The HHS leadership under Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has moved to limit vaccine access and challenged CDC authority. Kennedy pushed to remove CDC director Susan Monarez after she resisted advisers seeking to restrict vaccinations, and a Kennedy deputy, Jim O'Neill, was named as Monarez's replacement amid legal objections. The administration narrowed eligibility for updated COVID vaccines to people sixty-five and older and those with certain preëxisting conditions. A C.D.C. advisory committee will meet in mid-September to recommend who should receive the shots. Vaccine experts warn that making pharmacy inoculation harder could worsen public-health outcomes and lower immunization rates.
In the past week, however, the efforts escalated: Kennedy, who rose to fame in part owing to his conspiracy theories about vaccinations, pushed to fire Susan Monarez, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is part of H.H.S. This came after Monarez refused to follow the lead of Kennedy's advisers, who have tried to restrict vaccine access.
(Trump has now named a Kennedy deputy, Jim O'Neill, as her replacement; Monarez's lawyer claims that her firing was "legally deficient.") The Trump Administration has already tried to limit access to COVID vaccines; earlier this month, the F.D.A. approved updated COVID vaccines but limited access to them to people sixty-five and older, and those with certain preëxisting conditions that put them at risk of severe illness.
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