Last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified before the Senate Finance Committee, where lawmakers pressed him on his decision to remove COVID-19 vaccines from the children’s immunization schedule among many other things. The hearing underscored how deeply politicized public health guidance has become — and how urgently Washington needs to restore trust in medical decision-making.
It’s true that RFK kicked off a firestorm this summer by announcing the removal of COVID vaccines from the immunization schedule for children. He based this decision on data showing that children have never faced much risk from COVID, and the vaccine isn’t particularly effective at preventing them from transmitting it to adults.
IN FOCUS FORUM: IS RFK JR. MAKING AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN?
A few days later, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention decided to tweak Secretary Kennedy’s modest proposal. They kept the vaccine recommendation for kids, but with a subtle shift from “should” receive COVID-19 vaccination to “may receive,” based on “the clinical judgment of a healthcare provider and personal preference and circumstances.”
While this didn’t represent a major change in policy, it did reveal something deeper about the public mood. Many Americans now view even small adjustments to federal health guidance through a lens of skepticism or suspicion. In this climate, even this small CDC modification drew criticism from vaccine skeptics.
As a nurse, I personally know that trust in public health remains in a dismal state. The distrust many Americans have of our country’s public health apparatus today is understandable, given the past four years, when public health decisions were too often shaped by political optics rather than clinical objectivity. This breakdown in trust poses a serious risk to Americans’ health, especially when it comes to embracing the next generation of medical innovation.
To ensure patients can access the most effective and personalized treatments, public health agencies and officials must return to data-driven decision-making that prioritizes transparency, flexibility, and consumer choice. That includes recognizing the value of innovative platforms like monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), which can be tailored to treat a range of infectious diseases and conditions.
Unlike vaccines, which train your immune system to recognize and fight a virus over time, mAbs offer immediate protection by directly supplying virus-fighting proteins. Think of vaccines as a class that teaches your immune system how to fight; mAbs are like calling in reinforcements that have already been to boot camp. That’s why mAbs are especially useful for high-risk patients and those who don’t respond well to vaccines — they don’t require the body to mount its own immune defense first. They’ve also shown promise in treating other infectious diseases and even some autoimmune conditions, underscoring their potential as a nimble, next-generation therapeutic platform.
COVID-19 clinical trials suggest that, when administered early, mAbs reduce hospitalization and death among high-risk patients by up to 85%. Yet for reasons that had little to do with clinical data, this therapy was not prioritized by the Biden administration in the way vaccines were. A 2023 Government Accountability Office report noted that federal investments in therapeutic development dropped sharply after 2021, with the vast majority of remaining pandemic funds steered toward vaccines and boosters.
In fact, despite authorizations granted under Operation Warp Speed, the Biden administration in 2022 quietly de-authorized multiple mAb therapies after lab studies showed reduced efficacy against Omicron subvariants. As a result of the Biden administration’s de-prioritization of mAbs, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation found in December 2021 that “despite the benefits offered by mAb treatment, early reports indicated that mAbs were not being widely used.”
The Biden administration did this even though many clinicians continued to report success in real-world cases. It failed to see that mAbs were never meant to be single-use fixes. As a flexible therapeutic platform, it is intended to be modified to target new variants.
This de-prioritization created a lopsided public health strategy in which the default response to every new variant was more vaccines, even when other tools might have provided better results for specific members of the population who don’t generate strong immune responses from vaccines.
The lesson here isn’t to minimize vaccines. It’s to stop thinking of treatments as mutually exclusive.
Americans want clear communication about risks and benefits, transparency around the evidence behind recommendations, and policies that reflect the diversity of medical needs across age groups, health statuses, and communities. They don’t want the government serving as their de facto healthcare provider.
This means rethinking the way we prioritize new treatments. Expediting approvals for safe, effective therapeutics should be as high a priority as vaccine development.
Fortunately, Secretary Kennedy appears to be focused on restoring balance, offering Americans more choices in how they protect their health and encouraging science to drive policy, not the other way around. Through thoughtful course correction and a renewed commitment to therapeutic innovation, his approach offers a path to rebuild public confidence.
RFK JR. NEEDS TO DEAL WITH THE CDC’S DATA PROBLEM
If public health aims to save lives and reduce suffering, then politics must take a back seat. Americans deserve a system that prioritizes transparency, flexibility, and the full spectrum of safe, effective tools at our disposal — vaccines, treatments, and everything in between.
That’s how we regain trust. And that’s how we build a healthier, more resilient country.
Renee Ellmers, BSN, RN, is a nurse and former Republican member of Congress who served on the Health Subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.