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Welcome to The Logoff: HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had a disastrous day in entrance of the US Senate immediately, going through requires his resignation throughout a multi-hour listening to that raised extra alarms concerning the state of US public well being businesses.
What was the listening to about? Senators from each events pushed Kennedy on vaccine coverage and availability, in addition to firings and resignations on the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention.
CDC director Susan Monarez was pushed out final week together with 4 prime company officers who resigned in protest over her departure, and earlier this 12 months, Kennedy eliminated each member of a CDC advisory panel on vaccines.
The Meals and Drug Administration additionally issued new tips final week sharply limiting entry to the Covid vaccine after the company’s prime vaccine regulator overruled FDA scientists, and in early August, Kennedy reduce $500 million in federal mRNA vaccine contracts supposed to fight respiratory viruses like chook flu.
What did senators say? Three Republican senators — two of them medical doctors — have been sharply important of Kennedy. Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), a member of Republican management, mentioned he had “grown deeply involved,” whereas Sen. Invoice Cassidy (R-LA) remarked that “successfully, we’re denying folks [the Covid] vaccine” underneath Kennedy’s management.
What’s the large image? Thursday’s listening to was a giant deal mainly for a way Kennedy carried out himself: Regardless of bipartisan criticism, he was defiant, confrontational, and at occasions outright impolite. He additionally continued to amplify false claims about vaccines, telling Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) that he agreed that “mRNA vaccines trigger critical hurt, together with dying, particularly amongst younger folks.”
What’s subsequent? Kennedy has unquestionably broken the vaccine consensus within the US, and as he continues to chip away at federal public well being infrastructure, states are shifting in dramatically totally different instructions.
On Wednesday, Florida’s surgeon normal introduced the state would finish all vaccine mandates for schoolchildren; in distinction, Massachusetts mentioned this week it will start mandating insurance coverage protection for vaccines at a state stage, and California, Oregon, and Washington introduced plans to create their very own “West Coast Well being Alliance.”
Talking of unhealthy days for RFK Jr., did you catch Vox’s newest scoop? This morning, my colleague Dylan Scott uncovered that Kennedy’s company — with White Home backing — buried a significant federal research exhibiting alcohol’s most cancers dangers, leaving Individuals poised to get new dietary tips that ignore the very best science we’ve. You possibly can learn his reporting right here to get the entire story.
And with that, it’s time to log out…
This text, by Josh Dzieza at Vox’s sister publication The Verge, isn’t fairly as upbeat as lots of what I embrace right here — amongst different issues, it’s about how Wikipedia has come underneath assault, within the US and overseas, for its regular devotion to information. But it surely’s additionally a terrific characteristic about how one of many web’s best accomplishments got here to be, the way it operates, and the devoted group making an attempt to guard and preserve it, which all feels fairly hopeful to me. You possibly can learn it right here — get pleasure from, and we’ll see you again right here tomorrow!
