Senate Confirms Susan Monarez as Director of the CDC
(photo courtesy ARPA-H) On July 30, 2025, the U.S. Senate voted 51 to 47 to confirm the nomination of Susan Monarez, PhD to be director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The vote, along party lines, came three weeks after the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) decision […]
U.S. Withdraws Financial Support from Pharma’s Arm GAVI
The U.S. government has withdrawn a $1.2 billion pledge to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) originally made by the Biden administration. GAVI, which is officially known as Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, is a public-private multilateral funding partnership launched in 2000 by the pharmaceutical industry, governments and private institutions and philanthropic organizations to […]
Nomination of Susan Monarez for CDC Director Advances to Full Senate
(photo courtesy ARPA-H) On July 9, 2025, the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) voted 12 to 11 to advance the nomination of Susan Monarez to be director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Monarez, who holds a doctorate degree in microbiology and immunology and has been serving […]
Doomsday Chorus Targeting Kennedy Gets Louder
In a show of protest against budget and staffing cuts at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), former employees of the agency, scientists, and community activists organized a “die-in” demonstration outside the CDC’s Roybal Road campus in Atlanta, Georgia. On May 2, 2025, the Trump administration proposed a budget to Congress for […]
Clinical Trials Now Required for Annual COVID Shots Given to Healthy Adults
On May 20, 2025, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that new clinical trials will be required to approve annual COVID-19 booster shots for healthy adults under age 65. In a joint editorial published in the New England Journal of Medicine, FDA commissioner Marty Makary, MD and the director of the FDA’s Center […]
CDC Vaccine Advisory Panel Purged
On June 9, 2025, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. fired all 17 members of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) committee that makes national vaccine policy—the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). “A clean sweep is necessary to reestablish public confidence in vaccine science,” Secretary Kennedy […]