Sometime during the week of March 24, specific date unknown, officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) nixed a report from the agency’s own experts urging Americans to get vaccinated. The agency’s forecast reportedly warned that “risk of catching measles is high in areas near outbreaks where vaccination rates are lagging,” according to ProPublica’s Patricia Callahan:
In an aborted plan to roll out the news, the agency would have emphasized the importance of vaccinating people against the highly contagious and potentially deadly disease that has spread to 19 states, the records show. But what the nation’s top public health agency said next shows a shift in its long-standing messaging about vaccines, a sign that it may be falling in line under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime critic of vaccines
Kennedy claimed, without evidence or scientific justification, that getting vaccinated is a “personal choice” that Americans should discuss “with their healthcare providers.” Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health, told ProPublica that she was “stunned” by the agency’s dramatic change in policy advice.
I’m a bit stunned by that language. No vaccine is without risk, but that makes it sound like it’s a very active coin toss of a decision. We’ve already had more cases of measles in 2025 than we had in 2024, and it’s spread to multiple states. It is not a coin toss at this point.
ProPublica adds that, prior to this apparent sabotage of its own work, CDC was consistently focused on urging Americans to get vaccinated, especially children. An unprecedented wave of measles infections is currently gripping the country, affecting Americans in at least 19 states.
As of April 7, 2025, two unvaccinated kids in Texas have died from the disease.
Heath and Human Services (HHS), as well as vaccine administration, has been a frequent target for Trump in the past, including Michael Caputo’s hijacking CDC and the removal of a vaccine director for questioning Trump’s claims—both in 2020.
