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Defend Public Health is a volunteer-driven network of public health researchers, healthcare workers, advocates and allies fighting to protect the health of all.

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Revisiting Speaking Truth to Power: A Return to Its Roots

Defend Public Health member Mary Canales, PhD, RN shares her thoughts on the attacks on public health, and why it is time for medical professionals to speak truth to power.

DPH Comments Submitted to December 2025 ACIP Meeting

In comments submitted for consideration by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices at its December 2025 meeting, DPH laid out the value of including hepatitis B vaccination during infancy. DPH urged the committee not to change the current hepatitis B vaccination protocol, which has proven safe and highly effective.

Scientific evidence shows no link between COVID19 vaccines and child deaths

In response to claims by the Trump administration that COVID19 vaccines caused 25 pediatric deaths, Defend Public Health reviewed the scientific evidence from rigorous vaccine safety surveillance systems and expert published reports to demonstrate how we know that COVID19 vaccines do not cause pediatric deaths, and why the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) alone cannot be used to claim that vaccines cause adverse events.

RFK Jr's Whopper of The Week

Whopper of The Week

Whopper of the Week takes on the latest tall tale from RFK Jr. — and sets the record straight. Each week, we unpack one of his biggest whoppers, explain what’s wrong, and serve up the real facts so you can spot misinformation a mile away.

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Recent News

The Washington Post

Trump urges a new vaccine schedule. Here’s what other countries do.

The Trump administration wants to rethink the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule, citing Denmark as a comparison. In this Washington Post analysis, DPH member Jessica Malaty Rivera sets the record straight, explaining, “Denmark is about the size of Maryland, so what works to protect a small, very highly vaccinated population like Denmark cannot be extrapolated for a very large, heterogeneous and much more diverse population like the U.S.”

CDC advisory committee hears spurious claims about vaccine safety

In this wrap-up of the 2nd day of the December ACIP meeting, DPH Coordinating Committee member Elizabeth Jacobs explains the value of aluminum adjuvants in vaccines, explaining: “It sort of primes your immune system to have a really great response to the vaccine. We get aluminum in our bodies all the time, from anything at all that we do.”

defend public health

Vaccine Panel Attacks Children’s Health

Today’s decision by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to end the recommendation for a universal birth dose of Hepatitis B vaccine and its attempts to cast doubt on the whole childhood vaccine schedule constitute a reckless, dangerous move away from science and evidence-based policy, Defend Public Health said today.

The Washington Post

RFK Jr. vaccine advisers to scrutinize childhood immunization schedule

This preview of the December 5 session of ACIP lays out the fears of health professionals and medical researchers that the panel will sow confusion and doubt about safe, effective childhood vaccines. DPH Coordinating Committee member Elizabeth Jacobs tells the Post that allowing testimony from the likes of a lawyer who sues vaccine makers "is an egregious attack on public health."

US vaccine advisers say not all babies need a hepatitis B shot at birth

The biggest news service in the U.S. reports on ACIP's decision to no longer recommend universal Hepatitis B vaccination for infants, noting that "a loud chorus of medical and public health leaders decried the actions of the panel" -- and including DPH Coordinating Committee member Elizabeth Jacobs' description of the meeting as "an epidemiological crime scene."

Why The Hepatitis B Birth Dose Is At Risk From New CDC Vaccine Advisors

Medical writer Dr. Judy Stone chronicles the many strange and unscientific aspects of the Dec. 4 ACIP meeting, quoting a variety of experts, including DPH Coordinating Committee member Elizabeth Jacobs, who termed the meeting "an epidemiological crime scene."

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Media Inquiries

Journalists are invited to contact our volunteer media team at this address:

media@defendpublichealth.org

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For all inquiries other than from media, please contact us at:

general@defendpublichealth.org