I'm from the Diseased States of Death and Destruction.
In a country where the person tasked with safeguarding our health is dismantling it faster than any disease ever could.
In a place where billion-dollar breakthroughs are sacrificed for political theater.
In a nation where Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as Health Secretary, is executing a house clearing of science, and the casualties will be American lives.
I keep thinking about the children.
The 83 babies who died in Samoa after Kennedy spread his anti-vaccine lies there in 2019.
The cancer patients whose trials just got canceled when he cut 500 million dollars in mRNA research.
The kids who will die from measles because he fired the vaccine experts and replaced them with conspiracy theorists.
Every time I sit down to write about what Kennedy is doing to American health, I have to stop and take a breath. Because watching him systematically destroy every protection we have feels like witnessing a slow-motion apocalypse. Like knowing a train is going to crash and there will be unimaginable deaths, and having to go about my day like nothing is wrong.
This is different from other political disasters. This is a life and death situation, guaranteed.
This is not about policy disagreements or budget priorities. This is going to kill people who should not die.
And you might say RFK Jr. is winning. I would say death is winning.
This is what living through the collapse of public health looks like.
**The Purge of Public Health**
April 1, 2025, Kennedy slashes ten thousand HHS jobs in one sweep. CDC units vanish. HIV prevention grants evaporate. Food safety, hollowed. Local public health offices, gone. Even HHS admits hundreds were mistakes, but the expertise cannot be recovered.
This was done in the name of saving money. It will not actually save money. It will move the money to politically connected insiders. The American people will only get death and destruction.
**March 2025**
NIH is now being run by Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford physician and health economist who once called lockdowns a catastrophic error and co-wrote the controversial Great Barrington Declaration, arguing we should let COVID spread naturally. We saw how deadly COVID was when we did take steps to slow its spread. Can you imagine if we had followed his advice? But he does not care about you and me dying. He is an economist after all. To him, we are just numbers that he can manipulate to feel important.
FDA reshaped with Marty Makary at the helm, a Johns Hopkins surgeon who questioned mask efficacy in kids and downplayed COVID's severity.
Yes, a surgeon who does not understand how masking works. I do not know about you, but when I am having surgery done, I want everyone wearing a mask because I do understand how it works. I think I will pass on him operating on me, and giving advice on anything.
Peter Marks, the FDA's top vaccine regulator and a respected immunologist who oversaw COVID vaccine approvals, resigns amid alarm and backlash.
This was the moment the music died for me. When someone as respected as Peter Marks cannot see a way to keep swimming, we are all about to drown in disinformation.
**June 2025, Vaccine Oversight Gutted**
All 17 CDC ACIP members are fired. ACIP is the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the panel of doctors and scientists who decide which vaccines kids should get and when. Replaced with 8 new members, including Martin Kulldorff, a Harvard epidemiologist who was fired from the university for refusing COVID vaccination and who has previously opposed childhood COVID vaccines. Now, settled science like MMR and pediatric schedules is under renewed attack.
The new committee includes Robert Malone, who worked on early mRNA research but now spreads false claims that mRNA vaccines cause cancer, and other vaccine skeptics with ties to anti-vaccine organizations.
CDC guidance for COVID vaccines in children and pregnant people, scrubbed. Even when pregnant people are at increased risk of severe illness. They do not care. They want women pregnant and they want babies born. But they do not care about their survival once that happens.
**Global Health Betrayed**
June 25, 2025, United States funding for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, cut. This alliance has vaccinated one billion children worldwide, averting nearly 19 million deaths. Think of it as the global vaccination program that keeps diseases from spreading between countries. And before you think, who cares about what happens in other countries, remember, borders do not stop viruses. Even if you do not care about other people, which I hope you do, if we allow viruses to spread anywhere, we are vulnerable to them reaching us here in the United States, too.
United States support made up 12 percent of Gavi's budget, about 300 million dollars annually. Without this funding, vaccination campaigns in 57 developing countries will be scaled back or eliminated entirely. Experts warn this cut imperils hard-won global immunization gains and could lead to over a million preventable child deaths.
**500 Million Dollars of Hope Snuffed Out**
August 2025, Kennedy cancels 22 mRNA vaccine projects, a staggering 500 million dollars wiped out. mRNA is the breakthrough technology that made COVID vaccines so fast and effective, and it is being developed to fight cancer, too. Teams working on flu, pandemic biosecurity, and innovative cancer and HIV therapies, eliminated overnight.
When COVID hit, it could have taken us three to five years to develop a new vaccine for it. mRNA cut that to 11 months. The next pandemic virus - we are back to square one. No rapid response capability. No infrastructure. No teams.
H5N1 bird flu is already spreading through cattle and has infected over 70 people. If it mutates to spread human to human, we will be defenseless. Kennedy just dismantled our fastest pandemic response tool right as the next crisis approaches.
What makes this even more devastating - mRNA technology was not just for pandemic response. It was revolutionizing cancer treatment. Over 120 mRNA cancer trials are active, experimental treatments that train your immune system to attack tumors.
Moderna's mRNA 4157 combined with Keytruda dropped melanoma recurrence by 75 percent in clinical trials. Glioblastoma, the deadliest brain cancer that typically kills within 15 months, and pancreatic cancer trials are showing immune system breakthroughs that could extend lives by years.
These are not theoretical future treatments. These are clinical trials happening right now, with real cancer patients seeing their tumors shrink. Patients who were told they had months to live are now surviving years. And Kennedy just pulled the plug.
Time lost here means lives irreversibly lost.
**When Expertise Becomes the Enemy**
Rick Bright, former director of BARDA: "This undermines national preparedness."
Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy: "The most dangerous public health decision I have seen."
Dr. Katalin Karikó, Nobel Prize winner and pioneer of mRNA technology, warns this move will shift innovation to China.
What epidemiologists are quietly saying - the next pandemic will kill millions more because of what Kennedy did in 2025.
**The Samoa Tragedy, Amplified**
2019, Samoa suffers 5,700 measles cases and 83 child deaths. Vaccination was at 30 percent after a tragic medical error. Kennedy arrives, courts anti-vaxxers, and sends a letter casting blame on the vaccine, labeled a complete lie by local health leaders. Blood confirmed measles. Fear spread faster than disease.
Now Kennedy promised Senator Bill Cassidy he would work within existing vaccine systems, preserve ACIP, and never tamper with vaccine policy during his confirmation. Less than a week into office, Kennedy launches a review of the vaccination schedule, and months later, has entirely replaced that board with skeptics. This was not just a broken promise - it was deliberate plotting that sacrificed America's health for power.
**Disease Returns, Systems Collapse**
One thousand three hundred fifty-six plus measles cases in the United States, the highest in 33 years.
Whooping cough cases have more than doubled in multiple states. Babies are dying from diseases their grandparents never worried about. Whooping cough is particularly deadly for infants under six months who are too young to be vaccinated - they depend on everyone around them being vaccinated to stay safe.
Polio has been found again in New York wastewater after decades of absence. Polio causes paralysis and death. We nearly eradicated it globally, but now it is back in American sewage systems.
These are all the canaries in the coal mine, but we seem too oxygen-deprived already to care.
**What Kennedy Destroyed**
Disease surveillance systems that took decades to build, gone.
Vaccine development capabilities that made us world leaders, eliminated.
International health partnerships that prevented global outbreaks, severed.
Research programs that were on the verge of curing cancer, defunded.
This is not reform. This is not improvement. This is sabotage.
And when the next pandemic arrives, and it will arrive, we will be defenseless.
No early warning systems.
No rapid vaccine development.
No experienced teams to coordinate response.
No international partnerships to share information.
No public trust in health recommendations.
We will be back to 1918, when the Spanish flu killed 50 to 100 million people because humanity had no defenses against pandemic disease.
Kennedy represents something uniquely dangerous - a true believer with real power.
He genuinely believes vaccines cause autism, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
He genuinely thinks fluoride makes people stupider.
He genuinely sees himself as a health crusader saving America from medical tyranny.
That makes him infinitely more dangerous than a typical corrupt official, because he will never stop. He will never compromise. He will never admit he is wrong, even when children are dying.
And that is exactly what is happening. Children are dying. Research is being destroyed. Pandemic preparedness is being eliminated.
All in the name of making America healthy again.
**What We Do Now**
We document everything Kennedy destroys, so future leaders know what needs rebuilding.
We support state and local health officials who refuse to follow his deadly guidance.
We protect our own families by staying up to date on vaccines, despite federal discouragement.
We vote for leaders who believe in science and evidence-based medicine.
We refuse to let Kennedy normalize the idea that vaccines are dangerous or that medical expertise does not matter.
Most importantly, we remember that this destruction is not permanent.
Kennedy's reign of terror will end. But we must be the ones to ensure it ends before more children die, before more research is lost, before more of our defenses are stripped away.
Every day we remain silent, more lives are lost. Every day we fail to act, Kennedy moves closer to his goal of dismantling everything that protects us from preventable disease and death.
We will rebuild what he destroys. But first, we must stop him from destroying more.
I will see you tomorrow, the day after that, and the one after that.
Heather
PS. If you are just as concerned about the destruction to public health, share this post. Save it. Talk about it with your friends and family.