Donald Trump continues to hold America’s critical nonpartisan institutions hostage as part of his descent into authoritarianism, silencing and firing anyone who gets in the way of his radical, harmful, dangerous and wildly unpopular agenda. For months now, Trump and RFK Jr. have been working in lockstep to destroy America’s public health infrastructure one agency at a time. This week, they moved to fire the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) just weeks after her confirmation, after she refused to sign onto RFK Jr.’s dangerous anti-vaccine agenda. At least four top CDC officials have left the agency in the wake of her ousting, citing “reckless directives” that are putting your health in danger – further proving that Trump will purge anyone who refuses to rubber-stamp his and his cronies’ dangerous agenda. Read more about Trump and RFK Jr.’s crusade against public health:
THE ‘MAHA’ ANTI-VAX AGENDA: GUTTING PUBLIC HEALTH
- ⚕️ Trump and RFK Jr. are working to oust CDC Director Susan Monarez for not supporting the administration’s anti-vaccine agenda. On the same day RFK Jr. fired Monarez, four of the agency’s top leaders quit.
- 🥼 RFK Jr. has overruled experts on vaccine policy, replacing every member of the CDC’s top vaccine advisory panel and rolling back longstanding guidance in favor of restricting access.
- 💉 Earlier this month, RFK Jr. announced HHS would be winding down cutting-edge mRNA vaccine research, pulling funding for research projects developing vaccines for a wide range of diseases, from the common flu and COVID-19 to certain forms of cancer, HIV, and bird flu.
- 🦠 Despite a new variant of COVID-19 raging across the country, RFK Jr. is cracking down on COVID-19 vaccines, limiting eligibility to require a doctor consultation before vaccination as the FDA approved updated vaccines for the fall season.
- 💼 RFK Jr. has laid off thousands of workers at the CDC, FDA, and other health agencies even as public health threats escalated.
- 🚑 As measles surged in West Texas earlier this year, Trump’s CDC cuts hampered emergency response efforts.
- 📝 As bird flu surged across the country earlier this year, the Trump administration stalled CDC reports on the outbreak.
- 🧫 Under Trump and RFK Jr.’s purview, the CDC scaled back surveillance of foodborne illnesses.
- 😷 Under Trump and RFK Jr.’s purview, the CDC censored public health data and removed critical information from the agency’s website, including data on HIV, hepatitis, STIs, tuberculosis, youth risk behavior, social vulnerability to disease and disasters, mentions of gender, abortion, and more.
- 🏢 Even after a gunman fired into a CDC office building in Atlanta earlier this month – motivated in part by vaccine disinformation – RFK Jr. and Trump have refused to speak out on the incident publicly.