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BumRushDaShow

(169,684 posts) Fri Mar 27, 2026, 06:39 PM Friday

Covid and flu shots in limbo as Trump administration mulls appeal over vaccine panel

Source: NBC News

March 27, 2026, 11:14 AM EDT

More than a week after a federal judge blocked Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s overhaul of both the nation’s childhood vaccine schedule and a key vaccine advisory committee, the Justice Department has yet to appeal the decision — and ultimately may not.

The Justice Department has 60 days to appeal the decision, which would be by May 15. One HHS official with knowledge of the situation said that no final decision has been made on the agency’s next steps regarding the lawsuit.

It’s the latest example of uncertainty under Kennedy’s leadership. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been without a director for months, with no sign of a new nominee waiting in the wings. And confirmation for his pick for the next surgeon general, Casey Means, appears to have stalled in the Senate.

Meanwhile, work that would normally be ongoing among independent vaccine experts charged with making recommendations to the federal government has stalled indefinitely. Planned meetings about this fall’s flu and Covid shots, for example, are in limbo.

“All the work, as far as I know, has ceased, putting us in a tremendous deficit in recommendations,” said Dr. Jason Goldman, president of the American College of Physicians. “It’s just horrifying to contemplate what damage has been done.”

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/covid-flu-shots-limbo-trump-rfk-jr-vaccine-panel-appeal-rcna265131

4 replies

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Highlight:

Covid and flu shots in limbo as Trump administration mulls appeal over vaccine panel (Original Post) BumRushDaShow Friday OP

Asshole................. Lovie777 Friday #1

Kennedy's Vaccine Agenda Hits Roadblocks, Diminishing His Clout (NYT gift subscription) LetMyPeopleVote Friday #2

They want fewer people in America IronLionZion Friday #3

MaddowBlog-Whether the CDC will survive RFK Jr.'s tenure is an open question LetMyPeopleVote 21 hrs ago #4

Lovie777

(22,955 posts)

1. Asshole.................

Reply to BumRushDaShow (Original post)

Fri Mar 27, 2026, 06:42 PM

Friday

LetMyPeopleVote

(179,782 posts)

2. Kennedy's Vaccine Agenda Hits Roadblocks, Diminishing His Clout (NYT gift subscription)

Reply to BumRushDaShow (Original post)

Fri Mar 27, 2026, 07:27 PM

Friday

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vaccine skepticism is posing challenges for the Trump administration. Top health jobs are unfilled, and a court has blocked his vaccine schedule changes.

Link to tweet

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/26/us/politics/kennedy-vaccines-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.WVA.kFPo.AjJRUXOTHF9A&smid=nytcore-ios-share

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s crusade to scale back Americans’ reliance on vaccines has collided with political and legal realities that have endangered the Senate confirmation of one top health official, delayed the nomination of another and diminished his clout in Washington.

A string of developments over the past several weeks have put Mr. Kennedy’s vaccine agenda at risk. The confirmation of Dr. Casey Means, President Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, is stalled on Capitol Hill, where three Republicans on the Senate Health Committee, including its chairman, have expressed concern about her views on vaccines.....

Last week, a federal judge blocked Mr. Kennedy’s changes to the childhood vaccine schedule. And on Wednesday, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who is running the C.D.C. even though his time as acting director has expired, made the new normal clear.....

But Mr. Kennedy’s vaccine agenda — his insistence that vaccines are somehow linked to autism, despite a lack of evidence — has always been a bit of an Achilles’ heel.....

Polls now show that Mr. Kennedy’s vaccine agenda is a dud, unpopular even with Republicans. And that has created discomfort inside the White House, which has made clear its desire for Mr. Kennedy to downplay talk of vaccines while emphasizing his more popular healthy-eating agenda.....

Six medical organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, sued. Judge Brian Murphy, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, ruled last week that Mr. Kennedy and his appointees had made “arbitrary and capricious” changes to the childhood vaccine schedule.

Judge Murphy also deemed the majority of the new A.C.I.P members unqualified. The best-known of them, Dr. Robert Malone, abruptly quit earlier this week, saying that the judge had “slandered me” and that he had better things to do. In a text message, Dr. Malone said he was not pushed out.

Kennedy is a nut case and his vaccine agenda scares me. Measles are not far too common. I hope that trump gets rid of Kennedy at some point

IronLionZion

(51,262 posts)

3. They want fewer people in America

Reply to BumRushDaShow (Original post)

Fri Mar 27, 2026, 07:45 PM

Friday

whether it's through death or deportation

LetMyPeopleVote

(179,782 posts)

4. MaddowBlog-Whether the CDC will survive RFK Jr.'s tenure is an open question

Reply to BumRushDaShow (Original post)

Mon Mar 30, 2026, 06:51 PM

21 hrs ago

The fact that bullet-pocked windows remain in place at the agency’s headquarters makes it difficult to be optimistic about the CDC’s future.

The fact that the CDCâ€™s bullet-pocked windows remain in place, seven months after a shooting, is ridiculous. It's also emblematic of a larger problem:

RFK Jr has created an existential crisis at the agency, and its future is far from certain. tinyurl.com/3f55pccw
— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2026-03-30T21:07:35.062Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/whether-the-cdc-will-survive-rfk-jr-s-tenure-is-an-open-question

Last August, a gunman opened fire in Atlanta near the campuses of both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Emory University, killing a police officer and shooting many windows at the CDC headquarters. The suspect, who did not survive the assault, was reportedly fixated on the Covid-19 vaccine, blaming it for his health problems.....

For his part, RFK Jr. did condemn the shooting in Atlanta in a short message published to social media, but the Cabinet secretary waited until a day after the violence, and he posted his statement after posting images of himself fishing. (Donald Trump, meanwhile, failed to comment altogether on the shooting that left a police officer dead.)

As difficult as this might seem to believe, the CDC’s shot-up windows still haven’t been replaced. The Associated Press reported:

The federal government has not yet replaced the bullet-pocked windows that serve as a grim reminder of an attack at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention more than seven months ago, the agency’s acting chief acknowledged Wednesday.

CDC employees asked Dr. Jay Bhattacharya about the broken windows during a staff meeting, noting that the panes were papered over. ‘We’re working on that,’ Bhattacharya said, adding that it’s a priority.

.....To be sure, the problems are not altogether new. Last fall, nine former CDC chiefs, including Anne Schuchat, who served as an acting director during Trump’s first term, linked arms and wrote a joint op-ed, in which they characterized Kennedy’s work as a dangerous public menace. (The headline said, “We Ran the C.D.C.: Kennedy Is Endangering Every American’s Health.”)

It was around this same time when it became common to see reports quoting CDC insiders referring to the agency in the past tense. The New York Times published a report with a headline and subhead that immediately generated some attention: “Will the C.D.C. Survive? Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s assault may have dealt lasting damage to the agency, experts fear, with harsh consequences for public health.”

Seven months later, existential questions about the CDC’s future remain unanswered, and the fact that bullet-pocked windows remain in place at the agency’s headquarters make it difficult to be optimistic.

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