by Paul Offit (thanks to Ed M.)
On January 27, 2026, researchers from Vanderbilt University, the University of North Carolina, and Harvard Medical School published a study in the Annals of Internal Medicine that revealed a surprising and previously unrealized aspect of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s war on vaccines. Two vaccines were at the center of their findings: influenza and COVID.
RFK Jr. has done everything he can to discourage the use of influenza vaccine. In February 2025, within days of his confirmation as Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), RFK Jr. canceled the CDC’s campaign to encourage influenza vaccination. Then, on January 7, 2026, he told a CBS News reporter that children might be “better off” if they didn’t get an influenza vaccine. His war against the influenza vaccine for children has been successful—289 children died last year from influenza and another 60 have died in January 2026. Virtually all were unvaccinated.
Similarly, RFK Jr. has waged a war on COVID vaccines. In 2021, when COVID vaccines were first available for children, RFK Jr. claimed that they were “the deadliest vaccines ever made.” In May 2025, three months after being sworn in as Secretary of HHS, RFK Jr. said that he was no longer recommending COVID vaccines for healthy children. RFK Jr.’s plan to discourage COVID vaccinations in children has also been successful. During this past year, roughly 7,000 children were hospitalized with COVID. About 20 percent of those hospitalized were admitted to the intensive care unit, half were previously healthy, virtually all were unvaccinated, and 152 died, most less than four years of age.
Because RFK Jr.’s campaigns against vaccines have been successful, children have suffered and died unnecessarily. This isn’t a good look for the Trump administration. RFK Jr. knows that he must do something to hide these heartbreaking outcomes. His solution can be found in the study that was just published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Investigators examined 82 CDC databases that had been updated monthly before RFK Jr. became head of HHS. They found that 44 of the 82 databases continued to be updated monthly whereas 38 had unexplained pauses. None of the 44 databases that were updated concerned vaccines. Among the 38 databases that had unexplained pauses, 33 (87%) reported information about respiratory diseases like influenza and COVID that included statistics on hospitalizations and emergency department visits.
RFK Jr.’s plan is simple. If the public doesn’t know the actual number of hospitalizations and deaths caused by influenza and COVID, they can continue to withhold vaccines with impunity. And if state and local health departments don’t know about the areas of greatest risk for outbreaks, they won’t launch immunization clinics in regions with low vaccination rates. RFK Jr.’s “see no evil” approach is working. An increasing number of parents are choosing not to vaccinate their children.
Declining pediatric COVID Vaccination rates
Declining pediatric influenza vaccination rates
Until Congress stands up to the anti-vaccine activist who currently heads our nation’s number one public health agency, outbreaks will continue and children will suffer and die needlessly. Worse, because of recent changes at the CDC, we might have no idea just how bad things really are.