RFK Jr. Has Brought Public Health In America To Its Knees — And It Will Be 'A Real Challenge' To Undo

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Back in 2020, Americans in the throes of the COVID pandemic learned about “inflection points” — the moment in a crisis, in that case a public health disaster, that marks a threshold for change.

Five years later, public health in the United States is at a very different inflection point.

Mass firings and even a shooting at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Atlanta headquarters had already left the nation’s health officials rattled and demoralized. Then on Wednesday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, announced that the Food and Drug Administration had approved an updated version of the coronavirus vaccine — but only for a narrow group of people that included older adults and those with certain preexisting conditions.

The approval potentially shuts out millions of people, including healthy adults and children, from protecting themselves from severe illness. The announcement followed upheaval at the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the committee that recommends vaccines for the broader population. In June, Kennedy fired the entire group of people and replaced them with vaccine skeptics.