Tag: hhs

RFK Debunks Sen. Warren’s Hypocritical Attack on His Supposed Big Pharma ‘Conflict of Interest’

Reuters and Washington Post have a new deceptive report out claiming that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has financially benefited from a settlement with a top pharmaceutical company. But they left the crucial context out that showed he personally received not a dime.

Democrats are never ones for context. They love to have reasons to pretend they are destroying corruption when they are really going after personal political opponents. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), for instance, had her warpaint and Tomahawk out as she screeched, “Is RFK Jr.’s son getting a cut of a $50 MILLION settlement that his dad could have influenced? I’m investigating.” Naturally, she needs something to investigate to avoid investigating Anthony Fauci and the pharmaceutical companies that pushed COVID vaccines that we now know, courtesy of Fauci‘s journal, were quite ineffective and sometimes injurious.

Kennedy responded to Warren and the lefty media outlets at the same time. “The Washington Post editorial board accuses me of a conflict of interest that might bias me against Big Pharma, whose interests they apparently seek to protect,” he posted on X, highlighting the irony of media and politicians rushing to defend monopolistic businesses. “The alleged conflict comes from money I supposedly made from a settlement in a lawsuit against Merck for injuries caused by its Gardasil vaccine.”

He emphatically stated: “The problem is that I never received a penny from the Merck Gardasil settlement, and neither has my son nor anyone else in my family.” So Warren et al. are smearing Kennedy with — surprise, surprise — lies.

Kennedy explained further, “Before taking office, I relinquished any interest in potential Gardasil fees back to the Wisner Baum law firm, which publicly confirmed this during my confirmation process. Yet @SenWarren, @Reuters, and @washingtonpost editorial board — in their ardor to protect Big Pharma — continue to push a false narrative that makes Big Pharma the victim and me the mendacious villain.”

For yet more interesting context, according to a Fox News report from last year, Warren received a whopping $5 million from Big Pharma during her 2020 presidential bid. And the Washington Post freaked out when Kennedy proposed limiting pharmaceutical ads. Always follow the money.

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HHS Unveils Policy To End Funding For ‘Dangerous Gain-Of-Function Research’

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on July 28 unveiled a new policy that would end federal support for “dangerous gain-of-function research,” an experiment in which scientists genetically modify an organism to enhance its characteristics.

In a statement, HHS said the policy would prohibit federal funding for dangerous gain-of-function research conducted in the United States and abroad.

It would establish stricter oversight of certain life sciences research that the government deems could pose “significant risks” to public health, biosecurity, or national security. The policy would also restrict federal funding for research conducted in countries or institutions that lack sufficient biosafety and oversight standards, according to the department.

“The federal government has a duty to protect the American people – not fund research that could put them at risk,” Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in the statement. “Today, we are ending federal support for dangerous gain-of-function research and replacing weak oversight with clear, enforceable safeguards.”

The policy followed President Donald Trump’s May 2025 executive order directing federal agencies to stop funding gain-of-function research in countries of concern, such as China and Iran, that lack research oversight.

According to a White House fact sheet, the order seeks to prevent federal funding from being used for foreign research that will likely cause another pandemic.

Trump’s order will halt U.S. research involving infectious pathogens and toxins until a safer and more enforceable policy can be implemented, the White House stated.

“Dangerous gain-of-function research on biological agents and pathogens has the potential to significantly endanger the lives of American citizens,” Trump said in his order. “If left unrestricted, its effects can include widespread mortality, an impaired public health system, disrupted American livelihoods, and diminished economic and national security.”

In December 2024, the Republican-led House Oversight Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released a 520-page report detailing findings from a two-year investigation indicating that the COVID-19 virus likely originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China.

The report found that the U.S. National Institutes of Health funded gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), and that EcoHealth Alliance Inc. used U.S. taxpayer dollars to facilitate this research at the lab.

The committee said COVID-19 possesses biological characteristics not found in nature and that data indicates that all COVID-19 cases stemmed from a single introduction into humans. This differs from previous pandemics, where there were more spillover events.

The report said that in January 2021, the U.S. State Department published an unclassified fact sheet that says: “The U.S. government has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in autumn 2019, before the first identified case of the outbreak, with symptoms consistent with both COVID-19 and common seasonal illness.”

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HHS So Confident an Influenza Pandemic Will Be Declared It’s Developing ‘Day One’ Vaccines, SAM.gov RFI Reveals

In a June Request for Information (RFI) titled “Protection Before Day One Vaccine: Advancing Broadly Protective Seasonal Influenza Vaccines with Pandemic Coverage,” the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is asking the biotechnology industry to develop influenza vaccines before the next pandemic begins, reflecting a level of planning that treats another influenza pandemic as a matter of when, not if.

HHS is therefore confident that there will be a future determination by authorities that an influenza pandemic has begun.

The proposal follows a series of federal future influenza pandemic-orchestrating initiatives, including Congress seeking $3.3 billion for a future influenza pandemic, HHS funding experiments determining how to make H5 influenza more pathogenic, HHS funding the creation of never-before-seen chimeric H6Nx bird flu viruses said to carry immune-evasion traits, and DARPA/NIH-funded scientists reprogramming dormant influenza parts with new replication and competition-suppressing functions.

It also comes after U.S. taxpayers funded the research behind Moderna’s new mRNA-1010 influenza vaccine and an FDA—which is under HHS—advisory committee backed the shot despite providing less than a 1% absolute benefit.

The initiatives raise a fundamental national security question: Why is the government simultaneously investing in making influenza viruses more dangerous while preparing “Day One” vaccines for the influenza pandemic it appears to expect?

You can contact HHS here to ask why the agency is planning for another influenza pandemic while simultaneously funding research that seeks to increase the capabilities of influenza viruses (see list of many such projects at the end of this article).

The RFI lists Wendy Rehman (wendy.rehman@ati.org) as the “Primary Point of Contact” for the Protection Before Day One Vaccine project.

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RFK Jr. Says HHS Found Fauci Diaries Across 11 Different Servers

Health officials located the diaries of Dr. Anthony Fauci across nearly a dozen different servers, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on July 27.

“It took us about eight months to dig these out of 11 separate servers, where they had been sequestered and secreted,” Kennedy said during an appearance on Fox News.

After obtaining the private entries of Fauci, who was the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from 1984 to 2022, officials with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) handed over the documents to Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). The senators have been investigating the origins of COVID-19 and the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Paul, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, subsequently released diary entries from December 2019 through December 2022, combined into one document.

“I think the starkest impression that you get from reading these diaries is this massive dichotomy between what he was saying privately and what he was simultaneously saying publicly,” Kennedy, whose HHS oversees NIH, said on Fox.

Fauci’s institute had provided funding to a Wuhan laboratory to run experiments on coronaviruses, at least one of which added a feature to a virus. A 2018 research proposal outlined work that would insert a feature called a furin cleavage site into a coronavirus, which may have been done at the Wuhan lab.

In a diary entry, Fauci recounted how, during a Feb. 1, 2020, call, 9 of the 11 scientists felt that deliberate insertion of the furin cleavage site into the COVID-19 virus was possible, noting past work done at the Wuhan lab.

Fauci, though, repeatedly promoted the theory in public that the virus, known as SARS-CoV-2, came from nature.

“There was a study recently that we can make available to you, where a group of highly qualified evolutionary virologists looked at the sequences there and the sequences in bats as they evolve,” Fauci told a White House briefing in April 2020. “And the mutations that it took to get to the point where it is now is totally consistent with a jump of a species from an animal to a human.”

That paper, “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2,” said that “SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus” and that no lab-based scenario was plausible.

Fauci was involved with crafting the paper, emails released by Paul show, and the paper’s authors doubted their conclusions both before and after the study’s publication, according to messages made public by Paul and others.

The following month, in May 2020, Fauci told National Geographic that there was no scientific evidence that COVID-19 was made in any lab in China.

Fauci also said in his diary that he had convinced the mayor of New York City to close schools.

“I had a similar call with Ann O’Leary, the [chief of staff] of Gov. Gavin Newsom of California,” Fauci wrote. “Ann said that based on my TV appearances today and yesterday, the Governor has decided to close the schools in California as well as the bars and restaurants.”

Fauci said in a 2022 interview that he had “nothing to do” with schools being closed.

Fauci declined to testify to Paul’s committee on a voluntary basis, prompting the senator in June to subpoena Fauci. The doctor is scheduled to testify before the committee on Wednesday.

Fauci, who has not responded to requests for comment, is covered against many possible charges by a preemptive pardon provided by former President Joe Biden.

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HHS Terminates the COVID-19 Emergency Use Authorization Declarations Covering mRNA Shots, Drugs, and Biologics

Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services finally moved to terminate the COVID-19 Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) declarations that have been in place since the early months of the pandemic.

The termination is not immediate. HHS has established a transition period of up to 12 months for EUA drugs and biologics and 180 days for EUA medical devices. According to the agency, the phased wind-down is intended to avoid disruptions and allow manufacturers and healthcare systems time to transition away from the emergency framework.

These declarations formed the legal foundation for the authorization of COVID-19 mRNA injections, monoclonal antibodies, antiviral drugs, diagnostic tests, ventilators, personal protective equipment, and numerous other medical products deployed during the pandemic response.

Unfortunately, the deadly Pfizer and Moderna mRNA injections are already fully FDA approved, meaning this action will have little practical effect on their continued use. The emergency framework that enabled their rapid rollout is finally being dismantled, but the products themselves have already moved beyond it.

While today’s announcement marks the formal beginning of the end of the COVID EUA era, it does not produce the outcome many of us had hoped for, including but not limited to the removal of mRNA products from the market.

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RFK Jr. Announces Obesity Rates in America Are Down for the First Time in Half a Century

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Tuesday that the obesity rate in the United States dropped last year for the first time in half a century.

Speaking at an event hosted by America First Policy Institute in Charlotte, Michigan, Kennedy said, “Since President [Donald] Trump came into office, obesity rates in this country have dropped by 2.5 percent. That’s the first drop in 50 years. And that drop alone will have significant impacts on health care costs in this country, because obesity drives about 80 percent of chronic disease.”

Health care costs account for approximately 35 percent of federal expenditures, according to the most recent data from the Treasury Department.

In fiscal year 2024, the federal government spent $1.9 trillion on health care programs, making it the largest category of federal spending.

“Thirty-five percent of American adults are obese,” RFK Jr. said. “When my uncle [John F. Kennedy] was president [in the early 1960s], 3 percent of children were obese. Now, it’s 20 percent.”

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Trump Signs Executive Order Backing HHS On Childhood Vaccine Reform — Will It Matter?

An executive order President Donald Trump signed late last Friday has reignited the national debate on the childhood immunization schedule.

The order directs public health agencies to align the schedule with a federal assessment published in January that calls for fewer recommended childhood vaccines and reflects the “scientific evidence and best practices from peer, developed countries while preserving access to vaccines currently available to Americans.”

The order states:

“The scientific assessment found that the United States currently recommends more childhood vaccines than any peer nation, including more than twice as many vaccine doses as some European nations, and identified a set of consensus vaccines that are consistently recommended in all peer countries.”

In a Substack post, Sayer Ji, chairman of the Global Wellness Forum and founder of GreenMedInfo, wrote, “After decades in which the schedule only ratcheted in one direction — more products, more doses, earlier and earlier — this is a top-down instruction to reconsider that trajectory.”

The executive order comes amid recent suggestions that the Trump administration has strategically pivoted away from vaccine policy in the lead-up to this year’s midterm elections.

But for Michael Kane, director of advocacy for Children’s Health Defense (CHD), the order “is a sign that examining the childhood vaccination schedule is a true priority.”

“The U.S. gives more vaccines to children before the age of 2 than nearly all other developed peer nations. In addition, we have the highest levels of chronic illness in children in the developed world. Lowering the number of recommended vaccines would allow us to see what role vaccination plays in the chronic illness epidemic we have in our nation,” Kane said.

Medical researcher Neil Z. Miller, who in 2023 co-authored a study finding a positive statistical correlation between infant mortality rates and the number of vaccine doses received by babies, agreed. “Many developed countries recommend a smaller set of vaccines universally while reserving others for specific risk groups. … The executive order establishes a clearer distinction between ‘core’ and ‘optional’ vaccines.”

The executive order also suggests guidance on how the federal government makes such vaccine recommendations and signals support for parental choice and the right to religious exemptions to vaccinations.

“This executive order is about far more than vaccines,” said Daniel O’Connor, founder and CEO of TrialSite News. “It’s about who gets to decide acceptable medical risk for America’s children.”

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RFK Jr. Faces Backlash After Hantavirus PREP Act Declaration

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is facing backlash from some in the medical freedom movement after he announced last week that he signed a “targeted PREP Act” declaration to develop and deploy medical countermeasures for hantavirus.

In a post on X, Kennedy said the declaration “helps remove barriers to research and response efforts” for the recent outbreak that has garnered significant media attention during recent weeks.

“HHS is taking this situation seriously and will continue working to protect public health and support the safe development of potential treatments and countermeasures,” he said.

Critics accused Kennedy of contradicting his previous strong stance against the use of the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act, or PREP Act, during the COVID-19 pandemic, and betraying the values of the medical freedom movement.

Defenders argued that the declaration is narrow in scope and timing — it covers only one generic drug, favipiravir, and lasts only until July 18, 2026.

The PREP Act authorizes the health secretary to issue a declaration that exempts manufacturers and distributors of a vaccine or treatment that addresses a public health emergency from legal liability for injuries caused by those products.

The PREP Act became extremely controversial during the COVID-19 pandemic, because it granted blanket liability protection to COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers — including Moderna, Pfizer and Novavax — for nearly every type of injury caused by the vaccines.

As a result, vaccine-injured people have struggled to be recognized, cared for and compensated for their injuries. Vaccine-injured people and the groups representing them have challenged the act’s constitutionality in multiple lawsuits, but have failed to get it overturned.

The Biden administration extended the COVID-19 countermeasures PREP Act declaration through the end of 2029, even though the administration declared the pandemic over.

Kennedy has not rescinded that declaration, despite calls for him to do so.

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Emory HHS-Funded Experiments Create Bird Flu Pathogens With ‘Mammalian-Adaptive’ Mutations: bioRxiv Preprint

A newly released NIAID-funded preprint reveals that U.S. government-funded researchers claim to have created bird flu pathogens specifically selected for known “mammalian-adaptive” mutations, genetic changes said to help purported avian influenza viruses spread more efficiently in mammals.

The move comes amid unprecedented international influenza pandemic orchestration, covered extensively on this website.

The new study, published online ahead of print earlier this month, says one reconstructed human H5N1 strain virus transmitted between ferrets with 100% efficiency.

The study, titled “Variable transmission efficiency of mammalian origin HPAI D1.1 H5N1 strains in ferrets,” was conducted by researchers from Emory University, the University of Pittsburgh, and the Center for Vaccine Research.

You can contact NIAID here, NIH here, and HHS here to voice opposition to taxpayer-funded research on pandemic pathogens—particularly after Congress, the White House, the Department of Energy, the FBI, the CIA, and Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) all acknowledged that the deadly COVID-19 pandemic was “likely” the result of a laboratory incident involving engineered pathogens.

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U.S. State Dept. and HHS revoking passports of parents who owe substantial amounts of past-due child support

The U.S. State Department announced on Thursday that it will begin revoking passports of thousands of parents with unpaid child support debt. The revocations will start on Friday and will primarily focus on parents who owe more than $100,000 in child support.

Additionally, anyone with over $2,500 in unpaid court-ordered child support can be denied a passport or have their existing one forfeited under federal law, according to a release by the State Department.

“We are expanding a commonsense practice that has been proven effective at getting those who owe child support to pay their debt. Once these parents resolve their debts, they can once again enjoy the privilege of a U.S. passport,” said Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Mora Namdar.

Since the program’s full implementation in 1998, states have recovered $657 million in child support arrears. This total includes more than $156 million collected since 2021 through over 24,000 individual lump-sum payments.

Following initial reports of the program’s expansion on February 10th, the department noted an immediate shift in compliance, stating it has “seen data that hundreds of parents took action and resolved their arrears with state authorities since news broke that the State Department would start proactively revoking passports.”

“While we can’t confirm the causation in all of those cases, we are taking this action precisely to impel these parents to do the right thing by their children and by U.S. law,” added the department.

Once revoked, a passport becomes entirely invalid and cannot be used for international travel, even after the underlying child support debt is settled. According to State Department guidance, an individual’s eligibility is only restored after the past-due balance is paid directly to the relevant state child support agency and the person’s name is cleared from federal delinquency records.

Following payment, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) must update its internal tracking system before the State Department can begin processing a brand-new passport application — a multi-agency clearance process that typically takes at least two to three weeks to complete.

As of last week, the exact number of passport holders owing more than the $2,500 statutory threshold remains unclear, as HHS is still aggregating data from the various state agencies responsible for tracking these metrics. However, federal officials predict that once this lower threshold is fully implemented, the final tally could encompass many thousands of additional people.

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