Trump's Health Bureaucrats Are Undermining Confidence in Vaccines |
Vaccines
Trump's Health Bureaucrats Are Undermining Confidence in Vaccines
From spiked CDC reports to blocked FDA studies, officials sidelined evidence showing vaccines are safe and effective.
Ronald Bailey | 5.7.2026 10:30 AM
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(Illustration: Adani Samat)
Back in November, Vinay Prasad, then-director of the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, asserted in an internal email that "at least 10 children have died after and because of receiving COVID-19 vaccination." He provided no evidence to back up his claim then, and none has since been forthcoming. Prasad left the agency at the end of April. Good riddance.
In the meantime, other Trump administration officials have continued their efforts to undermine the American public's confidence in the safety of previously vetted and approved vaccines. Jay Bhattacharya, who is simultaneously head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has been notably active in that endeavor.
In April, Bhattacharya delayed and eventually spiked publication of a study in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) on the effectiveness of 2025–2026 COVID-19 vaccination against emergency care and hospitalization. The researchers found that real-world vaccination effectiveness among adults over age 18 was "50% against COVID-19–associated emergency department and urgent care encounters and 55% against COVID-19–associated hospitalization,........