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Kennedy has taken a sledgehammer to the US's public health

The US anti-vaccine movement is now firmly embedded in the highest levels of government, where those overseeing public health agencies are making drastic cuts both wide and deep

By Chelsea Whyte

4 April 2025

US Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Niall Carson/PA/Alamy

This is a dangerous moment for public health in America. On 1 April, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who heads the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), began overseeing sweeping layoffs of an estimated 10,000 people at the agency. The cuts are not just wide but deep – they jeopardise studies that have been running for decades and threaten laboratories that are key to fighting polio and influenza both within the US and around the world.

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