Plus: How vaccine controversies affect you; do pediatricians profit from vaccines?; medical research funding; MAHA and food aid; how to fight a health insurance denial; Medicaid work requirements; weaning off GLP-1s; our best of social; the "KFF Health News Minute"; and more
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Friday, Sept. 5, 2025
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The Week in Brief

Public Health Experts See More Trouble at CDC
as Kennedy Looks To Exert Control
 

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(ANDREW HARNIK / GETTY IMAGES)

I’m Stephanie Armour, a KFF Health News senior correspondent in Washington, D.C., covering health policy and the people behind it. Send tips to sarmour@kff.org.

 

By Stephanie Armour

 

The recent firing of former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Susan Monarez and the subsequent resignation of four of the agency’s top career officials marks a major offensive by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to seize control of the agency and impose an anti-vaccine, anti-science agenda that will have profound effects on the lives and health of all Americans, public health leaders say.

 

Kennedy was called to appear this week before the Senate Finance Committee to discuss these events and other vaccine and public health policy developments.

 

Kennedy wants to see the Pfizer and Moderna messenger RNA-based covid-19 vaccines pulled from the market, according to two people familiar with the planning who asked not to be identified because they’re not authorized to speak to the press.

 

Kennedy has handpicked a vaccine advisory committee for the CDC that is reviewing mRNA-based covid vaccines, which he falsely claimed in 2021 were “the deadliest vaccine ever made.” The covid vaccine review is being led by Retsef Levi, a professor of operations management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has said without evidence that the shots cause serious harm, including death. If the committee recommends against them, Kennedy and the FDA could then begin the process of removing them from the market.

 

Taking mRNA-based covid shots off the market would leave consumers with fewer options for protection. Paxlovid, an antiviral medication that treats the infection in high-risk adults, would be available.

 

White House spokesperson Kush Desai said Kennedy and Commissioner of Food and Drugs Marty Makary have reiterated that covid shots will remain available for Americans who need and want them.

 

The CDC advisory committee reviewing the covid shots is also probing a long-debunked link between aluminum, used in many childhood immunizations such as those for hepatitis A and pneumonia, and autism or allergies.

 

The group’s findings are expected to support the erroneous link, some public health officials say. HHS could then require drugmakers to undertake costly reformulations of the shots or stop manufacturing them altogether.

 

“That would set up the elimination of all childhood vaccines,” said Richard Besser, former acting CDC director during the Obama administration.

 

Kennedy’s move to put his stamp on the CDC means states that have long relied on the agency’s expertise and help in crises such as disease outbreaks will largely be left to fend for themselves, said Ashish Jha, who served as President Joe Biden’s covid response coordinator from 2022 to 2023.

 

“States will struggle with the CDC incapable and dysfunctional,” Jha said. “Our system is not designed for states to go it alone.”

  • Talk to us: We’d like to speak with personnel from the Department of Health and Human Services or its component agencies about what’s happening within the federal health bureaucracy. Please message us on Signal at (415) 519-8778 or get in touch here.

Best of Social

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Kennedy testified before the Senate Finance Committee on Sept. 4 following last week’s ouster of Monarez. Four other senior CDC officials resigned in protest.

 

Watch KFF Health News’ Stephanie Armour, Julie Rovner, and Arthur Allen and KFF’s Josh Michaud discuss the biggest takeaways. Want more? Follow KFF Health News online:

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More on the CDC

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(MATT KILE FOR KFF HEALTH NEWS)

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KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism. 

 

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