically imploded yesterday and now it’s truly in shambles,” said Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist and former senior adviser for the CDC. “This is a national security risk to Americans. Without steady-headed, evidence-informed leadership, everything from outbreaks to data to chronic diseases to injury is in jeopardy.”
Dr. Susan Monarez, who was sworn in as director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on July 31, has been removed from the position, the White House said Wednesday.
Several high-level veteran agency officials resigned after word spread about her departure, leaving the CDC leaderless at a perilous time. HHS has not named an acting director to lead the CDC.
While the public health and regulatory communities focused their initial recommendations on handwashing, personal protective equipment (PPE), testing, isolation, and, eventually, vaccination, the idea of improving indoor air quality came up repeatedly.
Vendors quickly began promoting a range of products claiming to clean the air and prevent infections, leaving decision makers to weigh those claims and determine what, if anything, to do. Could cleaner indoor air really help reduce the spread of respiratory viruses like COVID-19?
Texas health officials on Aug. 18 declared the end of a measles outbreak that had sickened more than 760 people across the state and killed two children. Doctors and public-health officials involved in the outbreak, most of whom had previously never encountered a measles patient, are now taking stock of what they’ve learned about the virus and the best ways to prevent and control outbreaks of the disease.
Measles, they say, is as contagious as feared, and unvaccinated people are the most vulnerable. But while vaccination remains the best way to prevent measles, Texas public-health officials say they could have adopted a more inclusive approach when engaging with vaccine-hesitant communities about the virus and its risks. More investment is also needed, they say, into building trust between rural communities and health officials.
As measles surged in Texas early this year, the Trump administration’s actions sowed fear and confusion among CDC scientists that kept them from performing the agency’s most critical function — emergency response — when it mattered most, an investigation from KFF Health News shows.
The outbreak soon became the worst the United States has endured in over three decades.
In the month after Donald Trump took office, his administration interfered with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention communications, stalled the agency’s reports, censored its data, and abruptly laid off staff. In the chaos, CDC experts felt restrained from talking openly with local public health workers, according to interviews with seven CDC officials with direct knowledge of events, as well as local health department emails obtained by KFF Health News through public records requests.
(TNND) — The American Academy of Pediatrics issued vaccine recommendations that differ from the government's guidance on the hot-button issue of COVID-19 shots.
And several vaccine experts said Wednesday that they expect pediatricians will listen to the AAP on this one, not the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“I expect nearly all pediatricians are going to follow the science-based guidelines, which is what the American Academy of Pediatrics is recommending,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, the director of Brown University's Pandemic Center.
A primary driver of the monumental endeavour to develop the yellow fever vaccine was a shared sense of responsibility that America, having the means and knowledge, should use its resources for the good of all. That sense of responsibility is now waning.
Max Theiler is the first of 13 South Africans to receive a Nobel Prize (1951, physiology and medicine) for developing what became known as an attenuated vaccine for yellow fever. His discovery changed the course of medicine as it treated, cured and prevented the deaths of thousands upon thousands of people. His Swiss-born father, Sir Arnold Theiler, was the inaugural director of the Onderstepoort Veterinary Research Institute outside Pretoria.
t’s late August, there’s a hurricane coming up the East Coast, schools are starting to open, and no one has any idea who can get an updated Covid-19 shot.
The Covid-19 pandemic is over, but the virus persists. It has killed up to 56,000 people in the U.S. since last October, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and sickened up to 18 million. Pfizer
PFE +1.67% , Moderna MRNA -2.38% , and Novavax NVAX -10.41% all plan to launch new versions of their Covid-19 vaccines this fall, updated to target a family of Covid-19 viruses called JN.1.
Dr. Elias Sayour is working on groundbreaking research toward a universal cancer vaccine, and he’s concerned that a recent decision from the Department of Health and Human Services could impede his team's work and the research of others hoping to develop new vaccines for diseases.
Sayour, a pediatric oncologist and professor at the University of Florida,is leading a team that’s using mRNA technology to help create a vaccine that fights cancer.
Four and a half years ago, fresh off the success of Operation Warp Speed, mRNA vaccines were widely considered—as President Donald Trump said in December 2020—a “medical miracle.” Last week, the United States government decidedly reversed that stance when Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. canceled nearly half a billion dollars’ worth of grants and contracts for mRNA-vaccine research.
With Kennedy leading HHS, this about-face is easy to parse as yet another anti-vaccine move. But the assault on mRNA is also proof of another kind of animus: the COVID-revenge campaign that top officials in this administration have been pursuing for months, attacking the policies, technologies, and people that defined the U.S.’s pandemic response. As the immediacy of the COVID crisis receded, public anger about the American response to it took deeper root—perhaps most prominently among some critics who are now Trump appointees. That acrimony has become an essential tool in Kennedy’s efforts to undermine vaccines. “It is leverage,” Dorit Reiss, a vaccine-law expert at UC Law San Francisco, told me. “It is a way to justify doing things that he wouldn’t be able to get away with otherwise.”
Scientists have discovered the ability to “personalize” cancer treatments using cutting-edge genetic technology - but experts fear that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s, recent funding cuts will have “a profound chilling effect” on U.S. progress in this area of medicine.
The new mRNA vaccines are specifically engineered to address the genetic differences of each patient with stomach cancer, according to Japanese researchers in a study published Tuesday, which makes them more effective than standard treatments.
When the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine was authorized for emergency use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in December 2020, President Donald Trump referred to it as a "medical miracle."
"This is one of the greatest scientific accomplishments in history. It will save millions of lives and soon end the pandemic once and for all," Trump said at the time in a speech delivered from the Oval Office.
As of last month, there is no one left in the White House whose sole job is to keep the nation safe from biological threats. The leader of the National Security Council’s biosecurity directorate recently resigned. His staff had been pushed out, and his unit is now defunct. The Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy, established by Congress in 2022, has dwindled from a staff of about 20 under President Joe Biden to a staff of zero.
The Trump administration has said that it’s just reorganizing the bureaucracy and is prepared to handle biothreats. But our experience suggests otherwise. Without a leader from the NSC embedded in the White House and ready to coordinate other agencies, more people—including Americans—will get sick and die.
This week, President Donald Trump called Operation Warp Speed, a public-private federal program that helped speed up the development and distribution of mRNA Covid-19 vaccines in record time “one of the most incredible things ever done in this country.” It was just a day after US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the federal government was canceling a half-billion dollars in investments into the same technology, saying no new mRNA projects will be initiated under the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.
Vaccine and preparedness experts said the decision could be disastrous for the United States, rendering another Operation Warp Speed impossible in case of threat from disease or bioweapons.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to cancel $500 million in grants and contracts for mRNA vaccine development jeopardizes the health and safety of Americans — both now and for years to come.
The Nobel Prize-winning technology enabled the first Covid-19 vaccines to be developed with breathtaking speed during the first year of the pandemic, ultimately saving millions of lives. Yet Kennedy spent years undermining confidence in mRNA, a misinformation campaign that he continued after he took office. Now, he’s systematically dismantling the very infrastructure we need to respond to a future pandemic.
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision this week to cancel hundreds of millions of dollars in mRNA vaccine funding will leave the United States unprepared for the next pandemic and other public health emergencies, public health experts warned.
“I’ve tried to be objective & non-alarmist in response to current HHS actions—but quite frankly this move is going to cost lives,” President Trump’s former surgeon general, Jerome Adams, said in a post on the social platform X.
“mRNA technology has uses that go far beyond vaccines … and the vaccine they helped develop in record time is credited with saving millions.”
Doctors are sounding the alarm about potentially deadly consequences of the Trump administration’s decision to slash $500 million in funding for mRNA vaccine development, saying the “deeply troubling” move could leave Americans defenseless in the face of a biological attack, or another pandemic.
Leading physicians and vaccine specialists were among the medical and scientific experts who told The Independent that years of progress had been lost, including the lessons learned during Covid.
The Trump administration is cancelling almost $500 million in contracts to develop mRNA vaccines to protect the nation against future viral threats. The move thrilled critics of the technology but horrified many public health and biosecurity experts.
The federal Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, which oversees the nation's defenses against biological attacks, is terminating 22 contracts with university researchers and private companies to develop new uses for the mRNA technology, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Tuesday.
As part of Brown’s new Biosecurity Game Changers fellowship, pharmacist and policy expert Sana Masmoudi is working to close critical biosecurity gaps—building systems, shaping policy and mentoring future leaders across the Global South.
(TNND) — Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s decision to terminate nearly $500 million in government funding for mRNA vaccine development has alarmed public health experts.
“This is a deeply troubling development,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, the director of Brown University's Pandemic Center. “I mean, it's troubling in the short term, because it means that we will be less prepared for future pandemics. But it's also troubling for the longer term.”
Nuzzo said she’s concerned this move will sow doubt about vaccines and hinder medical innovation.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has canceled nearly $500 million of grants and contracts for developing mRNA vaccines, the Department of Health and Human Services announced on Tuesday.
It is the latest blow to research on this technology. In May, the Department of Health and Human Services revoked a nearly $600 million contract to the drugmaker Moderna to develop a vaccine against bird flu.
Bird flu, for the moment, appears to be under control. But experts have a warning for federal and state health officials: Fall is coming — so don’t get too comfortable, Sophie and David report.
Over the past few months, avian flu cases among humans, cattle and poultry have slowed — easing fears that the U.S. could be hurdling toward another major pandemic and prompting the CDC to end its emergency response.
As Covid-19 transmission ramps up in the United States, recent changes to federal vaccine guidance have left many Americans confused about the latest policies and concerned about access to shots this fall.
The US has had a summer surge in Covid-19 cases each year since the pandemic began. This year, however, experts say that the seasonal wave is starting later than anticipated and is relatively subdued. Surveillance data from WastewaterSCAN shows that median Covid-19 concentrations ticked up from June to July, with high levels in some parts of the country, but overall, it’s far below this time last year.
HHS leaders plan to purge members of a committee that would advise the new CDC director.
HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon told POLITICO Thursday that the Department of Health and Human Services would fire all members of the committee, noting that the “CDC Director has full discretion to restructure this committee to align with the agency’s priorities and ensure a fresh perspective.”
Dr. Susan Monarez will be sworn in as director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday, and she’s taking the reins at a perilous time for the agency.
The CDC has lost nearly a quarter of its staff since January, thanks to massive workforce cuts at federal health agencies. The Trump administration’s proposed budget for the fiscal year 2026 would slash the agency’s funding by more than half. And under a proposed reorganization, the agency stands to lose more of its programs: Some are set to be moved to a new Administration for a Healthy America while others, such as the National Center for Chronic Disease and Health Promotion, would be eliminated altogether.
The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is adopting a recommendation from independent advisers to drop thimerosal, a preservative found in about 4% of flu vaccines, despite evidence that it poses no risks and helps prevent bacterial and fungal infections.
But Robert F Kennedy Jr, the HHS secretary, has not adopted two other votes from the advisory meeting: recommending annual flu vaccines for everyone over the age of six months and RSV shots for infants.
After months weathering staffing cuts and disease outbreaks without an official leader, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finally has a new director.
The Senate confirmed Susan Monarez, a health scientist and longtime civil servant, to run the public health agency. She is the first CDC director to be confirmed by the Senate under a law passed in 2023, and the first to serve in the role without a medical degree in more than 70 years. The vote was 51-47, along party lines.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been making big changes to federal vaccine policies. Many medical experts are concerned the administration will further limit vaccine access.
U.S. Government funding for scientific research has led to innovations and breakthroughs for decades. But, with funding freezes, slashed budgets, and the cancellation of grants, the health of America’s scientific enterprise is in jeopardy. What’s at stake – for research, innovation, and the economy? How did we get here, and what will it take to chart a more sustainable path forward? David Leonhardt, director of the Editorial Board of The New York Times, leads a discussion with Holden Thorp, editor in chief of the Science family of journals, Jennifer Nuzzo, epidemiology professor at Brown University, and Karel Mertens, senior vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. Their conversation was held in late June, 2025.
Beth Cameron, Senior Advisor and Professor of the Practice at the Brown University Pandemic Center and a Senior Adviser and non-resident fellow at CSIS, hosts this inspiring July 14 conversation with Richard Hatchett, the CEO of CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. Richard first came to Washington DC in the aftermath of 9/11 to create the U.S. Medical Reserve Corps. There was no looking back. He served in several administrations as a leading expert in bio preparedness and left government to lead CEPI at its creation in 2017, its mission to support the accelerated development of vaccines and other countermeasures against future biothreats. With the Covid-19 pandemic, health security has become an enduring global concern, with now a fierce focus on access to new technology, and regional manufacturing capabilities. “You have to design your programs with your access goal in mind from the very beginning.” Preparedness is “not a static achievement.” It is “a dynamic state of readiness” that evolves through practice – “train, train, train.” CEPI’s signature big idea is the 100 Day Mission, in which vaccine designs and delivery platforms are ready to spring into action when new biothreats appear. Cuts in finances and programs by the Trump administration and others will compromise disease surveillance, detection and containment measures, increasing the risks to Americans and beyond. Cuts are also forcing reflection, the setting of priorities, and finding ways to finance and achieve better and more efficient outcomes. The remarkable speed in which a vaccine was introduced during the Marburg outbreak in Rwanda in September 2024 rested not on luck. It built on CEPI’s pre-existing partnerships with the Rwanda government and several other institutions, including WHO and key US agencies. CEPI has invested since 2017 in over $1 billion in the US biotech sector and has just concluded an agreement to work with DOD.
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Originally launched to track major pandemic outbreaks in the US and around the world, Brown University School of Public Health’s Pandemic Tracker now helps with a wide range of public health efforts.
Led by Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center and professor of epidemiology at SPH, the tracker helps public and policy makers stay on top of disease outbreaks during a time of economic strain and political polarization.
While the tracker provides an “evidence base” to inform decision-makers how to address pandemics, Nuzzo said the tracker’s primary purpose was to help Brown researchers share real-time pandemic information with the public.
As authorities brace for a potential resurgence in bird flu cases this fall, infectious disease specialists warn that the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants could hamper efforts to stop the spread of disease.
Dairy and poultry workers have been disproportionately infected with the H5N1 bird flu since it was first detected in U.S. dairy cows in March 2024, accounting for 65 of the 70 confirmed infections, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and its convergence with the life sciences offer incredible potential societal benefits, including advancing public health through the development of new vaccines and treatments, and by strengthening capabilities to rapidly detect new infectious disease outbreaks. These advances have the potential to reduce the burden of disease across the globe and to drive economic development. At the same time, rapid advances in AI capabilities that enable engineering of living systems—referred to here as AIxBio capabilities—also increase the risk of deliberate or accidental release of harmful biological agents, including those that could cause a global biological catastrophe that affects populations around the world.