Dr. Peter Lurie

CSPI President @drpeterlurie.bsky.social appeared on CNN yesterday to discuss RFK Jr.'s stunning decision to pull $500 million in funding away from development of mRNA vaccines - a decision that will have far-reaching impacts beyond just vaccines for COVID.

Video source: CNN

The job of Surgeon General of the United States is not an entry-level position.

RFK Jr. Turns to Fringe Medical Journal to Find New Hires George Tidmarsh is a millionaire co-founder of a biotech firm, serial entrepreneur, neonatologist and adjunct professor at Stanford University. But his part in creating a fringe medical journal is the...

RFK, Jr. continues the trend of plucking new hires from unscientific spaces and placing them in positions where they can spread their fringe ideas on a national scale. So-called medical journals like the "Journal of the Academy of Public Health" are the canary in the coal mine here.

“Restoring Gold Standard Science” is a move from the same toolbox as RFK, Jr.’s “radical transparency.” That is to say, it will do the exact opposite of what it says it will do. Excellent piece from @drdavidmichaels.bsky.social and Wendy Wagner.

Just four months into his role as secretary, RFK, Jr. has already cast doubt on established science, fired staff across HHS, slashed funding for research, and pursued fringe health policies while showing no signs of producing and following scientific evidence that would improve the public's health.

The FDA routinely allows substances to remain in foods long after evidence of harm emerges, but the Food Chemical Reassessment Act would ensure the FDA completes those evaluations in a timely manner and begins with chemicals that already have evidence of harm.

Screenshot of the homepage of the USDA's Chemical Contaminants Transparency Tool.

Screenshot of the CDC's "Conflicts of Interest Disclosures of ACIP Members" webpage.

It’s the CRLs for drugs that have never been approved that are of interest to most people. This is the same move they pulled for chem. contaminants and conflicts on CDC’s vaccine advisory committee – putting out material that was already publicly available.

“Radical transparency” this isn’t. (2/2)

Screenshot of the FDA's website on the page "Complete Response Letters." The body text reads "These records include Complete Response Letters (CRL) issued in response to approved new drug applications (NDAs) and biologics license applications (BLAs) between 2020 and 2024. This is the first ever centralized database of past CRLs."

More sleight of hand on “radical transparency” at HHS.

FDA today published complete response letters for 200 drugs, citing my research when I was at FDA. But they are only disclosing the CRLs for drugs that were subsequently approved – and these are already available on the FDA website. (1/2)

Usually these overrides are meant to be less restrictive, making a product available when reviewers are more cautious. It's hard not to think that antipathy towards COVID vaccines is playing a large role in this override.

The MAHA Report is rightly concerned about industry-funded research, but ceding ground to industry won’t help. It’s self-evident that cutbacks in federal funding will leave the field open to the very corporate funding RFK Jr. has decried.

The NIH grant terminations were arbitrary and capricious, and have now been ruled unlawful. Judge Young’s ruling thankfully starts researchers getting back to work delivering progress on cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, HIV, and other health challenges facing our diverse population.

Kennedy Says ‘Charlatans’ Are No Reason to Block Unproven Stem Cell Treatments

RFK: Let's question Pharma drugs, which have actual evidence, and open the market to experimental therapies sometimes made by "charlatans."
 
www.nytimes.com/2025/06/05/h...

A shocking (or perhaps not so shocking) development for an already questionable report that selectively cherry-picked the literature to support the idiosyncratic biases of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

White House MAHA Report may have garbled science by using AI, experts say The report, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was intended to address the reasons for the decline in Americans’ life expectancy.

NEW: Citations in the MAHA Report have telltale signs of AI chatbot use -- we reviewed all 522 of the listed citations, and at least 37 of the footnotes appear multiple times in the citations with another 21 having dead links

w/ @laurenweberhp.bsky.social

www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/...

Assessing US Food and Drug Administration Guidance Practices in Drug Development This Viewpoint discusses the US Food and Drug Administration’s history of guidance documents, trends in publishing practices, and suggested reforms for further improvements.

My latest in @jama.com: recent SCOTUS decisions make it clear that the courts will defer to the FDA less often for regulatory interpretation. Laying out clear justification for agency action in guidance documents will likely be critical for its ongoing role in food and drug regulation.

Kennedy and Trump are pushing policies that will make Americans sicker, hungrier, and more at risk from unsafe food. At this moment, that is the true risk to children’s health. (8/8)

And while Americans are consuming too much soda and other ultra-processed junk foods, this administration is actively working to push healthy foods out of reach for millions of people. Who wants to take nutrition advice from someone who’s trying to take food out of your mouth? (7/8)

If he wants to address ultra-processed foods, proposed rules on front-of-package labeling and sodium reduction are in the Federal Register awaiting his signature (both proposals go unmentioned in this report). (6/8)

We appreciate Secretary Kennedy’s interest in things like synthetic food dyes and aspartame – which, to be clear, we’d be better off without – and his concern over ultra-processed foods may be well intended. But... (5/8)

The administration has slashed programs to bring local food into schools, eviscerated government funding for research on nutrition and health, eliminated the office responsible for stopping lead poisoning in children, and are threatening access to life-saving vaccines. (4/8)

USDA repeal of Salmonella framework certain to make Americans sicker

How is the American diet to improve when Republicans are hell-bent on cutting SNAP benefits, slashing school meals, ripping millions of Americans from their health insurance coverage, withdrawing proposed rules that would reduce foodborne Salmonella, and laying off food inspectors? (3/8)

In many instances, even when the report has a good idea, like increasing consumption of whole, unprocessed foods, the remedies suggested are at odds with efforts of Kennedy, Trump, Musk, and Republicans in Congress to decimate and federal workforce and government spending. (2/8)

MAHA Commission report recycles Kennedy pet peeves and contradicts administration’s actions

As we feared, the report of the MAHA Commission selectively cherry-picks the literature to support the idiosyncratic biases of RFK, Jr. rather than focusing on the root causes and well-studied solutions to chronic disease. 🧵 (1/8)

Our vision for a healthier America pushes for health equity to address the root causes of health disparities and would make it easier for people to eat foods that protect our planet as well as our health.

We won’t back down.

HIV prevention is a topic of great personal and professional importance to me. Now, that research has been suspended at a great loss to public health.

Had a wonderful time at the TIME100 Health Impact Dinner on Tuesday night. It's a privilege to be a TIME100 honoree and I very much enjoyed meeting my fellow peers who are doing such important work in this space.

Health groups call on RFK, Jr., to restore fired staff in lead prevention, other environmental health programs

Leaked budget documents indicate that CDC leadership is considering plans to eliminate the lead poisoning program permanently. We joined together with several other organizations to submit a letter today calling for the restoration of this critical division division. 🧵 (1/5)

He provided enough reassurance on vaccines to convince some to vote for him – and now he has set about undermining public confidence in vaccines and the process by which they’re approved.

Let’s not make that mistake again. (5/5)

Considered alongside the supplement pitching and the conspiratorial thinking and unscientific mysticism on her blog, this is all disqualifying. The question is whether Senators have learned anything from the Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., confirmation debacle. (4/5)

Surgeon general controversy: Casey Means comments on vaccines, obesity, Ozempic, autism Here's what Casey Means, President Trump's pick for surgeon general has said about childhood vaccines, pesticides, autism and more. Is she a doctor?

Even if she were qualified on paper, Means has taken some breathtakingly misinformed positions on matters of public health, including on birth control pills, raw milk, and the causes of autism. (3/5)