When pharmacists are afraid of losing their jobs for doing their jobs, our public health is in deep trouble.

“Health” Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently posted on X that the FDA’s new Covid policy, greatly curtailing who can get Covid shots, delivers “science, safety and common sense.” However, his policy is clearly neither based on science nor common sense, and it will not make people safer. It’s causing even more chaos and confusion. (If Kennedy’s handpicked vaccine advisory members approve the recommendations, only those 65 and older, or younger people with at least one underlying condition, will be readily eligible to be vaccinated against Covid.)

On Labor Day, President Trump was happy to sow further confusion by calling on pharmaceutical companies to “justify the success” of their Covid vaccines. Yet Trump had previously bragged about “Operation Warp Speed,” which, thanks to mRNA research, led to Covid vaccines that saved millions of lives.

“I’m hearing from pharmacists who are fearful they might be in legal jeopardy for providing vaccines,” Michael Osterholm, a University of Minnesota epidemiologist, told the New York Times.

The recommendations were barely out before the White House fired Susan Monarez as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Monarez was sworn in just a couple months ago and was fired, after bravely refusing to resign, for not being “aligned with” Trump’s and RFK’s agenda. At least four other CDC leaders also resigned as a result, including the agency’s deputy director and chief medical officer. This leaves the vital CDC rudderless and awaiting the appointment of a MAHA sycophant.

Kennedy laments the “malaise at the agency,” a malaise of his own making, of course. He has undermined medical science, ended support for global vaccination programs protecting millions of children, supported legislation that will cause millions of Americans to lose Medicaid, overseen mass firings gutting the CDC and canceled vitally important research on mRNA technology.

Even more sinister threats to the ability to develop and obtain vaccinations are afoot. Kennedy has his eyes on the government’s Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, which settles claims on bona fide injuries. Kennedy wants the program to pay out for immunizations linked to autism, even though such claims have been thoroughly debunked. The result? The compensation program could become bankrupt, and pharmaceuticals, to avoid expensive litigation, could stop producing vaccines altogether. Our nation’s public health is being imperiled by quacks, conspiracy theorists, Christian nationalists and anti-science advocates.

It’s gotten so bad that a bipartisan group of nine former directors or acting directors of the CDC have written a guest essay for the New York Times titled, “We ran the CDC: Kennedy is endangering every American’s health.”

Over the weekend, Sen. Bernie Sanders called for Kennedy to resign, a demand that every responsible American and organization that cares about public health and evidence-based science must second. The Freedom From Religion Foundation concurs: Kennedy is a menace to public health and must go.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to promoting the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters of nontheism. With more than 42,000 members, FFRF advocates for freethinkers’ rights across the globe. For more information, visit ffrf.org.

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