Two of President Donald Trump’s key appointees are receiving strong criticism from members of the medical and scientific communities for their actions to harm public health in the United States.
On Monday, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. purged all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices who advised the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how to use vaccines. Kennedy is a longtime anti-vaccination conspiracy theorist who was installed in his position after only receiving Republican support in the Senate.
The decision is being slammed by doctors.
“I hate to say this, but we are heading in the direction of U.S. vaccine policy becoming the laughing stock of the globe,” Dr. Jonathan Temte, former chair of the panel, told NPR. Temte told the outlet that the panel has historically been seen as “the paragon of solid, well thought out, evidence-based vaccine policy.”
The American Medical Association also criticized Kennedy’s action.
“Today’s action to remove the 17 sitting members of ACIP undermines that trust and upends a transparent process that has saved countless lives,” said Dr. Bruce Scott, president of the association in a statement. “With an ongoing measles outbreak and routine child vaccination rates declining, this move will further fuel the spread of vaccine-preventable illnesses.”
Dr. Tina Tan, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, said in a statement, “Unilaterally removing an entire panel of experts is reckless, shortsighted and severely harmful.”
In a column in the Wall Street Journal, which is owned by Fox News boss Rupert Murdoch, Kennedy defended his action with several lies. He claimed that the members of the panel had conflicts of interest, but the assertion—which Kennedy has made before—is an erroneous misinterpretation of a 2009 report. Kennedy also claimed that members of the panel omitted data from financial disclosure forms. This is also a lie.
On Monday, National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya also came under fire. In a letter declared the “Bethesda Declaration” and signed by more than 60 employees of the institute, the Trump administration was denounced for degrading medical research across the United States. “We are compelled to speak up when our leadership prioritizes political momentum over human safety and faithful stewardship of public resources,” the letter read. The NIH under Bhattacharya is accused of politicizing research, disrupting global research collaboration, undermining peer review, capping spending on research, and firing essential staffers.
Ian Morgan, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow who signed the letter, told the outlet Important Context, “this is an extinction level event for biomedical research and for the health and well being of the American people and global public health more generally.”
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Democrats in the House on Monday called for hearings into NIH’s activities.
Reps. Diana DeGette of Colorado and Frank Pallone of New Jersey, along with other Democratic members of health-related subcommittees, sent a letter to Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Brett Guthrie (R). They asked for a probe into “significant staff reductions at the agency, the documented delayed or canceled research activities at NIH, and policy changes that have taken place in the first months of the Trump administration.”
The health crisis is a direct result of Trump’s decisions to install Kennedy and Bhattacharya. Outbreaks of infectious diseases like whooping cough and measles are on the rise while Kennedy has pushed for cuts at the agencies that are working to contain infections, while Bhattacharya undermines research that would be used to respond to future outbreaks.
Americans are in danger, as is the world.