“The Trump administration is working to cut global health funding to developing nations by tens of billions of dollars by 2030, according to a new analysis of the secretive agreements U.S. officials have pursued with more than a dozen governments to date,” the Washington Post reports.
“The planned cuts — targeting programs that combat the spread of HIV/AIDS, Ebola and tuberculosis, among other deadly diseases — appear to reduce U.S. spending on global health initiatives to less than half of Washington’s output in 2024, the analysis found.”
“Anti-vaccine activists are trying to track down the families of two people, including at least one newborn, who died after contracting measles in Pennsylvania, as governor Josh Shapiro tangles with Robert F Kennedy Jr over his ‘inaccurate and misleading claims,'” The Guardian reports.
“Kennedy, the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, suggested late Wednesday that the deaths in the state may have been ‘fabricated’ after a Republican coroner – an elected political office in Lancaster county – claimed one of the measles-associated deaths was unrelated to the virus, although the given cause would be consistent with measles.”
“Autism groups and researchers have reacted with alarm to a federal research roadmap drawn up by advisers handpicked by the U.S. health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, fearing it will promote unproven fringe therapies at the expense of promising genetic research,” The Guardian reports.
“A slew of scientific bodies and groups within the autism community are warning that the 336-page plan risks deflecting federal dollars away from potentially groundbreaking genetic research in favor of unreliable alternative therapies.”
“Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro blamed U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for sowing distrust in vaccines as the state confronts a widening measles outbreak that has killed two people and infected hundreds of others,” Bloomberg reports.
“Shapiro said Kennedy’s rhetoric and efforts to reshape federal public health policy had contributed to confusion about vaccines at a time when immunization rates are falling.”
“Last year, Republicans set American health care on a new path: They slashed $1 trillion from expected Medicaid funding over the next decade and allowed tens of billions of dollars in annual insurance subsidies to expire,” Stat reports.
“The full impacts of those changes won’t be felt for years, but many parts of the health care system are already racing to prepare. The scramble is most intense where the cuts are projected to land the hardest: rural states.”
“Two unvaccinated people in Pennsylvania have died from measles, as a large outbreak there continues to spread,” the New York Times reports.
“The deaths come during a record-setting year for measles in the United States: More cases have been reported in 2026 than in any other year since the virus was declared eliminated in 2000. Outbreaks have popped up all over the country.”
New Yorker: “It’s reasonable to worry that the RFK, Jr. era has set American science and medicine back in ways that might not be corrected for years, if ever. Yet it’s also possible to read Kennedy’s efforts, especially the new vaccine recommendations, less as triumphs than as flailing attempts to enact an unwelcome vision. Kennedy and his agenda are hardly popular. Public trust in the agencies he leads has fallen. The latest order, like prior attempts to undermine established vaccine guidance, will surely face legal challenges that limit its scope and impact.”
“Kennedy has argued that ‘there is no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective,’ and that the COVID shot was the ‘deadliest vaccine ever made.’ But, as the nation’s top health official, he has struggled to actualize his maximalist rhetoric in the way that other Administration officials have theirs.”
“Florida is set to roll back four vaccine requirements for children attending the state’s public schools, according to a new rule published Monday by the state Department of Health. The proposed guidelines come after Florida’s surgeon general launched an effort last fall to eliminate all vaccine mandates for school children,” NOTUS reports.
“The rule would allow Florida children to attend school without receiving immunizations for chickenpox, hepatitis B, Haemophilus influenzae type B and pneumococcal disease.”
“Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said Sunday that the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine, known as MMR, is ‘not a lethal vaccine,’ despite President Trump’s claims in recent days,” CBS News reports.
The Economist: “For all the zeal Congress has shown in investigating America’s response to the covid-19 pandemic, it has been strangely uninterested in exploring a basic question: why did so many Americans die relative to the numbers who succumbed to the virus in other rich countries? Understanding the answer would seem relevant to guarding against the next, inevitable pandemic.”
“Many countries were slow to react, but as they learned about the transmissibility of the virus, and as vaccines became available, they rapidly cut their death rates. Not so America.”
“The U.S. recently reached a grim milestone: As of July 23, more measles cases have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention than in any year since 1991. It took less than seven months to blow past the three-decade high recorded last year,” ProPublica reports.
“This potentially deadly disease is easily prevented. Shots are widely available and, in many cases, free. Still, since the beginning of last year, more than 4,850 people here have been infected, and three have died. Among them were two unvaccinated girls in West Texas whose deaths made national headlines.”
“It may feel like the continuous stream of cases is just the way things are now. But it is dangerous to shrug off the resurgence of measles.”
“Vaccination rates among American kindergartners decreased during the 2025–2026 school year for all tracked vaccines, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Monday,” Axios reports.
”Exemptions from getting one or more vaccines increased in 41 states and the District of Columbia, growing to 4.2% from 3.6% the year before.”
”The drop-off coincided with continued efforts by the Trump administration to make controversial vaccine policy changes and with measles cases hitting levels not seen in more than three decades.”
“President Trump has ordered a reduction in childhood vaccines — publicly faulting the shots for an increase in autism cases — even as the nation’s top health official, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has failed to produce evidence linking vaccinations to the disorder,” CBS News reports.
“While the executive order released Aug. 10 does not directly mention autism, Mr. Trump’s demand to limit vaccine recommendations has puzzled leading medical groups, doctors, and political analysts alike. The directive landed less than 90 days before midterm elections, which Mr. Trump’s own pollsters have warned could be jeopardized by anti-vaccine rhetoric.”
“America is experiencing its biggest prescription drug price deflation in generations,” Axios reports.
“Why it matters: By one important measure, there is a striking reversal underway for one of health care’s most stubbornly expensive necessities amid a major Washington push to lower drug costs.”
“Sen. Bill Cassidy on Sunday blasted President Donald Trump’s executive order last week targeting the childhood vaccine schedule, calling the action ‘a stupid thing to do,'” ABC News reports.
Said Cassidy: “Let’s just take it from the perspective of the parent why this is a — why this is just a stupid thing to do. Now, instead of your child getting two shots, she has to get six shots. Instead of … you missing work to take your child to the doctor two times, you’re doing it six times, and instead of the insurance company paying for two visits, it’s now paying for six visits.”
“President Trump’s top political hands had some surprising advice for Senate Republicans last week: Talk more about health care,” Axios reports.
“Trump and the MAGA base are fixated on the voter-ID and proof-of-citizenship SAVE Act. But Republican message testing from Trump’s own pollster suggests candidates are better off focusing elsewhere.”
The Economist: “There is no evidence that vaccines cause autism. Nor is there evidence that spreading out vaccines is beneficial. In fact, doing so increases the window in which kids are vulnerable to infection. Doctors’ groups, therefore, lined up to denounce the order…”
“The good news, then, is that Mr Trump’s order will have little practical effect. States, not the federal government, normally set vaccination requirements for schoolchildren. And most of them are guided by abundant evidence that vaccines have driven down rates of infectious disease by a miraculous degree.”
“But as the administration injects more doubt and confusion into decisions over vaccines, parents are increasingly declining them.”
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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