Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s attempt to cut crucial health care funding and has been met with major resistance that could signal a significant shift in support for his MAHA agenda.
Salon's Sophia Tesfaye described in an opinion piece published Wednesday how Kennedy's move to terminate $2 billion in federal grants to support substance abuse and mental health funding last week was met with fierce backlash from health care organizations and marked "a tipping point."
After notable pushback and pressure just 24 hours after the decision was made, the decision to cut the funding for Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration was ultimately rescinded. The reversal comes as legal opposition to Kennedy's agenda during the first year of the Trump administration has mounted.
"One year into Donald Trump’s second presidency appears to mark a tipping point, with a growing resistance to one of the most reckless members of his Cabinet finally taking root," Tesfaye wrote.
But that's not the only resistance Kennedy has faced.
"Yet even as SAMHSA was saved, another key pillar of his MAHA agenda was collapsing under the weight of public scrutiny."
A whistleblower revealed a U.S.-funded vaccine study "that would vaccinate some newborns against hepatitis B at birth — but not others — in the West African nation of Guinea-Bissau, where prevalence of the highly contagious communicable disease is high."
"The new $1.6 million study was awarded without any competition from any other scientists, giving it 'the appearance of blatant cronyism,' Angela Rasmussen, a virologist and professor at the University of Saskatchewan, told the Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy. Additionally, none of the vaccines in the study are FDA-approved," Tesfaye wrote.
Despite Kennedy's attempts to enact the problematic study sent "alarm bells ringing in the global health community,” according to a London professor. It was then cancelled in an announcement last week from the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
Kennedy is also facing legal challenges over his vaccine policy to change the childhood vaccination schedule, with demands for action from several organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, he American College of Physicians and the American Public Health Association.
"The first year of Trump’s second term has been unbearably long," Tesfaye wrote. "But over the past several weeks, thanks to dogged reporting, whistleblowers willing to risk their careers and an outraged public that remains focused on what is at stake, key elements of this administration’s dangerous public health agenda were stalled, reversed or outright scrapped. The lesson from last week is clear: Resistance works when it’s sustained and strategic."
