the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Jun 23, 2025
On June 9, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. fired 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control’s vaccine advisory committee. The people he fired were medical professors from some of the top schools in the country and many were considered public health experts.
In defending the firings, Kennedy made a number of false claims against the committee’s recommendations on childhood vaccines. Kennedy falsely claimed that other than the COVID-19 vaccines, no other childhood vaccines had been tested against placebos and shown to be safe and effective. In reality, every vaccine has been tested against some form of placebo, according to infectious disease expert Jake Scott.
While it’s certainly true that there are risks associated with vaccines, the risks associated with infectious diseases among the unvaccinated are much greater. One need only look at the recent measles outbreak in the U.S. to see that effect. When the measles vaccine was first applied, it led to a dramatic decrease in the rate of infection.
After posting on X the night after the firings that he would not appoint “ideological anti-vaxxers,” he went ahead and did exactly that a day later, according to public health experts.
Among those he appointed was Dr. Robert Malone, who advocated for treating COVID-19 with ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, both of which were found to either be ineffective or even harmful in the treatment of COVID. Another of RFK Jr.’s appointees, Martin Kuldorff, had advocated no anti-COVID restrictions being taken for anyone other than vulnerable populations like seniors so that exposing children, youths and adults would produce “herd immunity.”
The firings come after RFK Jr. pushed for ending the CDC recommendation for COVID vaccinations for pregnant women and healthy children. He falsely claimed a study had shown that COVID-19 vaccines had caused heart inflammation in young males, when in fact the study had found that the risk was greater among those who contracted COVID than among those vaccinated, in whom the conditions were rare.
RFK Jr.’s attacks on the vaccine advisory committee are just the latest in the Trump administration’s attacks on public health and medical research. A group of 60 current employees of the National Institutes of Health recently sent a letter to RFK Jr., NIH director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, and members of Congress protesting the cuts. There letter was signed by 340 current and recently fired NIH employees. It pointed out that 2,100 research grants had been terminated since Trump took office, saying the terminations “throw away years of hard work” and put patient health at risk, and that clinical trials “are being halted without regard to participant safety.”
The Trump administration, including RFK Jr., are seizing upon popular anti-scientific sentiments and vaccine hesitancy to justify cutting federal funding for medical and public health research. Instead of using science to improve patient outcomes and prevent disease, they’re taking society backward in order to provide tax cuts to the wealthy and the big corporations.