From FDA To USAID, Trump Team Races To Bring Back Fired Workers
A Washington Post review found recent messy re-hirings at agencies including the Food and Drug Administration, the State Department, and others. "It feels like it was all just a game to them,” one rehired FDA staffer said. Separately, questions are swirling about the CDC's leadership.
The Washington Post:
Trump Administration Scrambles To Rehire Fired Federal Employees
Across the government, the Trump administration is scrambling to rehire many federal employees dismissed under DOGE’s staff-slashing initiatives after wiping out entire offices, in some cases imperiling key services such as weather forecasting and the drug approval process. (Natanson, Taylor, Kornfield, Siegel and Dance, 6/6)
AP:
CDC Leadership 'Crisis' Apparent Amid New COVID-19 Vaccine Guidance
There was a notable absence last week when U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in a 58-second video that the government would no longer endorse the COVID-19 vaccine for healthy children or pregnant women. The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — the person who typically signs off on federal vaccine recommendations — was nowhere to be seen. The CDC, a $9.2 billion-a-year agency tasked with reviewing life-saving vaccines, monitoring diseases and watching for budding threats to Americans’ health, is without a clear leader. (Seitz and Stobbe, 6/5)
Axios:
Questions Swirl Over Who's Running The CDC
Almost six months into Trump's administration, the agency has no public health official or designated point person at the helm. (Goldman, 6/6)
CIDRAP:
GAO To HHS: Fix 'Persistent Deficiencies' In Infectious-Disease Testing Before Next Pandemic
The latest report from the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) makes four recommendations and details nearly 100 ways the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) could improve federal diagnostic testing during a public health crisis such as a pandemic. It follows a May 2023 report that noted a lack of progress toward HHS emergency-preparedness goals. (Van Beusekom, 6/5)
Health and Human Services, and RFK Jr. —
CNN:
Despite Kennedy’s Claims, Vaccines Have Been Tested In Placebo-Controlled Studies – Nearly 260 Of Them
US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has repeatedly claimed in public statements that most vaccines recommended for children in the US have not been tested against placebos, and particularly inert placebos such as saline solution or water. “The only vaccine that has been tested in a full-blown placebo trial against an inert placebo was the Covid vaccine,” Kennedy said May 14 in testimony before the US Senate’s Health, Labor, Education and Pensions Committee. (Goodman, 6/5)
The Wall Street Journal:
RFK Jr. Hire And Vaccine Opponent David Geier Scours Official Records For Autism Link
An antivaccine activist recently hired by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has started hunting for proof that federal officials hid evidence that inoculations cause autism, according to people familiar with the matter. David Geier, a longtime vaccine opponent hired this spring as a contractor in the health department’s financial office, is seeking Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data that antivaccine activists, including Kennedy, have alleged was buried because it showed a link between vaccines and autism, the people said. (Essley Whyte and Mosbergen, 6/5)
The New York Times:
Kennedy Says ‘Charlatans’ Are No Reason To Block Unproven Stem Cell Treatments
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently declared that he wanted to expand access to experimental therapies but conceded that they could be risky or fraudulent. In a podcast with Gary Brecka, who describes himself as a longevity expert, Mr. Kennedy vowed to end what he called the Food and Drug Administration’s war with alternative medicine. He said that would include stem cells, vitamins, peptides and chelation therapy, which involves removing heavy metals from the blood. (Jewett, 6/5)
MedPage Today:
Calls For RFK Jr. To Resign Grow Louder
More physicians and researchers are calling for HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to resign. In April, Georges Benjamin, MD, executive director of the American Public Health Association, called on Kennedy to "resign or be fired." Since early May, vaccine expert Paul Offit, MD, of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, has called for Kennedy to step down at the end of nearly each of his weekly Substack posts. And now, after news broke last week that Kennedy's "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) report cited studies that don't appear to exist, more experts are calling for Kennedy's ouster. (Fiore, 6/5)
Elsewhere in the administration —
Politico:
The FTC Takes On Kids Online Safety
The FTC’s three commissioners, all conservatives, want to use the agency’s enforcement authority to hold social media companies accountable for how their platforms affect kids’ mental and physical health. ... said Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson at an agency-led policy workshop Wednesday in Washington, devoted to companies that monetize attention. “But when there are tradeoffs to be made, the Trump administration has made it clear that the health and flourishing of our children is not a bargaining chip,” he said. (Reader, 6/5)
AP:
Pollution Rules Targeted By EPA Are Projected To Save Billions Of Dollars And Thousands Of Lives
When the head of the Environmental Protection Agency announced a wide-ranging rollback of environmental regulations, he said it would put a “dagger through the heart of climate-change religion” and introduce a “Golden Age” for the American economy. What Lee Zeldin didn’t mention: how ending the rules could have devastating consequences to human health. The EPA-targeted rules could prevent an estimated 30,000 deaths and save $275 billion each year they are in effect, according to an Associated Press examination that included the agency’s own prior assessments as well as a wide range of other research. (Borenstein, Wildeman, Walling, Bickel and Daly, 6/6)
AP:
Casey Means, Trump's Surgeon General Pick, Profits From Wellness Sales
President Donald Trump’s pick to be the next U.S. surgeon general has repeatedly said the nation’s medical, health and food systems are corrupted by special interests and people out to make a profit at the expense of Americans’ health. Yet as Dr. Casey Means has criticized scientists, medical schools and regulators for taking money from the food and pharmaceutical industries, she has promoted dozens of health and wellness products — including specialty basil seed supplements, a blood testing service and a prepared meal delivery service — in ways that put money in her own pocket. (Smith and Swenson, 6/5)
CBS News:
Key House Republican Subpoenas Biden's White House Doctor
The Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee is demanding that former President Joe Biden's White House physician testify before the panel — ramping up a congressional investigation into Biden's age and health. Rep. James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, sent a letter to Dr. Kevin O'Connor on Thursday subpoenaing him to testify at a June 27 deposition. He said the committee wants details about "your assessment of and relationship with former President Biden." (Walsh and Kaplan, 6/5)
On federal funding and program cuts —
NPR:
'Neglected Tropical Diseases' Could Lose The Drugs That Fight Them
For close to two decades, the U.S. Agency for International Development has partnered with countries around the world to combat neglected tropical diseases, or NTDs. The term refers to a group of diseases that affect more than a billion people, causing severe pain, disfigurement, disability and in some cases death. They're referred to as "neglected" because they disproportionately affect populations living in extreme poverty and thus don't attract investment from the pharmaceutical industry. (Adams, 6/5)
KFF Health News:
In A Dusty Corner Of California, Trump’s Threatened Cuts To Asthma Care Raise Fears
Pesticides are a known contributor to asthma and are commonly used where Bejarano lives in California’s Imperial Valley, a landlocked region that straddles two counties on the U.S.-Mexico border and is one of the main producers of the nation’s winter crops. It also has some of the worst air pollution in the nation and one of the highest rates of childhood asthma emergency room visits in the state, according to data collected by the California Department of Public Health. (Green, 6/6)
The War Horse:
Veterans To Protest VA, Federal Job Cuts In Washington D.C.
When the promises politicians made went unkept, when they were left without any reasonable alternatives, American veterans took to the streets by the thousands, forced to become their own advocates. The year was 1932. ... Calling themselves the Bonus Expeditionary Force, or the “Bonus Army,” veterans hitchhiked and rode freight train boxcars from all over the country to get to Washington, D.C. They protested for months, and the entire nation took notice. In 2025, a new Bonus Army has assembled and plans to rally in Washington on June 6 to protest the administration’s cuts to Veterans Affairs and federal employment, where veterans and their families comprise 30% of the workforce. (Daly, 6/5)
