RFK’s Latest Idea Has Some In MAHA Scratching Their Heads
'Biometric data is irreplaceable, making it a highly sought-after asset in the digital age'
General Mills to remove artificial colors from cereals. Is chemical linked to infertility next on chopping block?
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. keeps racking up the wins in his campaign to help President Donald Trump make America a healthier nation, particularly on the dietary front.
His latest victory — and American consumers' by extension — was secured at General Mills, the American ultra-processed food giant with cereal brands that include Cheerios, Chex, Cocoa Puffs, Lucky Charms, and Wheaties.
General Mills announced plans on Tuesday to remove artificial colors from all of its U.S. cereals and all K-12 school foods by next summer. The company indicated that it also intends to remove all fake coloring from its full lineup of American-facing products by the end of 2027.
How it started
In April, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Food and Drug Administration outlined a plan to phase out all petroleum-based synthetic dyes from America's food supply.
The FDA initiated the process to revoke authorization for Citrus Red No. 2 and Orange B in the short term and to eliminate another six synthetic dyes — FD&C Green No. 3, FD&C Red No. 40, FD&C Yellow No. 5, FD&C Yellow No. 6, FD&C Blue No. 1, and FD&C Blue No. 2 — by the end of next year.
'That era is coming to an end.'
The agency also requested that companies move up their timelines for the removal of FD&C Red No. 3.
RELATED: Kennedy has Big Pharma ads in his sights — and he's not the only one mulling a crackdown
Vani Hari, a critic of the food industry who founded Food Babe, told Blaze News in November that the brighter artificial colors, which are helpful with sales and attractive to children, are harmful to their health.
"The science shows that these dyes cause hyperactivity in children, can disrupt the immune system, and are contaminated with carcinogens," said Hari. "There are safer colors available made from fruits and vegetables, such as beets and carrots. Food companies already don't use artificial dyes en masse in Europe because they don't want to slap warning labels on their products that say they 'may cause adverse effects on attention in children.'"
Extra to seeking the removal of the harmful chemicals, the FDA indicated in April that it would partner with the National Institutes of Health to conduct research on how food additives impact kids' health and development.
"For too long, some food producers have been feeding Americans petroleum-based chemicals without their knowledge or consent," said Kennedy. "These poisonous compounds offer no nutritional benefit and pose real, measurable dangers to our children’s health and development. That era is coming to an end. We're restoring gold-standard science, applying common sense, and beginning to earn back the public's trust."
FDA Commissioner Marty Makary noted that "given the growing concerns of doctors and parents about the potential role of petroleum-based food dyes, we should not be taking risks and do everything possible to safeguard the health of our children."
How it's going
A number of companies have proven amenable to the changes advocated by the Trump administration.
RELATED: How Big Pharma left its mark on woke CDC vax advisory panel — and what RFK Jr. did about it
Thirteen days after HHS' announcement, Tyson Foods indicated it was on track to remove all petroleum-based dyes from its production process by the end of May. Top executives from PepsiCo, Danone North America, and TreeHouse Foods similarly signaled commitments to scrap artificial colors.
'When the government sets clear, science-based standards, the food industry listens and acts.'
The American fast-food chain In-N-Out Burger revealed last month that it was removing artificial coloring from two of its drinks and swapping out its high-fructose corn syrup-based ketchup for an alternative that uses real sugar.
A spokesman for the company told CNN that the changes were part of the chain's "ongoing commitment to providing our customers with the highest-quality ingredients."
Kennedy encouraged more companies to similarly volunteer "to prioritize Americans' health and join the effort to Make America Healthy Again."
Blaze News previously reported that Kraft Heinz got on board this week, stating that it will remove artificial food, drug, and cosmetic colors from products in the United States before the end of 2027.
"This voluntary step — phasing out harmful dyes in brands like Kool-Aid, Jell‑O, and Crystal Light — proves that when the government sets clear, science-based standards, the food industry listens and acts," tweeted Kennedy.
While stressing that 85% of its full U.S. retail portfolio is "currently made without certified colors," General Mills said Tuesday it would eliminate the remainder of artificial coloring in short order.
"Across the long arc of our history, General Mills has moved quickly to meet evolving consumer needs, and reformulating our product portfolio to remove certified colors is yet another example," said General Mills CEO Jeff Harmening.
RELATED: Meat the enemy: How protein became the left's newest microaggression
"Knowing the trust families place in us, we are leading the way on removing certified colors in cereals and K-12 foods by next summer. We're committed to continuing to make food that tastes great and is accessible to all," added the executive.
The removal of synthetic dyes from the food supply is a giant step, though there remains at least one chemical in cereals with effects that may warrant further action.
No artificial colors — but infertility?
A peer-reviewed study published last year in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology suggested that current concentrations of chlormequat chloride in oat-based foods "warrant more expansive toxicity resting, food monitoring, and epidemiological studies."
Researchers on the study from the Environmental Working Group, a chemical watchdog accused in recent years of exaggeration, indicated that food samples purchased in 2022 and 2023 "show detectable levels of chlormequat in all but two of 25 conventional oat-based products."
Quaker Oats and Cheerios were allegedly among the affected cereals.
'Do we really need more chemicals in our food?'
Chlormequat, first registered in the U.S. in 1962 as a plant growth regulator and recognized decades later by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as "toxic to wildlife," has been linked in animal studies to disrupted fetal growth, damage to the reproductive system, delayed puberty, and reduced fertility.
While the EPA suggested in 2023 that there were no dietary or residential risks of concern associated with human exposure to chlormequat, the 2024 study suggested that "more recent reproductive toxicity studies on chlormequat show delayed onset of puberty, reduced sperm motility, decreased weights of male reproductive organs, and decreased testosterone levels in rats exposed during sensitive windows of development, including during pregnancy and early life."
Secretary Kennedy has criticized the use of chlormequat chloride, which he deemed "one of those 'forever chemicals,'" on grains.
He noted in July 2023, "This chemical was prohibited by the very same EPA in 1962 for use on anything but ornamental plants in greenhouses. That was before the agency was captured by industry."
Kennedy added, "Chlormaquat is linked to disruption of fetal growth, metabolic alterations, lower sperm motility, deceased testosterone, delayed development in puberty, and other effects. At a time when chronic disease is at an all-time high, do we really need more chemicals in our food?"
Blaze News reached out to HHS about the removal of artificial dyes as well as about chlormequat in the food supply but did not immediately receive a response.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
MAHA scores major victory as Kraft Heinz vows to stop using artificial food dyes
In a significant victory for the "Make America Healthy Again" movement, food giant Kraft Heinz vowed that it would remove all artificial colors from its products in the coming years.
On Tuesday, Kraft Heinz announced in a statement that it will remove artificial food, drug, and cosmetic colors from products in the United States before the end of 2027.
Kraft Heinz also declared that 'it will not launch any new products in the US with Food, Drug & Cosmetic (FD&C) colors, effective immediately.'
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration notes that there are seven certified synthetically produced color additives approved for use in foods, drugs, and cosmetics.
"The FDA’s regulations require evidence that a color additive is safe at its intended level of use before it may be added to foods," according to the FDA.
In order to be an approved additive in foods, the artificial coloring can be added only to certain types of foods and in limited quantities. Companies that use it must also adhere to FDA regulations on how the color additive is presented on the product's packaging.
As Blaze News reported in January, the FDA announced a ban on the use of Red No. 3 dye because of evidence that laboratory rats exposed to high levels of Red No. 3 developed cancer.
RELATED: Red dye 40 and hidden toxins are fueling the ADD epidemic
Kraft Heinz announced a three-pronged strategy for removing artificial colors from its existing products, including "removing colors where it is not critical to the consumer experience," "replacing FD&C colors with natural colors," or "reinventing new colors and shades where matching natural replacements are not available."
Kraft Heinz pointed out that nearly 90% of its U.S. products are free of FD&C colors.
In addition to removing artificial dyes from its existing products, Kraft Heinz also declared that "it will not launch any new products in the U.S. with Food, Drug & Cosmetic (FD&C) colors, effective immediately."
Pedro Navio — the North America president of Kraft Heinz — stated, "As a food company with a 150+ year heritage, we are continuously evolving our recipes, products, and portfolio to deliver superiority to consumers and customers. The vast majority of our products use natural or no colors, and we’ve been on a journey to reduce our use of FD&C colors across the remainder of our portfolio."
Navio stressed that the company eliminated artificial colors, preservatives, and flavors from its extremely popular mac and cheese in 2016.
The Kraft Heinz Company has several notable brands under its umbrella, including Oscar Mayer, Ore-Ida, Capri Sun, Lunchables, Jell-O, and Kool-Aid.
Kraft Heinz is the "third-largest food and beverage company in North America and the fifth-largest food and beverage company in the world, with eight $1 billion+ brands," according to the food behemoth.
RELATED: Grass-fed steaks, unprocessed salt, and more chemical-free picks from the Solarium
Kraft Heinz is removing all artificial colors from its brands after the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. placed pressure on food manufacturers to eliminate synthetic additives from their food products by the end of President Donald Trump's term.
In March, Kennedy urged the removal of artificial dyes from food products in a meeting with top food executives from massive companies such as Kraft Heinz, PepsiCo, General Mills, Tyson Foods, and W.K. Kellogg.
As part of his MAHA agenda, Kennedy is pushing food manufacturers to remove potentially dangerous petroleum-based synthetic dyes from food.
“For too long, some food producers have been feeding Americans petroleum-based chemicals without their knowledge or consent," Kennedy proclaimed in April. "These poisonous compounds offer no nutritional benefit and pose real, measurable dangers to our children’s health and development. That era is coming to an end."
"We’re restoring gold-standard science, applying common sense, and beginning to earn back the public’s trust," President Trump's HHS secretary declared. "And we’re doing it by working with industry to get these toxic dyes out of the foods our families eat every day."
In addition to removing artificial dyes from the nation’s food supply, the FDA is partnering with the National Institutes of Health to "conduct comprehensive research on how food additives impact children’s health and development."
Blaze News reached out to the HHS and FDA for a comment on Kraft Heinz eliminating artificial food coloring but did not receive an immediate response.
RELATED: RFK's highly anticipated MAHA report paints dark picture of America's health crisis
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
How Big Pharma left its mark on woke CDC vax advisory panel — and what RFK Jr. did about it
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last week canned all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — the federal panel whose vaccine recommendations become official policy at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and apply to the entire American population once adopted by the agency's director.
Kennedy accused the ACIP of "malevolent malpractice" and vowed to appoint "highly credentialed physicians and scientists who will make extremely consequential public health determinations by applying evidence-based decision-making with objectivity and common sense."
Among the eight individuals whom Kennedy has appointed to the committee are:
- Dr. Martin Kulldorf, a former professor of medicine at Harvard University who risked his career by both swimming against the tide of establishment thinking during the pandemic and co-authoring the Great Barrington Declaration with now-National Institutes of Health Director Jay Battacharya;
- Dr. Robert Malone, an early pioneer in messenger RNA technology who faced years of abuse for questioning the safety of mRNA vaccines and the severity of COVID-19; and
- Dr. Cody Meissner, a professor of pediatrics at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth who ruffled feathers in 2021 by criticizing ruinous mask mandates for children.
The removal and replacement of members of the committee is a wish fulfilled for longtime critics of the ACIP and a nightmare realized for medical and pharmaceutical establishmentarians satisfied with the status quo.
Those in the establishmentarian camp now clutching pearls over Kennedy's actions appear eager to ignore or downplay the conflicts of interest, ideological bents, and questionable decisions that were apparently commonplace on the committee.
Lucrative questions, questionable decisions
The ACIP's members as of April 2025 were:
- Helen Talbot, professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine;
- Edwin Jose Asturias, professor of pediatrics and infection diseases at the University of Colorado School of Medicine;
- Noel Brewer, professor in public health at UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health;
- Oliver Brooks, interim chief executive officer at the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases;
- Lin Chen, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School;
- Helen Chu, professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Washington;
- Sybil Cineas, clinical associate professor of pediatrics and medicine at Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University;
- Denise Jamieson, vice president for medical affairs at the University of Iowa's Carver College of Medicine;
- Mini Kamboj, professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College;
- George Kuchel, professor of medicine at University of Connecticut Health;
- Jamie Loehr, family physician;
- Karyn Lyons, chief of the immunization section at the Illinois Department of Public Health;
- Yvonne Maldonado, professor of global health and infectious diseases at Stanford University;
- Charlotte Moser, co-director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia;
- Robert Schechter, chief of the California Department of Public Health Immunization branch;
- Albert Shaw, professor of medicine at the Yale School of Medicine; and
- Jane Zucker, adjunct professor at SUNY's department of community health services.
All 17 of the members were appointed by the Biden administration. Thirteen were appointed last year.
RELATED: RFK Jr. torches vaccine panel to make consequences count again
Data provided on OpenPaymentData.CMS.gov, a site managed by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, provides some insights into just how cozy some of the former members were with the organizations whose products they were tasked with scrutinizing.
The website indicates that between 2017 and 2023:
- Asturias apparently collected around $54,000 from pharmaceutical companies, including $20,705 in what appear to be consulting fees. Among the companies that paid Asturias what appear to have been consulting fees were Pfizer and Merck Sharpe & Dohme LLC, a bio-pharmaceutical subsidiary of the company whose pneumococcal vaccine Capvaxive the committee voted to recommend in October. Asturias also appears to have received millions of dollars in research support from Big Pharma, including over $3.1 million from Pfizer and over $730,000 from the British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline LLC. The Colorado Sun reported that the research support was for Asturias to study RSV, pneumonia, and other diseases both in Guatemala and the United States.
- Brooks apparentlyreceived over $18,000 in what appear to be consulting fees from the vaccine maker Sanofi Pasteur and thousands of dollars more from the company categorized as "compensation for services other than consulting, including serving as faculty or as a speaker at a venue other than a continuing education program."
- Chen, a proponent of masking during the pandemic, apparently collected $55,111.07 from pharmaceutical companies. Like Asturias, she has collected thousands of dollars in consulting fees from Merck Sharpe & Dohme LLC but also plenty in consulting fees from the vaccine manufacturer Valneva, which the committee has since blessed with multiple recommendations. During Chen's directorship, Mount Auburn Hospital Travel Center received over $245,000 from the COVID-19 vaccine maker Moderna.
- Chu apparently received over $6,000 in consulting fees from Merck Sharpe & Dohme and thousands more from the Illinois-headquartered pharmaceutical company AbbVie Inc. According to documentation from the Washington State Department of Health, Chu served as a co-investigator on studies funded by Pfizer, Novavax, and GlaxoSmithKline; has received research support from Gates Ventures, the Gates Foundation, Sanofi Pasteur, and Cepheid; and has served on advisory boards for Abbvie, Merck, Pfizer, Ellume, and the Gates Foundation.
- Kuchel apparently received $10,720 in consulting fees from Big Pharma, the largest payment of which was from Johnson & Johnson's pharmaceutical company, Janssen Global. ACIP recommended the use of the Janssen COVID-19 vaccine last year.
- Maldonado, who publicly emphasized the supposed need for children to get vaccinated for COVID-19, apparently received over $33,147 from pharmaceutical companies, including $27,577.71 in what appear to be consulting fees. Like Asturias and Chen, Maldonado received a sizeable consulting fee payment from Merck Sharp & Dohme in 2023. When broken down by general payments, Pfizer ranked number one for Maldonado. Prior to her appointment to the ACIP, the CDC indicated that Maldonado "served as Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) for Pfizer meningococcal vaccine trials and as a site PI for Pfizer pediatric COVID-19 and maternal RSV vaccines and AstraZenaca [sic] varicella zoster vaccine trials." She reportedly abstained form voting on the COVID-19, pneumococcal, and influenza vaccines.
- Shaw, a member of Yale's Infectious Disease Diversity, Equity, and Antiracism Committee, apparently received $2,590 in consulting fees from Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals.
According to the HPV IQ subpage on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Gillings School of Global Public Health website, Brewer "has received grants from and/or served on paid advisory boards for Pfizer, Merck, [GlaxoSmithKline LLC], FDA, CDC, and NIH."
The Defender reported in 2023 that Brewer — who suggested in 2023 that the "U.S. needs to get on an annual [COVID-19 vaccine] schedule, as we do for seasonal flu vaccination" — served on different paid Merck human papillomavirus boards since 2011 and served as a general consultant for the company for several years.
'They have a big job to do.'
Brewer reportedly received over $500,000 in grant funding to study HPV vaccine uptake from Merck and over $400,000 from Pfizer to "study how trainings might improve physician perceptions and recommendations of the HPV vaccine."
A Science investigation published in March downplayed the possible impact of Big Pharma ties among ACIP members, claiming that five of the 13 physicians on the committee prior to Kennedy's purge received no Big Pharma payments in the "several years before the service began" and that the various kinds of payments from drugmakers that eight other members received "averaged just over $4000 a year, nearly $3000 less than the average for all U.S. specialist physicians."
Blaze News reached out to Asturias, Brewer, Brooks, Chen, Chu, Maldonado, and Shaw for comment.
Brewer told Blaze News that his "last research grant from a pharmaceutical company ended nine years ago, in 2016," and the numbers provided above "are about right" and that "the actual numbers are higher by maybe $10K and change."
Brewer added, "I wish the new ACIP committee members well. They have a big job to do," then referred Blaze News to a recent article in Science, which notes that "the new panel members have been authors on about 78% fewer vaccine-related papers than the ousted members."
Ideological bent
Helen Chu joined Democratic Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.) to complain at a press conference on Thursday about the firings. Murray called the removal of Biden administration appointees a "dangerous, practically unthinkable step to undermine public health and vaccine confidence."
Chu, meanwhile, characterized the previous work of the ACIP as "transparent" and "unbiased."
Contrary to Chu's suggestion, biases ran deep on the panel in years past. While some of these biases may have been professional, others were ideological.
Noel Brewer, for instance, is a 2020 Biden donor whose social media history signals a possible DEI-lensed preoccupation with race.
'We must ask whether our own research, teaching, and service are intentionally antiracist.'
Brewer kicked off 2023 complaining that AI tools like ChatGPT sounded "straight, white and probably a few other things too." Months later, Brewer suggested that the lack of diversity in the authorship of certain textbooks was indicative of "white supremacy culture in academia." When discussing academic tenure and promotion decisions in September 2023, Brewer claimed that "fit, culture, and so on are tools of white supremacy."
Oliver Brooks — criticized in 2022 by Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary for reportedly voting in favor of recommending that kids ages 5-11 receive COVID-19 vaccine booster shots without outcomes data — is a repeat donor to Democratic politicians including Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, and failed presidential candidate Kamala Harris.
Like Brewer, his outlook appears tinged by identity politics.
Amid the Black Lives Matter riots in 2020, Brooks tried to provide an analogy to George Floyd's death in an editorial titled "Police Brutality and Blacks: An American Immune System Disorder" in the Journal of the National Medical Association in which he stated that the "country as a whole sets stereotypes as well as biases against black Americans which inevitably leads to social misinterpretation of the safety of Americans when a black person is present."
Brooks also noted, quoting another article, "We must ask whether our own research, teaching, and service are intentionally antiracist and challenge the institutions we work in to ask the same."
When Americans were protesting in 2020 in favor of reopening the country, Brooks framed the matter in identitarian terms on C-SPAN, noting, "If you look at those protesting to open up the environment — I prefer to use the term 'environment' as opposed to 'the economy' because it's not about money; it's about lives — most, I won't say all, most of the protesters are white or not inclusive of African-Americans or LatinX individuals."
Like some of her former colleagues on the panel, Sybil Cineas apparently has found it difficult to separate medicine from racial concerns or vice versa.
For instance, Cineas, listed as a member of the advisory group for Brown University's Office of Belonging, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, signed an open letter in 2021 to Tulane University's board of trustees, which complained of a "pervasive culture of White Supremacy" in the medical profession that "is perpetuated by the deeply hierarchical power structures of academic medicine."
The 'nuclear' decision
Kennedy noted in a June 9 op-ed that the point of "retiring" the committee members, including those "last-minute appointees of the Biden administration," was to help restore the public's trust "that unbiased science guides the recommendations from our health agencies."
"The committee has been plagued with persistent conflicts of interest and has become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine," wrote the health secretary. "It has never recommended against a vaccine — even those later withdrawn for safety reasons. It has failed to scrutinize vaccine products given to babies and pregnant women. To make matters worse, the groups that inform ACIP meet behind closed doors, violating the legal and ethical principle of transparency crucial to maintaining public trust."
'Most of ACIP's members have received substantial funding from pharmaceutical companies.'
When painting the committee as a succession of compromised members, Kennedy referred to a decades-old investigation that found a "web of close ties" between the CDC and the companies that make vaccines.
RELATED: CDC knew the COVID jab was dangerous — and pushed it anyway
He also highlighted the revelation that four of the eight then-ACIP members who voted in 1997 to recommend routine vaccination of infants with the rotavirus vaccine had financial ties to the very pharmaceutical companies developing such vaccines. This was especially damning because the recommended vaccine was subsequently withdrawn on account of its ruinous and in some cases deadly side effects.
Although members are now barred from holding stocks or serving on advisory boards associated with vaccine makers, Kennedy indicated that "these conflicts of interest persist."
"Most of ACIP's members have received substantial funding from pharmaceutical companies, including those marketing vaccines," wrote the health secretary.
'Ending the conflict of interest is the first critical step to restoring unbiased, science-based analysis of safety and efficacy of vaccines.'
The health secretary emphasized that the "malpractice" impacts Americans nationwide, in part due to the committee's "stubborn unwillingness to demand adequate safety trials before recommending new vaccines for our children."
Kennedy claimed that "a compliant American child receives between 69 and 92 routine vaccines (depending on brand/dictated dosage) from conception to 18 years of age."
"ACIP has recommended each of these additional jabs without requiring placebo-controlled trials for any of them," said Kennedy. "This means that no one can scientifically ascertain whether these products are averting more problems than they are causing."
Peter Hotez, a cable news vaccine promoter and the founding dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, was among the medical establishmentarians to recently contest this claim about placebo-controlled trials, saying, "That's simply not true."
'The pharmaceutical companies have been running a regulatory capture scam.'
Kennedy claimed in response that such protesters were wrong — and made sure to bring receipts.
— (@)
The health secretary also indicated on Friday that the ACIP will "institute bias policies recommending that ACIP panelists recuse themselves from decisions in which their current or former clients have a financial interest."
Mixed reception
Blaze News senior editor Daniel Horowitz said, "This is a nuclear bomb on the biomedical security state."
"The heart of the problem with vaccine safety stems from the fact that the pharmaceutical companies have been running a regulatory capture scam," continued Horowitz. "They place scientists and doctors on their payroll and then insert those individuals into government advisory positions. Ending the conflict of interest is the first critical step to restoring unbiased, science-based analysis of safety and efficacy of vaccines."
RELATED: Who is bankrolling the anti-MAHA movement?
Children's Health Defense, which was chaired by Kennedy from 2015 to 2023, similarly celebrated the news.
Mary Holland, president and CEO of CHD, told Blaze News in a statement that Kennedy's announcement "marks a pivotal advancement in the radical transparency he promised the country."
"Children's Health Defense has long highlighted the conflicts of interest involving the ACIP committee. It is unbelievable that ACIP members were allowed to participate in deliberations regarding a product in which they might have a financial stake," said Holland. "No wonder the committee consistently approved every vaccine for use, including those that were proven unsafe and subsequently removed shortly after approval. Ending this practice represents a significant step forward in restoring the public’s trust in our health agencies."
Of course, Kennedy's actions did not please everyone.
'I've never seen anything this damaging to public health happen in my lifetime.'
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, one of the Democratic lawmakers who has received a fortune in donations from the pharmaceutical industry, called the firing of the ACIP members "a public health disaster."
Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, was among the many who concern-mongered last year about the impact that Kennedy could have if afforded power and access in the Trump administration.
Last week, Offit wrote, "RFK Jr. will do everything he can to make sure that all vaccines are no longer mandated and to make vaccines less available, less affordable and more feared. This is only the beginning."
One of the dismissed ACIP members complained to CNN, "I've never seen anything this damaging to public health happen in my lifetime."
The ex-member, whose name was not disclosed, added, "I'm shocked. It's pretty brazen. This will fundamentally destabilize vaccination in America."
Bruce Scott, the president of the American Medical Association, similarly expressed distress last week, claiming that the action undermines public trust "and upends a transparent process that has saved countless lives."
Tina Tan, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, claimed that Kennedy's "allegations about the integrity of CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices are completely unfounded."
BlazeTV host Steve Deace, considering the action within the broader context of the MAHA movement, told "Blaze News: The Mandate" last week that President Donald Trump's decision to make Kennedy the health secretary "might be the closest we're ever going to get in America to a tribunal on what happened during that time [the pandemic]."
The firings at the ACIP are "the closest thing to real consequences — people losing their jobs — that we have seen," added Deace.
— (@)
HHS indicated in a statement that it will convene its next meeting June 25 through June 27 at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
RFK Jr.'s revenge: CDC vaccine board FIRED after years of COVID lies
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. just pulled one of his boldest moves yet under the Trump administration and fired the CDC’s vaccine advisory board after removing COVID shots from children's and pregnant women’s vaccine schedules.
“This is the first true consequence that I think we have seen,” BlazeTV host Steve Deace says on “Blaze News I The Mandate,” noting that “almost every major health care policy position” in Trump’s administration has gone to “some form of COVID scamdemic skeptic.”
“The nomination of RFK Jr. as secretary of HHS, guys, might be the closest we’re ever going to get in America to a tribunal on what happened during that period of time. And now, this is the closest thing to real consequences — people losing their jobs — that we have seen,” he continues.
The CDC vaccine advisory board in question has existed for decades and, according to Deace, has “never once found that a single vaccine was unsafe.”
“Now, just to put this in some context ... Moderna, as a company, for over a decade tried to bring a singular product to market but was never able to do it one time, until the COVID vaccine,” he explains.
“So somehow, somehow they were unable to harness this mRNA technology for over a decade to successfully bring one, not even a single product to market one time, and yet, under the gun, the pressure of a once-in-a-century pandemic, they pulled it off,” he continues.
“We’re talking about a panel that at least 25 years did not find one single shot unsafe, including the COVID vaccines. So that just kind of gives you an idea of who this panel is,” he adds.
Want more from 'Blaze News | The Mandate'?
To enjoy more provocative opinions, expert analysis, and breaking stories you won’t see anywhere else, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
RFK Jr. torches vaccine panel to make consequences count again
Consequences. The word means little when applied to the failures of America’s so-called expert class. COVID-19 exposed the rot. Officials failed again and again at precisely what they were paid to understand — and escaped unscathed. Lockdowns failed. Masks failed. The mRNA shots failed. Yet, Anthony Fauci walked off the stage wealthier than ever. That’s the problem.
But nearly halfway into year one of Trump 2.0, America finally seems hungry to Make Consequences Great Again.
Choosing a freer, healthier, more dignified path is not just possible — it’s the rightful consequence of reclaiming citizenship in a nation built on liberty and courage.
Last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pulled the COVID-19 jab recommendation for healthy children and pregnant women. The move strips the shot of its legal basis for mandates now or in the future. Then, in a sweeping housecleaning, Kennedy announced he would “retire” all 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee.
Of those members, 13 were appointed by Joe Biden as recently as 2024. I wonder who was running the autopen to make that happen. Since most of those members have direct ties to pharmaceutical companies, I’ll let your imagination fill in the details.
Children’s Health Defense cites a 2000 U.S. House investigation that found conflict-of-interest rules for the CDC’s vaccine committee went largely unenforced. A 2009 report by the Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General reached the same conclusion. Follow-up investigations in 2021 and 2024 showed no improvement, even as the path was cleared for mRNA shots to be hailed as the next biomedical miracle.
How deeply do the vaccine high priests on this committee worship their pharma gods? When RFK Jr. began removing them like Elijah at Mount Carmel, he noted that the committee had never recommended against adopting a vaccine. Not once.
That’s not science. That’s idolatry. That’s how children went from receiving fewer than 20 shots in my generation to more than 70 on today’s schedule. At this point, after so many miraculous infusions of “health care,” shouldn't we all be glowing, levitating, and reading each other’s minds?
Instead, as RFK Jr. keeps pointing out, Americans today suffer from staggering rates of chronic illness, obesity, and mental distress. That’s what happens when the expert class convinces new parents their babies are born defective — ticking time bombs of disease in constant need of pharmaceutical salvation. Go for a run? Nah. Take a pill instead. Live prayerfully? Try pharmaceutically.
This is what you get when a culture forgets it was made in the image and likeness of God.
We may be the most formally educated society in human history, but we’ve been conditioned — psychologically and emotionally — like lab rats. Decades of programming have trained us to fear life itself and trust the experts to manage it. That’s why RFK Jr.’s purge of the vaccine committee goes far beyond health care. It strikes at the heart of the worldview — because worldview shapes everything.
My partner in crime, Todd Erzen, has long said that most young Christian parents would probably vaccinate their children before baptizing them. He’s not wrong. Fear — not faith — drives too many of our most important decisions. And without realizing it, no matter how many comforts we enjoy, we’ve traded a life of color for one in black and white.
RELATED: CDC knew the COVID jab was dangerous — and pushed it anyway
The vaccine committee had to go. It had morphed into a cult of flat-earthers — deniers of reality in service of profit and power. For too long, Americans wore their chains, obedient to the credentialed class that promised safety while delivering sickness and dependency.
But we don’t have to live that way.
Choosing a freer, healthier, more dignified path is not just possible — it’s the rightful consequence of reclaiming citizenship in a nation built on liberty and courage. That’s the good, the true, and the beautiful.
And for once, we have unlikely allies to thank: Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Both have reminded Americans that the door out of this madness isn’t locked. We just needed the will to kick it open.
White House moves to correct apparent errors in landmark MAHA report
The White House moved to correct errors in the highly anticipated MAHA report Thursday after inconsistencies and inaccuracies were found in the citations.
The errors in the MAHA report were first reported by NOTUS on Thursday. They included broken links and studies that apparently did not exist. The White House later uploaded the corrected version of the report, and the administration maintained that the errors do not refute the substance of the report.
"I understand there were some formatting issues with the MAHA report that are being addressed, and the report will be updated," press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday. "But it does not negate the substance of the report, which, as you know, is one of the most transformative health reports that has ever been released by the federal government."
'It’s time for the media to also focus on what matters.'
RELATED: Who is bankrolling the anti-MAHA movement?
The Department of Health and Human Services similarly stated that they were simply formatting errors and that they don't change the historic findings in the report.
"Minor citation and formatting errors have been corrected, but the substance of the MAHA report remains the same — a historic and transformative assessment by the federal government to understand the chronic disease epidemic afflicting our nation’s children," an HHS spokesperson said. "Under President Trump and Secretary Kennedy, our federal government is no longer ignoring this crisis, and it’s time for the media to also focus on what matters."
However, these errors seem to go beyond formatting as the administration is suggesting. The citations included broken links and even pointed to numerous studies that reportedly do not appear in the issues of the journals cited and may not even exist at all.
"The paper cited is not a real paper that I or my colleagues were involved with," Katherine Keyes, an epidemiologist listed as an author, told NOTUS. "We’ve certainly done research on this topic, but did not publish a paper in JAMA Pediatrics on this topic with that co-author group, or with that title."
RELATED: Elon Musk formally departs from DOGE following a tumultuous tenure
The report itself, which was spearheaded by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., focused on identifying root causes for various health epidemics affecting American children, including chronic diseases, obesity, autoimmune conditions, and behavioral disorders. Some of these root causes include ultra-processed foods, pesticides, and exposure to chemicals, as well as "overmedicalization."
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
RFK Jr. drops COVID bombshell — and liberals are in meltdown
After years of the Biden administration’s attempts to convince the American public that COVID vaccines were safe and effective for pregnant women and children, RFK Jr. has announced they’re no longer being recommended to society’s most vulnerable.
“I couldn’t be more pleased to announce that as of today, the COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from the CDC recommended immunization schedule,” RFK Jr. said alongside NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary.
“Last year, the Biden administration urged healthy children to get yet another COVID shot, despite the lack of any clinical data to support the repeat booster strategy in children. That ends today,” he continued, adding, “We’re now one step closer to realizing President Trump’s promise to Make America Healthy Again.”
BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales is thrilled with the development but wishes it had come sooner.
“It should never have been recommended to children from the beginning. It should have never been recommended to pregnant women in the beginning. There were no reliable studies showing that this was not harmful to pregnant women,” Gonzales says on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”
However, the left-leaning mainstream media are up in arms over the announcement out of fear that the move will end up harming women and children more than it helps.
“RFK Jr. announces vaccine bombshell as he restricts access for millions of Americans,” one Daily Mail headline reads.
“The idea that, I don’t know, RFK is now killing people because they’re removing it from the actual CDC recommended schedule is just complete and total hogwash. You are talking about children, pregnant women. I mean, these are the most vulnerable,” Gonzales says.
“You can’t just play guinea pig with these people,” she continues, adding, “They either are the next generation or carrying the next generation, and yet the prior administration was completely willing to not only do that but threaten your livelihood if you did not go along with this.”
Want more from Sara Gonzales?
To enjoy more of Sara's no-holds-barred take to news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
Today's top stories
www.theblaze.com
thefederalist.com