NEWSROOM

Amid reports of a measles outbreak at an ICE detention camp in Texas, DPH Coordinating Committee member Elizabeth Jacobs discusses the disturbing public health implications of the ongoing ICE operations to round up and imprison large numbers of immigrants. She notes that ICE's health branch has recently rewritten its mission statement to delete a pledge to provide the best possible healthcare. Her segment begins at about 22:50.

In a column nationally syndicated via our friends at The Progressive (and appearing so far in 2 dozen papers nationwide, including the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Charlotte Observer) , DPH members Susana Fried and Alicia Ely Yamin lay out the consequences of the administration's expanded Global Gag Rule. They write that it "will threaten the lives of people around the world, especially women and people who don’t fit into the administration’s narrow, unscientific categories of gender."

In an article reviewing ACIP Chair Kirk Milhoan's recent, bizarre comments about vaccine recommendations, DPH Coordinating Committee member Elizabeth Jacobs explains that Milhoan “wants to experiment on the people of the United States by seeing what happens as vaccination coverage plummets and infectious diseases spread,” adding, “This is so dangerous as to approach criminality.”

DPH members Donna A. Gaffney and Teri Mills, also co-founders of Grandparents for Vaccines, argue that RFK Jr. threatens to take us back to pre-vaccine days when infectious diseases that we now prevent ran rampant, comparing his approach to the smoke and mirrors used by the Wizard of Oz.

The Trump Administration has dramatically expanded the global gag rule, which limits countries receiving US aid from delivering abortion care, to also include prohibitions on gender-affirming care, support provided to transgender and nonbinary people, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. The Administration has also expanded the scope of the policy by applying it to countries receiving humanitarian aid including food aid and disaster relief. Experts including Alicia Ely Yamin, co-chair of the Sexual and Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice Committee at Defend Public Health, weigh in on how this policy negatively impacts local control in health systems abroad and furthers public health crises already exacerbated by the Administration's cuts to US aid over the past year.

Coordinating Committee member Gregg Gonsalves writes about how Alex Pretti, killed by Customs and Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis, was part of a long tradition of healthcare workers standing up for human rights. Now, he argues, it's up to the rest of us to carry on Pretti's work.

On January 22, Kirk Milhoan, chair of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices – installed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who had previously purged the committee’s entire prior membership – made some truly bizarre statements that got largely buried in that week’s blizzard of insane news. CPH Coordinating Committee member Bruce Mirken explains the implications of his comments.

Columnist Michael Hiltzik draws a line straight from leading AIDS denialist Peter Duesberg, who died recently, to present-day health disinformation, with DPH Coordinating Committee member Gregg Gonsalves commenting, "Peter Duesberg was an AIDS denialist. He is the precursor to contemporary denialists like RFK Jr., who brought AIDS denialism into the 21st century."

A nurse who's also a member of Defend Public Health writes about Alex Pretti and the role of nurses in the current crisis: "It matters that Pretti was a nurse: not because this makes his life more valuable than others, but because his final actions reflect the instinctive application of ethical principles of a profession charged with responding to harm."

In a podcast interview, Kirk Milhoan, new head of the CDC's vaccine advisory committee, said that "science is what I observe," and suggested making all vaccines optional instead of recommended. That would lead to "a real-world experience of when unvaccinated people get measles. What is the new incidence of hospitalization? What’s the incidence of death?” In response, DPH Coordinating Committee member ElizabethJacobs called his statement "one of the most disturbing things I’ve seen in my entire career.”