— A weekly roundup of healthcare investigations
July 15, 2026
• 2 min read
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wanted to push even harder against vaccines than what he ultimately put forward as policy. He wanted to spend $5 billion to study the link between vaccines and autism, and completely do away with a federal immunization schedule for children. NIH director Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, convinced Kennedy the agency had already dedicated enough resources to studying autism, and former FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, MD, MPH, and his colleague Tracy Beth Høeg, MD, PhD, developed a list of "core essential vaccines" to preserve a pediatric vaccine schedule. (Reuters)
A student identified himself as PhD at Cornell University in eight letters to the editor of medical journals, though he held only a bachelor's degree at the time. The letters ranged in topics from intensive care to breast cancer. Two of them, one in JAMA Oncology and one in JAMA Pediatrics, were retracted last month. (Retraction Watch)
