After Exit of Top Vaccine Official, Ranking House Oversight Committee Member Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA11) Demands HHS Secretary RFK Jr. Reverse His Vaccination Suppression Efforts

The Trump Administration’s attacks on vaccine availability and research come amid a worsening and deadly measles outbreak that has already claimed the life of one child with another death under investigation.

“I write with serious concern that the Trump Administration is endangering the nation’s public health by undermining routine vaccinations.  As the United States faces deadly outbreaks of influenza and measles, it is more important than ever that the federal government take the necessary steps to ensure vaccines are available and accessible. Despite these public health developments, under the Trump Administration the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has forced out the top vaccine official at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA); cancelled or postponed vaccine advisory committee planning, which is essential to develop the annual influenza vaccine; cancelled grants and research designed to make vaccines more available and accessible within our communities; and prevented HHS scientists from publishing information about the spread of emerging diseases.  I urge HHS to act to immediately resume its critical work to make available recommended vaccines, including by restoring the required advisory committee planning and reversing the termination of research grants,” wrote the Ranking Member.

In addition to highlighting the dangerous steps HHS has taken to delay access to vaccines and block their research, the Ranking Member called out Secretary Kennedy Jr.’s push of widely debunked claims and his persistent spread of misinformation that children of certain races and ethnicities do not need to be vaccinated against a multitude of illnesses.

“I am deeply alarmed that you continue to sow doubts regarding the efficacy of vaccination. And given your public statements criticizing vaccines, I am deeply concerned that CDC’s and FDA’s decisions to cancel advisory committee meetings and withhold funding for vaccine research are based on politics and not grounded in science or public health. Any attempt by the Trump Administration to interfere with the CDC and FDA vaccine process runs contrary to HHS’s mission to ‘enhance the health and well-being of all Americans, by providing for effective health and human services and by fostering sound, sustained advances in the sciences underlying medicine, public health, and social services,’” concluded the Ranking Member.

Since January 20, 2025, HHS has taken several actions to delay access to vaccines and block vaccine-related research:

• On March 28, 2025, Dr. Peter Marks, Director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) most senior vaccine official, was forced to resign.  In his resignation letter he reportedly stated: “It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the Secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies.”
• On March 10, 2025, Michelle Bulls, Director of the Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) terminated dozens of research grants awarded to scientists studying the uptake of vaccines and vaccine hesitancy.
• In February 2025, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indefinitely postponed a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a body that meets three times a year to advise the CDC Director on how FDA-approved vaccines should be utilized, including who should be vaccinated and when.
• On January 21, 2025, Acting Secretary HHS Dorothy Fink prohibited agency personnel “from publicly issuing any document or communication until it has been reviewed and approved by a Presidential appointee.”  This led to the immediate cancellation of advisory panel meetings held by federal health agencies and prevented the CDC from publicly sharing data on the spread of Bird Flu.

Click here to read the letter to Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.