Donald's One Big Beautiful science experiment

Trump Is Accusing Foes With Multiple Mortgages of Fraud. Records Show 3 of His Cabinet Members Have Them.

Plus, convicted fraudster Trump submitted phony documents misrepresenting the value of his properties 

By Robert Faturechi, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski for ProPublica

The Trump administration has vowed to go after anyone who got lower mortgage rates by claiming more than one primary residence on their loan papers.

Donald Trump has used it as a justification to target political foes, including a governor on the Federal Reserve Board, a Democratic U.S. senator and a state attorney general.

Real estate experts say claiming primary residences on different mortgages at the same time is often legal and rarely prosecuted.

But if administration officials continue the campaign, mortgage records show there’s another place they could look: Trump’s own Cabinet.

Underscoring how common the practice is, ProPublica found that at least three of Trump’s Cabinet members call multiple homes their primary residences on mortgages. We discovered the loans while examining financial disclosure forms, county real estate records and publicly available mortgage data provided by Hunterbrook Media.

Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer entered into two primary-residence mortgages in quick succession, including for a second home near a country club in Arizona, where she’s known to vacation. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has primary-residence mortgages in New Jersey and Washington, D.C. Lee Zeldin, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, has one primary-residence mortgage in Long Island and another in Washington, D.C., according to loan records.

In a flurry of interviews and rapid-fire posts on X, Bill Pulte, the Federal Housing Finance Agency director, has led the charge in accusing Trump opponents of mortgage fraud. “If somebody is claiming two primary residences, that is not appropriate, and we will refer it for criminal investigation,” Pulte said last month.

A political donor to the president and heir to a housing company fortune, Pulte’s posts online tease big developments and criminal referrals, drawing reposts from Trump himself and promises of swift consequences. “Fraud will not be tolerated in President Trump’s housing market,” Pulte has warned.

Real estate experts told ProPublica that, in its bid to wrest control of the historically independent Fed and go after political enemies, the Trump administration has mischaracterized mortgage rules. Its justification for launching criminal investigations, they said, could also apply to the Trump Cabinet members.

Bobby Jr.'s CDC meltdown hurts more than US

People are already dying from Kennedy-caused chaos

Michael Toole, Burnet Institute

He really is nuts

Ever since Robert F Kennedy (RFK) Jr was appointed United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been under pressure to abandon its traditional evidence-based approach to public health in America and across the world.

That pressure came to a head last week with the sacking of recently appointed CDC director Susan Monarez. According to her lawyers, the longtime government scientist, who had been in the role less than a month, was targeted after she refused to “rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives”.

Monarez will be replaced by Jim O'Neill, deputy director of the Department of Health and Human Services. Critics note he has no medical or scientific training.

On the same day as Monarez’s firing, three senior officials resigned. They included the CDC’s chief medical officer, and two others with leadership roles in areas including vaccines and emerging diseases.

I worked at the CDC between 1986 and 1995. Almost all of my work was with activities overseas.

While the CDC is a key institution overseeing and funding public health in the US, it’s also instrumental in global health. Consequently, turmoil at the CDC could have an impact not just in the US, but around the world.

Vaccine skepticism: a threat to public health

Soon after the inauguration of Donald Trump for the second time in January 2025, threats to American public health became clear. RFK Jr was confirmed as the Secretary of Health and Human Services in February, with authority over the CDC.

By April, 25% of CDC staff had been fired and its contract spending was cut by 35%. Cancelled CDC programs included those focused on the prevention of lead poisoning in children, environmental health, and sexually transmitted infections including HIV.

Notably, RFK Jr has a long history of vaccine skepticism.

In 2019–20, more than 5,700 people became infected when a measles outbreak ravaged the island nation of Samoa. Some 83 people died, most of them children.

In the lead up, a number of ads spread vaccine misinformation on Facebook, sowing doubt about safety of the measles vaccine. Some were found to have been funded by the Children’s Defense Fund, an organization founded by RFK Jr. 

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Children's Defense Fund is mis-identified above. It is venerable civil rights and anti-poverty advocacy group that doesn't deserve to be tied to RFK by the author's error. Bobby Jr.'s anti-vaxxer group is called Children's Health Defense. - Will Collette

RFK Jr’s department has dismissed and replaced the 17 expert members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices with eight new people – a number of whom have reportedly expressed anti-vaccination views.

During RFK Jr’s tenure so far, his department has:

• reduced access to COVID vaccines for children and pregnant women
• cancelled contracts to develop new mRNA vaccines worth US$500 million
• revived the search for a long disproved link between childhood vaccines and autism.

Where Are the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, and What’s RFK’s Beef With Beans?

Bobby is too busy destroying America's public health system

By Seth Millstein

Where are the Dietary Guidelines for Americans? Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said earlier in the year that the document, which guides millions of dollars in federal spending every year, would be released before August. 

But it’s now almost September, and there’s no sign of the new dietary guidelines, only remarks from the HHS Secretary at a meeting of state governors that “we’re probably going to get them out at the end of October.” Probably.

Christopher Gardner, a member of the committee that drafts the DGA, tells Sentient that he and his team were “completely ghosted” by the Department of Health and Human Services after handing over their recommendations, and that the agency hasn’t communicated anything about its process to committee members.

“No one will tell us the name of a person who's working on it,” says Gardner, who also serves as the Rehnborg Farquhar Professor of Medicine at Stanford University. “It’s a black box. We have no idea.”

Sentient has reached out to the USDA and HHS for comment on this article, but neither agency has replied.

The dietary guidelines are issued jointly by the USDA and Department of Health and Human Services. Federal law requires the government to release an updated version every five years, and it serves a dual purpose: To advise everyday Americans on how to adopt a healthy diet, and to guide the federal government’s various food programs, such as the National School Lunch Program and SNAP. In total, the guidelines influence over $40 billion in federal spending every year.

Bobby Jr. is menace and has got to go

Nine former CDC directors issue dire warning over Kennedy actions

Lisa Schnirring

Reactions to the recent firing and resignations of top Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) leadership continued to reverberate over the Labor Day weekend, along with fallout linked to controversy over recent federal COVID vaccine policies.

During the waning days of August, the White House fired newly confirmed CDC director Susan Monarez, PhD, after she refused to rubber-stamp vaccine directives from Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. At the same time, four of the CDC’s top scientists resigned for similar reasons, prompting deep concerns from health leaders, medical groups, and lawmakers.

The upheaval at the CDC came in the same week the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared the updated COVID vaccines for use in the upcoming respiratory virus season, which came with narrowed indications and other policy changes that will make it for difficult for some groups to be vaccinated, including lower-risk adults and young children.

Nine former CDC directors issue dire warning

On September 1, nine CDC directors who served under both Democrat and Republican administrations going back to 1977 published an opinion piece in the New York Times, writing that the upheaval at CDC under Kennedy’s leadership at HHS over the past several months is unlike anything the CDC or the county has experienced before. 

They referenced Kennedy’s promotion of unproven treatments and downplaying of vaccines during the measles outbreak, weakening of key programs including violence and injury prevention, and cancellation of vaccine contracts that leave the country unprepared against future pandemic threats. They also cited his reduced support for global vaccination efforts and appointing people who align with his dangerous and unscientific views.

“We are worried about the wide-ranging impact that all these decisions will have on America’s health security,” the former CDC directors wrote, adding, “This is unacceptable, and it should alarm every American, regardless of political leanings.”

Just by looking at them

Bobby Junior finds another way to kill Americans

CDC cuts back foodborne illness surveillance program

Chris Dall, MA

This clown, Jim O'Neill, is Bobby Junior's pick as acting
CDC director after RFK drove out all the qualified
department heads

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has scaled back a federal-state surveillance program for foodborne pathogens.

As of July 1, the CDC's Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet), which works with the Food and Drug Administration, the US Department of Agriculture, and 10 state health departments to track infections commonly transmitted through food, has reduced required surveillance to two pathogens: Salmonella and Shiga toxin–producing Escherichia coli (STEC). 

Reporting of illnesses caused by Campylobacter, Cyclospora, Listeria, Shigella, Vibrio, and Yersinia is now optional, according to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

The story was first reported by NBC News, which cited a set of CDC talking points that suggested reduced federal funding for FoodNet was the reason for the move. 

Bobby Junior demands obedience from doctors on vaccine policy

RFK Jr. Warns Docs of Liability if They Stray From CDC on Vaccines

By Joyce Frieden, Washington Editor, MedPage Today

The American Academy of Pediatrics' (AAP) recent pediatric COVID-19 vaccine recommendations, which differ from those of the CDC, have raised concerns from HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who responded with an oblique warning to any physicians who might follow the AAP's advice.

"AAP should ... be candid with doctors and hospitals that recommendations that diverge from the CDC's official list are not shielded from liability under the 1986 Vaccine Injury Act," Kennedy posted this week on X.

The AAP recommendations, released on Tuesday, included a strong endorsement of COVID-19 shots for children ages 6 months to under 2 years. The group also recommended COVID shots for older children if the parents want to do that. Those recommendations differ from guidance issued by the CDC, which has said the vaccines are not specifically recommended for children although they can still get them if parents and providers agree.

Was Kennedy correct about the liability issue? "As has become common for Secretary Kennedy, this is misleading," Dorit Reiss, PhD, a law professor at the University of California San Francisco, said in a Facebook post on Wednesday. "Whether a vaccine falls under VICP [the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, the part of the Vaccine Injury Act that deals with liability issues] has nothing to do with whether AAP recommends it, and the liability protections are not removed by this."

RFK Jr. War on Vaccines continues as he puts anti-vaxxer in charge of vaccine review

ACIP member critical of COVID and mRNA vaccines to lead review

Lisa Schnirring, Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, University of Minnesota

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) vaccine advisory group has long had a work group in place to review the latest COVID-19 vaccine science, including weighing the risks and benefits, but a newly constituted group will launch a sweeping new review of the vaccines led by a member who has opposed COVID vaccines.

The Brownstone Institute on August 22 reported that Retsef Levi, PhD, one of seven members appointed to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) by US Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has been appointed to lead the COVID vaccine review. On August 20, the CDC posted updated terms of reference for the COVID vaccine work group, which is lengthy. Some of the topics include impacts from repeated boosting and mapping policies in other countries.

Retsef Levi spent 12 years as an intelligence
officer in the IDF - Israeli Defense Forces

Levi does not have a biomedical degree or clinical medicine experience. He has a doctorate in operations research and is a professor of operations management at MIT Sloan School of Management. On social media, Levi has called mRNA vaccines dangerous and said they should be removed from the market. 

Scaled-back involvement of CDC staff

Levi told the Brownstone Institute that the work group hasn’t been fully formed yet but will include fellow ACIP members Robert Malone, MD, and James Pagano, MD. Malone is a vaccinologist and scientist who was involved in early mRNA vaccine research and an outspoken critic of mRNA COVID vaccines. Pagano is a retired emergency medicine physician.

The new terms of reference said CDC staff will not serve as members of the work group but may provide administrative support or technical support as needed and that work group leadership and others will ensure that there is no undue influence from the CDC or any special-interest group. 

News of the shift in the COVID vaccine work group is the latest in efforts to steer ACIP toward taking on topics pushed forward by anti-vaccine groups. 

At the first meeting of the newly appointed group in June, the leaders of the group signaled there will be changes to the ACIP work groups and that two more will be added: one on the cumulative effect of vaccines on the recommended CDC vaccine schedule for children and adolescents and the other to have another look at vaccines that have been on the market for more than 7 years, such as the measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella (MMRV) vaccine in children younger than 5 years.

A month later, the HHS announced that ACIP’s nonvoting liaison groups from medical and public health organizations are barred from participating in ACIP work groups, saying that they are expected to be biased, based on their constituencies. Groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have often assisted with efficacy and safety reviews, along with risk-benefit analyses. 

Concerns about more data misrepresentation under Kennedy 

Some experts are casting doubt on whether the new COVID vaccine review will be rigorous and sound. In making unilateral vaccine recommendations and changes to vaccine recommendations, Kennedy and his surrogates have cherry-picked and misrepresented data to fit their anti-vaccine narratives. 

Jake Scott, MD, an infectious disease physician and clinical associate professor at Stanford University who has published responses to Kennedy’s critiques on vaccines, including claims that led the HHS to cancel 22 mRNA vaccine projects, told the New York Times, “I'm concerned that it won't be rigorous science, that it's going to be more statistical manipulation.” 

Scott is also involved with the Vaccine Integrity Project at the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), publisher of CIDRAP News.

HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon told the Times that though individual group members may have initial personal views, “the task force's work will be guided by data, transparency, open-mindedness and open deliberation—not by any single opinion.”

How RFK Jr. celebrated Labor Day

Cop killed at the CDC by guy likely agitated by vaccine misinformation peddled by Bobby Jr.

Time for RFK Jr. to resign or be removed

Andy Miller, Healthbeat and Rebecca Grapevine, Healthbeat 

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention workers whose jobs have been reinstated after dizzying Trump administration disruptions say they remain stuck in a budgetary, political, and professional limbo.

Their work includes major agency priorities such as HIV testing and monitoring, as well as work at the nation’s leading sexually transmitted infections lab. And while employees are back, many projects have been canceled or stalled, as funding disappears or is delayed.

“For a while, work was staring at a blank screen,” an HIV scientist said. “I had a couple of projects before this. I’m trying to get them restarted.”

“We don’t know what’s happening or what to do,” said an HIV prevention researcher who was fired then rehired.

These employees voiced deep concern over the future of the agency and its work on HIV and other threats. The unprecedented downsizing could lead to loss of life and higher spending on medical care, they say. Their uncertain employment status has sunk morale. Many worry about the future of public health.

On Aug. 8, a gunman identified by Georgia authorities as Patrick Joseph White fired shots at CDC buildings in Atlanta. A first responder on the scene, DeKalb County police officer David Rose, was killed. White, who was found dead, was possibly motivated by his views on vaccines, according to news reports.

Health leaders, medical groups: CDC leader exodus puts nation's health at risk

Americans will die due to Bobby Junior's destruction of the agency

Lisa Schnirring

As news broke lof the ouster of newly confirmed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Susan Monarez, PhD, and the resignations of some of the agency's top scientists, reactions came fast and furious from public health leaders, professional groups, and lawmakers.

The upheaval at the CDC comes just weeks after a gunman attacked the campus, reportedly fueled by grievances about the COVID vaccine. 

The CDC has also been rocked by watered-down COVID vaccine recommendations that came from Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his surrogates who have announced new reviews of autism causes and COVID vaccines, both hot-button issues of Kennedy and other vaccine critics.

Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota, publisher of CIDRAP News, said the loss of top CDC staff is the result of failed leadership of extremists at HHS, which oversees the CDC. "These departures are a serious loss for America. They make our country less safe and less prepared for public health emergencies." 

Columbia scientists may have found a universal antiviral

But it involves mRNA tech, which Bobby Kennedy has defunded

Columbia University Irving Medical Center

For a few dozen people in the world, the downside of living with a rare immune condition comes with a surprising superpower -- the ability to fight off all viruses.

Columbia immunologist Dusan Bogunovic discovered the individuals' antiviral powers about 15 years ago, soon after he identified the genetic mutation that causes the condition.

At first, the condition only seemed to increase vulnerability to some bacterial infections. But as more patients were identified, its unexpected antiviral benefits became apparent. Bogunovic, a professor of pediatric immunology at Columbia University's Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, soon learned that everyone with the mutation, which causes a deficiency in an immune regulator called ISG15, has mild, but persistent systemic inflammation.

Shut up and get out

After the horrific church shooting in Minnesota, Bobby Kennedy Jr. blames - without evidence -  the shooter's apparent use of anti-depressants (SSRIs) for the massacre of children. Enough of this fool.

RFK Jr. Vowed to Find the Environmental Causes of Autism.

Then he shut down research trying to do just that.

By Sharon Lerner for ProPublica

Reporting Highlights

• Slashed Autism Funding: RFK Jr. promised to identify the causes of autism but has eliminated parts of his agency actively investigating them and has cut millions in funding for autism research.
• Silent on Rollbacks: Once an ardent environmentalist who took on big polluters, RFK Jr. has been silent on Trump’s dismantling of efforts to combat climate change and pollution.
• Conflicting Priorities: RFK Jr. helps lead an administration that is reversing regulations on pollution and chemicals, including some linked to autism.

These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.

Erin McCanlies was listening to the radio one morning in April when she heard Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promising to find the cause of autism by September. The secretary of Health and Human Services said he believed an environmental toxin was responsible for the dramatic increase in the condition and vowed to gather “the most credible scientists from all over the world” to solve the mystery.

Nothing like that has ever been done before, he told an interviewer.

McCanlies was stunned. The work had been done.

“That’s exactly what I’ve been doing!” she said to her husband, Fred.

We know Bobby Jr. is nuts, but is he also a pedo?

Bobby Junior's lunatic leadership leads to 'Wednesday Night Massacre at CDC'

Chaos Erupts as RFK Jr. Accused of Destroying Agency From Within 

Jon Queally for Common Dreams

It's being called the Wednesday Night Massacre.

Total "chaos" erupted at the Centers for Disease Control on Wednesday after the forced removal of CDC Director Susan Monarez, handpicked by Donald Trump just months ago, was followed by the disgruntled resignations of other top officials at the agency who openly warned that health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is running the place into the ground while putting the nation's public health system at risk of collapse and threaten millions of lives.

That Monarez was no longer the director was announced by the Department of Health and Human Services, led by RFK Jr., via social media on Wednesday afternoon. Hours later, lawyers for Monarez said her removal was a firing, not a resignation, and they accused the director of "weaponizing public health for political gain" after she clashed with Kennedy over new immunization guidelines related to the Covid-19 vaccine.

A letter from Monarez's lawyer said she was targeted because she challenged the new policy that would put "millions of American lives at risk" and represents deeper concerns about the agency's agenda under Kennedy's leadership.

Her ouster, her legal team said, "is about the systematic dismantling of public health institutions, the silencing of experts, and the dangerous politicization of science. The attack on Dr. Monarez is a warning to every American: Our evidence-based systems are being undermined from within."

In an announcement earlier Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) narrowed the kinds of conditions people need to have in order to receive approval for available Covid-19 vaccines.

As the Washington Post reports, the new FDA guidance sparked concern among public health experts who say the policy shift "injects uncertainty for Americans not considered high-risk who want to get another coronavirus vaccine. They said it's not clear who will ultimately be able to get the shot, whether insurance will cover it and whether they can get vaccinated at their local pharmacy."

In response to Monarez's firing—and other underlying issues at the agency under RFK Jr.'s leadership, at least four other top CDC officials resigned in protest Wednesday night.

Demetre C. Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; Dr. Jennifer Layden, who led the office of public health data; and CDC Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry all submitted their resignations.

Dr. Richard Pan, a pediatrician and a former Democratic state senator in California, was among those who declared the events should be seen as the "Wednesday Night Massacre at the CDC"—a reference to the infamous Saturday Night Massacre during the Watergate scandal under President Richard Nixon in 1973.

In his explosive resignation letter made public, Dr. Daskalakis said he did not make the decision lightly.

"However," he stated, "after much contemplation and reflection on recent developments and perspectives brought to light by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., I find that the views he and his staff have shared challenge my ability to continue in my current role at the agency and in the service of the health of the American people. Enough is enough."

The letter continues:

I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality and are designed to hurt rather than to improve the public’s health.

The recent change in the adult and children’s immunization schedule threaten the lives of the youngest Americans and pregnant people. The data analyses that supported this decision have never been shared with CDC despite my respectful requests to HHS and other leadership. 

This lack of meaningful engagement was further compounded by a “frequently asked questions” document written to support the Secretary’s directive that was circulated by HHS without input from CDC subject matter experts and that cited studies that did not support the conclusions that were attributed to these authors. 

Having worked in local and national public health for years, I have never experienced such radical non-transparency, nor have I seen such unskilled manipulation of data to achieve a political end rather than the good of the American people.

It is untenable to serve in an organization that is not afforded the opportunity to discuss decisions of scientific and public health importance released under the moniker of CDC. The lack of communication by HHS and other CDC political leadership that culminates in social media posts announcing major policy changes without prior notice demonstrate a disregard of normal communication channels and common sense. 

Having to retrofit analyses and policy actions to match inadequately thought-out announcements in poorly scripted videos or page long X posts should not be how organizations responsible for the health of people should function.

Critics of RFK Jr. and Trump, including public health advocates and Democratic lawmakers charged with oversight, slammed the chaos and the deeper threat to the American people that the administration's misguided attacks on the CDC have triggered.

"President Trump and Sec. Kennedy are trying to purge anyone who stands up against their anti-science agenda at the CDC," said Sen. Rafael Warnock (D-Ga.). "They're risking disease outbreak and another pandemic just to advance their own extremist goals."

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called for an immediate hearing before the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), of which he is the ranking member. "It's outrageous that Sec. Kennedy is trying to fire the CDC Director—after only a few weeks on the job—for her commitment to public health and vaccines," said Sanders. "Vaccines save lives. Period."

One former CDC staffer, who went unnamed, told Rolling Stone that what's happening now at the agency is "the work of a death cult."

According to Dr. Georges C. Benjamin, MD, executive director of the American Public Health Association, the ouster of Monarez, just weeks after her confirmation in the US Senate, "is yet another glaring sign of Secretary Kennedy’s failed leadership and reckless mismanagement. His tenure has been marked by chaos, disorganization, and a blatant disregard for science and evidence-based public health."

The episode, Benjamin continued, "underscores his administrative incompetence and his disdain for the expertise that the public and our public health agencies rely on. RFK Jr. must be removed from his position."

He wasn't the only one calling for Kennedy's immediate removal. "Fire him," declared Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) in a social media post.

"We cannot let RFK Jr. burn what's left of the CDC and our other critical health agencies to the ground—he must be fired," Murray said in a separate statement. "I hope my Republican colleagues who have come to regret their vote to confirm RFK Jr. will join me in calling for his immediate termination from office."

Dr. Robert Steinbrook, the health research director for Public Citizen, said, "Ousting the first Senate-confirmed CDC director weeks into the start of her tenure makes absolutely no sense and underscores the destructive chaos at RFK Jr.'s Department of Health and Human Services."

"The CDC is being decapitated," warned Steinbrook. "This is an absolute disaster for public health."

Trump and Bobby Kennedy Jr. are destroying global science

A return to the Dark Ages

Elizabeth Finkel, La Trobe University

Eight months into Donald Trump’s second presidency of the United States, truth and science are again under attack – with global consequences. USAID, which tackled HIV, TB, malaria and child malnutrition is gone. Funding has been withdrawn from GAVI, a public–private global alliance that helps buy vaccines for the world’s poorest children. Malnourished children are already dying.

Besides these brutal consequences, the scientific machine that delivered America’s scientific and technological dominance is being ruthlessly dismantled. 

Any research project that mentions diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), climate change or addresses the causes of vaccine hesitancy is a prime target. But even US space science, once the pride of the nation, is facing “an extinction-level event,” according to the US Planetary Society.

Across the spectrum of science, some 4,000 research grants have been cancelled. Unbelievably, bird-flu experts were fired in the middle of an outbreak. That was topped last May by cancelling a US$600M grant to the company Moderna to develop an mRNA vaccine against bird flu.

And on August 5, US$500 million was cancelled for 22 more projects developing mRNA vaccines. Bear in mind that under Operation Warp Speed, the first Trump administration funded the development of Moderna’s mRNA vaccine against COVID. Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech both delivered mRNA vaccines in the record time of less than a year, winning mRNA vaccine technology a Nobel Prize in 2023.

It’s not just American science that’s being dismantled.

Surprising finding could pave way for universal cancer vaccine

Except Bobby Kennedy Jr. has cancelled federal funding for mRNA research

By Michelle Jaffee, University of Florida

An experimental mRNA vaccine boosted the tumor-fighting effects of immunotherapy in a mouse-model study, bringing researchers one step closer to their goal of developing a universal vaccine to “wake up” the immune system against cancer.

Published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, the University of Florida study showed that like a one-two punch, pairing the test vaccine with common anticancer drugs called immune checkpoint inhibitors triggered a strong antitumor response.

A surprising element, researchers said, was that they achieved the promising results not by attacking a specific target protein expressed in the tumor, but by simply revving up the immune system — spurring it to respond as if fighting a virus. They did this by stimulating the expression of a protein called PD-L1 inside of tumors, making them more receptive to treatment. The research was supported by multiple federal agencies and foundations, including the National Institutes of Health.

Senior author Elias Sayour, M.D., Ph.D., a UF Health pediatric oncologist and the Stop Children's Cancer/Bonnie R. Freeman Professor for Pediatric Oncology Research, said the results reveal a potential future treatment path — an alternative to surgery, radiation and chemotherapy — with broad implications for battling many types of treatment-resistant tumors.

“This paper describes a very unexpected and exciting observation: that even a vaccine not specific to any particular tumor or virus — so long as it is an mRNA vaccine — could lead to tumor-specific effects,” said Sayour, principal investigator at the RNA Engineering Laboratory within UF’s Preston A. Wells Jr. Center for Brain Tumor Therapy.

“This finding is a proof of concept that these vaccines potentially could be commercialized as universal cancer vaccines to sensitize the immune system against a patient’s individual tumor,” said Sayour, a McKnight Brain Institute investigator and co-leader of a program in immuno-oncology and microbiome research.

Get information about UF Health brain tumor clinical trials here.

Sorting Out Covid Vaccine Confusion: New and Conflicting Federal Policies Raise Questions

COVID has killed 1.1 million Americans already so get vaccinated to not become a statistic

Michelle Andrews 

If you want a covid-19 shot this fall, will your employer’s health insurance plan pay for it? There’s no clear answer.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist, has upended the way covid vaccines are approved and for whom they’re recommended, creating uncertainty where coverage was routine.

Agencies within HHS responsible for spelling out who should get vaccinated aren’t necessarily in sync, issuing seemingly contradictory recommendations based on age or risk factors for serious disease.

But the ambiguity may not affect your coverage, at least this year.

“I think in 2025 it’s highly likely that the employer plans will cover” the covid vaccines, said Jeff Levin-Scherz, a primary care doctor who is the population health leader for the management consultancy WTW and an assistant professor at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. They’ve already budgeted for it, “and it would be a large administrative effort to try to exclude coverage for those not at increased risk,” he said.

With so much in flux, it’s important to check with your employer or insurer about coverage policies before you roll up your sleeve.

Here’s what we know so far, and what remains unclear.