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vaccines
Thinking the Unthinkable: Do Republicans Want Some of Us to Die?
We must reckon with an administration that wants some of us to go away.
Jul 10, 2025
“Well, we all are going to die,” Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst responded to a constituent who said “people are going to die” because of the cruel provisions of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill.” Ernst is correct, we are all going to die, but what she and the Republican Party appear to want is for specific groups to die.
That’s a shocking statement, and a hard one for us to make. But before you dismiss it, look at the evidence that’s accumulated over the years.
Republicans’ lack of concern for the lives of others appeared during the pandemic in a push to reopen businesses before vaccines and drugs were available. This would greatly increase Covid-19 transmission. Republicans railed against and dismantled every public health mitigation strategy. They knew that the deadliest toll would be on the elderly, infirm, migrants and the poor—the most vulnerable and the least welcomed by Republicans. Texas Lieutenant Gov. Dan Patrick supported reopening, arguing that grandparents should willingly risk death by Covid-19 to save the country’s economy for their children and grandchildren. Arizona’s former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey also placed the economy before human lives, taking numerous steps to undermine public health strategies. In the end, the pandemic death rates were higher in Arizona than any other state.
The infamous “Big Beautiful Bill” allows Republicans to further undermine the health of those they disfavor, with its draconian funding cuts to safety-net programs such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
The Republican plan, to let Covid-19 rip to save the economy, held an unspoken benefit for them; Covid-19 deaths would remove unwelcome people—overwhelmingly elderly, Black or brown, poor or living with disabilities—from the rolls of the social programs that Republicans dislike. A cold indifference for the lives of others was in play.
Concurrently, Republicans spread misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines and masking, with President Trump being the single largest driver of Covid-19 misinformation. This turbocharged the present-day anti-public health, anti-science, anti-vaccine sentiments that endanger the U.S., culminating in the appointment of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a nonscientist and anti-vaccine advocate, to head the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Kennedy and Trump have methodically weakened the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Kennedy systematically removed vaccine experts, replacing them with anti-vaccine cronies. His mounting campaign to cease vaccination will allow the return of serious and deadly diseases. Once again, this will have the greatest adverse effects on groups unwelcomed by Republicans. Kennedy and Republicans have also cut funding for HIV vaccine research and suicide hotlines for LGBTQ+ youths, and are doing all they can to ban gender-affirming care for young people. All of this endangers the lives of groups that Republicans scorn.
The infamous “Big Beautiful Bill” allows Republicans to further undermine the health of those they disfavor, with its draconian funding cuts to safety-net programs such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). These programs serve the most vulnerable U.S. residents—those with disabilities or who experience poverty and already struggle for adequate healthcare and nutrition. Ultimately, the bill would end access to healthcare and adequate nutrition for 14 million of the most vulnerable people in the U.S., intentionally endangering their lives.
And let’s not forget Florida’s Alligator Alcatraz, the Republicans’ detention center for migrants. The design and location of the center is not conducive to sustaining health or life. The cruelty of the place delights Republicans.
It doesn’t stop with the unwelcome in America. The Trump administration’s closing of USAID removed U.S. humanitarian and development assistance worldwide to people in the worst situations. USAID provided food, clean water, lifesaving medicines, and assistance for farmers; kept women and girls safe; and promoted peace. Due to Trump’s cruel closure of USAID, as many as 95 million people will be denied basic healthcare and nutrition, potentially leading to more than 3 million preventable deaths per year. The halting of funding for USAID, as well as the President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), could cause an additional 4-11 million new HIV infections and up to 2.9 million HIV-related deaths between 2025 and 2030. Further, Kennedy has pulled out of the vaccine alliance Gavi, an organization that has paid for more than 1 billion children to be vaccinated worldwide.
These cruel decisions endanger the most vulnerable around the world. But Republicans will never care about these Black and brown people who come from “shithole” countries, according to Trump. In their eyes, they are among the unwanted.
Some may see the Republicans’ plans as 21st-century eugenics to improve the white race by diminishing everyone who is not white, straight, nondisabled, Republican, and Christian. Many are reluctant to talk about this because it seems so unthinkable, but we must reckon with the strong possibility that this administration actively wants some of us to go away. Look at what is happening, and remember that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck.
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Top Medical Organizations Warn RFK Jr. Putting American Kids 'At Grave and Immediate Risk'
"Truth and transparency are not desired by the secretary... he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies," stated a new lawsuit.
Jul 07, 2025
Six major medical organizations on Monday filed a lawsuit against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. alleging he is putting American children at "grave and immediate risk" because of his policy on vaccines.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit—including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Physicians, the American Public Health Association, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the Massachusetts Public Health Association, and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine—charged that Kennedy earlier this year made a "baseless and uninformed policy decision" when he removed vaccinations against Covid-19 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) official immunization schedule for "healthy" children and pregnant women.
The organizations emphasized that unless Kennedy's decision is reversed, "all children remain at grave and immediate risk of contracting a preventable disease" and further warned that it "exposes... vulnerable populations to a serious disease with potentially irreversible long-term effects and, in some cases, death."
The plaintiffs further charged that Kennedy's directive removing the Covid-19 vaccines from the immunization schedule was "but one example of the secretary's agenda to dismantle the longstanding... science- and evidence-based vaccine infrastructure that has prevented the deaths of untold millions of Americans."
The complaint then documented Kennedy's long history of statements and articles that have peddled false claims about the safety of vaccinations and pointed to his mass dismissals of staff at HHS and his appointment of likeminded vaccine critics to argue that "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."
Given this, the plaintiffs argued that Kennedy's decision to remove the Covid-19 vaccine from immunization schedules was "arbitrary and capricious" based on what they described as "vast and irrefutable evidence," including congressional testimony delivered by Kennedy in which he acknowledged that people shouldn't "be taking medical advice from me"; that Kennedy's directive directly contradicted an article published by the Food and Drug Administration days earlier stating that pregnancy was a condition that "increased a person's risk of severe Covid-19"; and that Kennedy did not identify specific recommendations from professional staff that he used as justification to restrict the availability of the vaccine.
Should courts find that Kennedy's decision was "arbitrary and capricious" as alleged by the plaintiffs, they would have the power to enjoin the policy under the Administrative Procedures Act, which was also employed recently to halt planned mass layoffs at HHS. The medical organizations urged courts to declare Kennedy's policy change "unlawful" and demanded "the restoration of the Covid vaccine recommendations for pregnant women and healthy children ages six months to 17 years" of age.
The medical organizations' lawsuit against Kennedy's vaccination policy comes at a time when infections of measles in the United States have hit a level not seen in more than three decades. The Washington Post, citing data from Johns Hopkins University, reported on Monday that there have been at least 1,277 confirmed cases of measles so far in the U.S. this year and the paper noted that this development "marks a public health reversal in defeating a highly contagious, vaccine-preventable disease as the anti-vaccine movement gains strength."
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RFK Jr. Ripped Over 'Reckless and Deadly' Halt on US Support for Global Child Vaccine Program
"Kennedy is either misinformed or lying," said one critical physician, "but either way, children will die as a result."
Jun 25, 2025
In an incendiary stunner delivered via a prerecorded video statement played Wednesday to attendees of the global vaccine summit in Brussels, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that the United States is suspending financial contributions to the lifesaving organization as it aims to vaccinate hundreds of millions of children around the world.
Kennedy—described by a coalition of green groups during his quixotic 2024 presidential campaign as "a dangerous conspiracy theorist and science denier whose agenda would be a disaster for our communities and the planet"—accused Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance of having "ignored the science" on childhood vaccination.
"The U.S. is turning its back on women and children at risk of death and disability."
"When vaccine safety issues have come before Gavi, Gavi has treated them not as a patient health problem, but as a public relations problem," Kennedy alleged in his video message, without providing any evidence to support his claim. "In its zeal to promote universal vaccination, it has neglected the key issue of vaccine safety."
"I'll tell you how to start taking vaccine safety seriously: Consider the best science available, even when the science contradicts established paradigms," he added. "Until that happens, the United States won't contribute more to Gavi."
Gavi responded to Kennedy's allegations in a statement asserting that the organization's "utmost concern is the health and safety of children."
"Any decision made by Gavi with regards to its vaccine portfolio is made in alignment with recommendations by [the World Health Organization's] Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE), a group of independent experts that reviews all available data through a rigorous, transparent, and independent process," Gavi added. "This ensures Gavi investments are grounded in the best available science and public health priorities."
@drneilstone.bsky.social
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— Physicians for a Healthy Democracy (@physiciandemocracy.medsky.social) June 25, 2025 at 9:15 AM
Gavi's Health and Prosperity through Immunization summit—which is co-hosted by the European Union and the Gates Foundation, with Global Citizen as a key partner—seeks to secure $9 billion to fund the immunization of 500 million more children, a move Gavi says will prevent 8-9 million deaths over the next five years.
"Over the past 25 years, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance has helped to immunize more than a billion children, meaning one-eighth of humanity has received a vaccine funded by Gavi," the organization said. "Today we help give half the world's children access to vaccines every single year."
"The scale is massive, and so is the impact," Gavi added. "Since we were founded in 2000 child mortality in the lower-income countries we work with has halved, with Gavi's vaccines averting more than 18 million deaths."
Since taking office in January, Kennedy—a prolific purveyor of conspiracy theories including one that vaccines cause autism—has restricted Covid-19 vaccine access and fired everyone on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) vaccine advisory panel and replaced them with his own controversial picks.
On Wednesday, Kennedy announced that the panel will review the long-standing U.S. childhood vaccination schedule, raising concerns about possible ideology-driven revisions. This, as a new study published in the peer-reviewed British medical journal The Lancet sounded the alarm over flagging global childhood vaccination rates driven by inequality, Covid-era disruptions, and misinformation.
Dr. Tom Frieden, who led the CDC during the Obama administration, said on the social media site Bluesky that "Secretary Kennedy's statement to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, is literally sickening."
"Sickening because millions of children's lives are in the balance because of Mr. Kennedy's fringe beliefs and misinformation on vaccines," Frieden added. "Sickening because the U.S. is turning its back on women and children at risk of death and disability. And sickening because it reflects the invasion of anti-vaccination falsehoods into life-and-death programs."
Dr. Ashish Jha, former President Joe Biden's coronavirus response coordinator, slammed Kennedy's decision as "terrible but totally predictable."
"Gavi helps poor kids around the world get vaccinated against polio and measles and other life-threatening diseases," Jha said. "This is just mind-bogglingly awful."
Gavi works in close partnership (operationally and financially) with governments around the world to distribute life-saving vaccines to children. Their work has saved nearly 20 million lives since 2000.Kennedy is either misinformed or lying, but either way children will die as a result.
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— Dr. Stephanie Psaki (@spsaki.bsky.social) June 25, 2025 at 8:17 AM
Canadian health law and policy expert Timothy Caulfield said on the social media site X: "Just horrible. Sickening. Evil."
"This decision will kill children," Caulfield added. "We all knew RFK Jr. was the worst person for this job. He's lived up to the hype. The f*cking worst."
Liza Barrie, director of Public Citizen's Global Vaccines Access Campaign, called Kennedy's suspension of Gavi funding "reckless and deadly."Barrie continued:
The Trump administration is turning its back on a program that has helped vaccinate more than a billion children and save over 17 million lives—while Kennedy spreads lies about science, safety, and one of the world's most effective public health efforts. The facts are clear. Gavi exists to get vaccines to children who need them most. It works with governments in lower-income countries, health workers, and communities to stop deadly diseases. Because of Gavi, millions of children who would have died are alive today.
Kennedy claims that Gavi ignored science are entirely false. Gavi's recommendations are grounded in global evidence and reviewed by independent experts. His suggestion otherwise fuels the same disinformation that has already led to deadly measles outbreaks and the resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases, including polio.
"This isn't about protecting children. It's about abandoning them," Barrie added. "Choosing to walk away from a program that saves lives—knowing full well what the consequences will be—isn't just reckless. It's cruel."
Barrie urged Congress to protect the funding for Gavi already allocated in this year's federal budget, "which the Trump administration is now trying to claw back through its rescission proposal."
"The United States must not walk away from global vaccine access," Barrie stressed. "Not now, not ever. Turning away would be a choice to let disease spread and let children die."
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