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The nation

Public Health Was a Place for Warriors Once. It Needs to Be Again.

In this adaptation of a speech he gave at a recent meeting of the American Public Health Association, DPH Coordinating Committee member Gregg Gonsalves calls on the public health field to reclaim its former identity as a social and political movement. "We became scientists and clinicians first, and made our solutions technocratic," he writes, but the events of recent years show that public health must organize to grapple with the larger social and economic issues that shape how -- and even whether -- we live and stay healthy.

Whopper of the Week: RFK Jr. Wants to Remove Aluminum from Vaccines and Endanger Americans' Health

Aluminum, found naturally in many foods, is sometimes added as a salt in tiny quantities to vaccines as an immune booster. For years, Robert F. Kennedy has said that aluminum-containing vaccines cause autism, allergies, asthma and other health issues and as Secretary of HHS, Kennedy wants to ban aluminum from vaccines. But banning aluminum would “wipe out about half the nation’s supply of childhood inoculations” for dangerous diseases like whooping cough, polio and the flu and would result in no additional health benefits for children.

Beyond emergency relief: The role of U.S. foreign health assistance amid growing displacement and climate change

The current administration drastically cut U.S. foreign aid, but DPH member Timothy Holtz and colleagues write, "U.S. global health assistance is an urgent humanitarian priority, particularly amid rapidly growing displacement and climate-induced crises. Continued deprioritization will ultimately result in lives lost. Critical to averting deaths and promoting global health security, U.S. technical capacity in global health should be reinvigorated through synergies with the private sector, international actors, and local institutions."

Cruelty is the Point: Veterans are the latest target

With Veterans Day 2025 approaching, Dr. Mary K. Canales shares her thoughts on the damage being caused by the Trump administration to the veterans of the United States.

Health care workers under 65 must be vaccinated against Covid

DPH member Judith Feinberg and cooauthor Judy Stone explain that while the discussion around HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s changes to Covid vaccine recommendations have focused on the exclusion of pregnant women and infants and the restrictions on anyone under age 65 without an underlying condition getting the vaccine, this conversation has left out a key group: health care workers under 65.

The nation

John Roberts Is a Threat to the Health of Every American

Trump administration health officials have received much criticism, and deserved it. But, as DPH Coordinating Committee member Gregg Gonsalves points out, the man who has enabled all this -- the termination of research grants, mass firings at CDC, NIH and other agencies, and more -- is Chief Justice John Roberts, who has acted to empower the administration in its most destructive acts.

defend public health

Senate Must Reject Casey Means as Surgeon General, Defend Public Health Says

With her confirmation hearing scheduled for this morning, Defend Public Health is urging the Senate to reject the nomination of Casey Means as U.S. Surgeon General. Means is a “health influencer” without discernible qualifications to be Surgeon General and who seems to make most of her living peddling unproven products and tests sold by companies led by herself and her brother, Calley Means.

The Killing Smog of Donora, Pennsylvania: A Halloween Reminder from the Past

The Trump administration is peeling back Environmental Protection Agency regulations, firing its staff, and canceling its research funding. This week, Kathleen Shoop, PhD, author and expert on the Donora Smog, paints a picture of this deadly environmental disaster during Halloween week of 1948, and its role in the passage of the Clean Air Acts.

Researchers, Healthcare Workers Group Organizes Opposition to Trump-RFK Jr.’s Destruction of U.S. Public Health System

In this interview heard on dozens of public and community radio stations across the U.S., DPH Coordinating Committee member Gregg Gonsalves discusses how the organization came to be, our current effort to build state teams, and why his history with ACT UP and the Treatment Action Group gives him hope that we'll get through this dark period and emerge into something better.

Whopper of the Week: RFK Jr. Makes Up Spooky Stories about Old Men Being More Virile than Teens

American fertility rates, like those of most countries, have been dropping since about 1960 for
many reasons related to broad social, economic, technological and demographic changes. At a White House press conference in October, Health and Human Services Secretary Kennedy told Americans that our fertility rate was a national security threat, that teenage boys are less virile than 65-year-old men, and that the root cause of the problem is endocrine disruptors. But Kennedy’s claims are not fact based: data about sperm count does not even exist for teenage boys and the scientific consensus has long been that the quality of sperm declines as men age. In short, Kennedy tried to tie one of his favorite themes, that chemicals are poisoning our youth, to an insidious right-wing conspiracy theory that dropping fertility rates are leading to a decline in American power.

Whopper of the Week: RFK Jr.’s Claims of “Immune Overload” is Nonsense and Ignores How the Immune System Works

RFK Jr does not want the CDC to recommend newborns be vaccinated against the Hepatitis B virus (HBV). HBV infection early in life, especially as a baby, puts a person at a high risk of developing a chronic lifelong liver infection, which in a quarter of cases can lead to fatal liver failure or cancer. The hepatitis B vaccine for newborns is safe and effective; and it gives durable lifelong protection against a serious infection that children can encounter during birth, and throughout their lifetime in their families and communities.

By loosening standards, the FDA isn’t doing rare-disease patients any favors

DPH members Reshma Ramachandran and Holly Fernandez Lynch explain why recent loosening of FDA standards for drug approval could create dangers, especially for those with rare diseases. This is occurring as Trump administration decimation of federal health agencies sets back rare disease research.