Latest news with #JeromeAdams
Washington Post
4 days ago
- Health
- Washington Post
Sowing doubt about mRNA vaccines betrays Trump's legacy
Jerome Adams, a distinguished professor at Purdue University, was U.S. surgeon general from 2017 to 2021. I was in 'the room where it happens' during the harrowing early days of the covid-19 pandemic. I witnessed the birth of Operation Warp Speed, a triumph of American ingenuity that harnessed mRNA technology to halt a predicted tidal wave of death and despair. President Donald Trump rightly called Operation Warp Speed 'one of the greatest miracles in the history of modern-day medicine.' A Commonwealth Fund study credits the operation with averting 3 million U.S. deaths and preventing more than 18 million hospitalizations in just its first two years. This historic feat positioned the United States as the global leader in biomedical innovation. It warranted Nobel Prize consideration for the president, because of its unprecedented impact on humanity and health.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Trump Surgeon General Tears Into RFK Jr.'s ‘Failed' Response to CDC Shooting
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been called out by a former surgeon general who claimed he 'failed' in his slow response to a deadly shooting at the CDC's Atlanta headquarters. Former U.S. surgeon general Dr. Jerome Adams, who served during Trump's first term, said as Health and Human Services Secretary, Kennedy's response to the crime at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was 'tepid.' 'How you respond to a crisis defines a leader, and quite frankly Secretary Kennedy has failed in his first major test in this regard,' Adams, a former inner city trauma doctor, told Margaret Brennan on CBS' Face the Nation. 'It took him over 18 hours to issue a tepid response to these horrific shootings, and that's not even considering how his inflammatory rhetoric in the past have actually contributed to a lot of what's been going on,' Adams said. The Daily Beast has contacted the HHS for comment. A 30-year-old shooter killed police officer David Rose during Friday's incident at the CDC, a public health agency that plays a key role in tackling the health crises that hit America. The gunman, who also died during the incident, tried to break into the CDC's headquarters before being stopped by guards. He instead opened fire on the building from across the street. The attacker was identified by law enforcement as Patrick Joseph White, a man who had blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal. A neighbor in Kennesaw, Georgia, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that White 'seemed like a good guy' but spoke with her multiple times about his distrust of COVID-19 vaccines. Last week, Kennedy canceled research into mRNA vaccines that would have cost $500 million, citing unproven concerns about their safety. In a statement, he said, 'The data show these vaccines fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu.' Speaking on Sunday, Adams said Kennedy had yet to 'unequivocally' condemn the violence at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 'I want to be clear, because our secretary of HHS has not been,' Adams said. 'Violence is never the answer, no matter your level of frustration or anger with the system. We have to find better, more peaceful ways to express our concerns and work towards solutions.' The former surgeon general was also critical of the contents of Kennedy's statement, released on Saturday, in which the secretary said 'no one should face violence while working to protect the health of others.' Adams said, 'He said no one should be harmed while working to protect the public. There's an out there... If you don't believe that people are working to protect the public, then that means it's okay to commit violence, at least in some people's eyes.' In the past, Kennedy has incorrectly linked vaccines for measles and mumps to autism and called the COVID-19 vaccine 'the deadliest ever made.' Kennedy's comment on Saturday honored the service of the staff he has so often slammed. 'We are deeply saddened by the tragic shooting at CDC's Atlanta campus that took the life of officer David Rose. We stand with his wife and three children and the entire CDC family,' he said. 'We know how shaken our public health colleagues feel today. No one should face violence while working to protect the health of others.' A union representing workers at the CDC said the incident 'compounds months of mistreatment, neglect, and vilification that CDC staff have endured,' CBS reported. Fired But Fighting, a group of former CDC staff, blamed Kennedy for the villainization of the CDC's workforce through 'his continuous lies about science and vaccine safety, which have fueled a climate of hostility and mistrust.'
Daily Mail
11-08-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
Trump's ex-surgeon general slams RFK Jr.'s response to CDC shootings
Donald Trump 's former surgeon general called out Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for his 'failed' response to the shootings at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. On Friday, a gunman who believed the COVID-19 vaccine made him sick went on a shooting spree outside the CDC headquarters in Atlanta. The shooting resulted in the deaths of one police officer, David Rose, and the shooter himself, leaving multiple buildings damaged from gunfire as students at the nearby Emory University took shelter. During a Sunday interview with CBS' Margaret Brennan 'Face the Nation,' former surgeon general Dr. Jerome Adams said Kennedy's response was 'tepid' while criticizing the secretary for the delay in addressing the violence. 'How you respond to a crisis defines a leader, and quite frankly Secretary Kennedy has failed in his first major test in this regard,' Adams told Brennan. 'It took him over 18 hours to issue a tepid response to these horrific shootings, and that's not even considering how his inflammatory rhetoric in the past has actually contributed to a lot of what's been going on.' The CDC shooter blamed the vaccine for adding to his depression by making him suicidal. Back in May, Kennedy announced that the CDC would no longer recommend the COVID-19 vaccine for healthy children and pregnant women. 'This is a time to stand in solidarity with our public health workforce, not a moment for the media to exploit a tragedy for political gain,' HHS Communications Director Andrew Nixon told the Daily Mail in response to Adams' criticism. Adams flamed Kennedy for previously referring to the CDC as a 'cesspool of corruption' before adding his criticisms of the agency may have influenced the shooter's actions 'He made this statement just last year,' Adams said. 'And he still has not unequivocally condemned the violence.' 'He said no one should be harmed while working to protect the public,' Adams added. 'There's an out there, Margaret. If you don't believe that people are working to protect the public, then that means it's OK to commit violence, at least in some people's eyes.' Throughout the entire first Trump administration, Adams served as surgeon general where he oversaw the development of the mRNA vaccines during Operation Warp Speed. Adams has praised the administration's development of the vaccine as one of Trump's greatest achievements, while expressing concern as the department begins cutting funds from mRNA research.
Daily Mail
11-08-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
RFK Jr slammed by Trump's own surgeon general for 'tepid' response to deadly CDC shooting
Donald Trump 's former surgeon general called out Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for his 'failed' response to the shootings at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. On Friday, a gunman who believed the COVID-19 vaccine made him sick went on a shooting spree outside the CDC headquarters in Atlanta. The shooting resulted in the deaths of one police officer, David Rose, and the shooter himself, leaving multiple buildings damaged from gunfire as students at the nearby Emory University took shelter. During a Sunday interview with CBS' Margaret Brennan 'Face the Nation,' former surgeon general Dr. Jerome Adams said Kennedy's response was 'tepid' while criticizing the secretary for the delay in addressing the violence. 'How you respond to a crisis defines a leader, and quite frankly Secretary Kennedy has failed in his first major test in this regard,' Adams told Brennan. 'It took him over 18 hours to issue a tepid response to these horrific shootings, and that's not even considering how his inflammatory rhetoric in the past has actually contributed to a lot of what's been going on.' The CDC shooter blamed the vaccine for adding to his depression by making him suicidal. Back in May, Kennedy announced that the CDC would no longer recommend the COVID-19 vaccine for healthy children and pregnant women. Following the shooting, Kennedy issued a response on Saturday giving extended to the family of the slain officer. 'No one should face violence while working to protect the health of others,' Kennedy wrote on X.' 'We honor their service. We stand with them. And we remain united in our mission to protect and improve the health of every American.' Adams flamed Kennedy for previously referring to the CDC as a 'cesspool of corruption' before adding his criticisms of the agency may have influenced the shooter's actions 'He made this statement just last year,' Adams said. 'And he still has not unequivocally condemned the violence.' 'He said no one should be harmed while working to protect the public,' Adams added. 'There's an out there, Margaret. If you don't believe that people are working to protect the public, then that means it's OK to commit violence, at least in some people's eyes.' Throughout the entire first Trump administration, Adams served as surgeon general where he oversaw the development of the mRNA vaccines during Operation Warp Speed. Adams has praised the administration's development of the vaccine as one of Trump's greatest achievements, while expressing concern as the department begins cutting funds from mRNA research. Only 24-hours before the shooting, Kennedy announced HHS would slash approximately half a billion dollars of funding for vaccine development programs for mRNA technology. The Daily Mail has reached out to the Department of Health and Humans services for comment regarding Adams' recent criticisms of Kennedy. Kennedy said the department 'has determined that mRNA technology poses more risk than benefits for these respiratory viruses.'
The Guardian
11-08-2025
- Health
- The Guardian
RFK Jr has slashed vaccine research. You need to know how perilous that is for the world
You'd be hard-pressed to find many public health experts who have positive things to say about Donald Trump's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States. Alongside his numerous policy failures, one Cornell University study found that he was the biggest source of Covid-19 misinformation. But if there's one redeeming feature to Trump's pandemic record, it has to be his leadership on Operation Warp Speed – a massive, government-funded initiative that played a pivotal role in fast-tracking Covid-19 vaccines. 'Operation Warp Speed stands as one of the most remarkable scientific and humanitarian achievements of the past half-century,' the former US surgeon general Jerome Adams said. It directed billions of dollars into vaccine development and manufacturing, particularly into the mRNA platform, which became the backbone of the Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines. Vaccines work by preparing the body's immune system to identify and successfully attack foreign agents entering the body. Traditional vaccines use weakened or inactivated viruses to offer a baby version for the body to fight and learn from. These vaccines are often produced by growing the virus in hen's eggs, which means production is slow and can take months to scale up. In contrast, the mRNA platform functions like a plug-and-play video game console: you just 'plug in' the genetic code of a particular virus or pathogen. The vaccine provides instructions to our bodies to make parts of the virus in our own cells, which then prompts an immune response. The process of creating and manufacturing these vaccines is much faster and more flexible than their traditional counterparts. This is especially important for a disease such as avian flu, which has an up to 100% mortality rate in chickens. But despite the speed in which they come together, there is still a considerable time-lag before mass rollout to allow for clinical trials to ensure human safety, test for side-effects and figure out optimal dosing. During the Covid pandemic, the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines were created within weeks of research teams receiving the genetic sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 from China in January 2020. What took a year was the testing and regulatory approval processes to ensure there was trust in their safety. Given Trump's success with Operation Warp Speed, it's particularly bizarre that Robert F Kennedy Jr, his health and human services secretary, has announced $500m in cuts to the mRNA vaccine investment portfolio. These include cancelling funding for Moderna's development into a late-stage H5N1 avian flu vaccine. I asked Prof Rebecca Katz, a global health security expert and former US State Department adviser, for her assessment of the damage. She called it: 'A self-inflicted wound to a vital organ.' On its own, RFK Jr's decision isn't surprising, considering his longstanding anti-vax advocacy and cult-like following. He has built a whole identity on anti-science rhetoric and he is especially vocal about the supposed dangers of mRNA technology. But being an anti-vaxxer is also a tricky road to navigate: RFK Jr upset his base when, under considerable political pressure, he finally endorsed MMR vaccinations during the Texas measles outbreak. But putting one personality aside, what do these cuts mean for the health of people living in the US and the wider world? It's bad news. Take the example of H5N1 avian flu. This virus has shown concerning step-changes including becoming endemic in wild birds, infecting a number of poultry farms, and now has sufficient mutations to enable cow-to-cow (mammal to mammal) transmission in the US among dairy cattle. With its circulation in certain herds of dairy cattle has come a rise in human infections (cow-to-human). The virus is now one mutation away from easier transmission among humans. That's the nightmare scenario: an influenza pandemic, possibly more lethal than Covid-19. If a human-to-human transmissible H5N1 strain appears, the existing mRNA infrastructure could be used to rapidly develop a targeted vaccine. Many countries, including the UK, have been stockpiling vaccine components or ramping up surveillance. Under the Biden administration, the US had been among the leaders in this effort. By shelving investment and halting further development, the US is essentially gambling that we won't need quick medical countermeasures. It's a dangerous bet. When the next pandemic happens, the cost in human lives could be much higher than we witnessed in 2020. Can other countries simply pick up the slack with mRNA production? Not easily. After the Covid pandemic led to huge disparities in which places in the world had access to vaccine supply, many countries starting planning for their own vaccine and mRNA hubs. They didn't want to be dependent on the charity of the US or UK to donate them doses: they wanted to independently respond effectively. On a National Academies project that I was vice-chair of on the global coordination of vaccines for pandemic influenza, we looked closely into regional production, including in Africa. What I learned from experts across the world is that vaccine production, especially mRNA-based vaccines, requires a high degree of technical expertise, quality control and highly specialised supply chains. It will happen in other places, but not quickly enough to shoulder the impact of the US decision. Unlike foreign aid cuts, where the effect is felt immediately in the shutting down of food programmes or health clinics, cuts to research funding have a slower, deeper impact, especially in terms of expertise and knowledge generation. Research programmes that were working on pandemic preparedness are closing. Postdoctoral researchers aren't finding jobs, without the necessary soft money to support them. PhD programmes have been frozen or cancelled. Universities, highly dependent on government funding, are scaling back their research activities in health, especially in areas that money is being cut from. Perhaps most devastating of all: smart, ambitious young scientists have fewer opportunities to develop careers in public health research and vaccine development. They'll look elsewhere – into AI, tech, finance. Where will the expertise come from in the next 15 to 20 years if the career pipeline is being shut down? RFK Jr may position himself as Making America Healthy Again, but in reality, his policies make the entire world more vulnerable. He may, in fact, be the most dangerous person in the Trump administration – not because he's loud or erratic, but because he's steadily eroding the foundation of public health research and infrastructure. This isn't just bad policy. It's a generational setback. In that light, RFK Jr stands not merely as a controversial figure but as a serious risk to national and global health security. Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh
