Public Health Punched Back

America Dissected

Incision Media LLC

Politics, News, Society & Culture

4.6 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 21 August 2025

⏱️ 70 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Abdul and Katelyn are energized by the first meeting of the Vaccine Integrity Project, which was founded to serve as an alternative to RFK Jr’s ACIP. They also discuss: A new letter to Congress, signed by more than 700 CDC employees, which calls HHS Secretary Kennedy complicit in endangering the nation's health and the recent shooting at the CDC headquarters The fallout from a draft report on childhood chronic disease, which suggests RFK Jr is folding on his promise to ban agricultural pesticides The future of vaccines in the US without mRNA research, following RFK Jr’s decision to cut $500 million in research grants Then, Abdul sits down with Dr. Michael Osterholm, a founding member of the Vaccine Integrity Project Steering Committee, to discuss the goals, processes and future of the organization. To read and/or add your name to the CDC’s letter to Congress, click here. Check out our shop at store.americadissected.com for our new America Dissected merch – including logo shirts, hoodies and mugs. And don’t miss our “Vaccines Matter. Science Works.” t-shirts! This show would not be possible without the generous support of our sponsors. America Dissected invites you to check them out. This episode was brought to you by: NPR Life Kit: Listen now to the Life Kit podcast from NPR.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Public Health Punches back.
0:10.0	This is America Dissected.
0:11.3	I'm your host, Dr. Abdul Al-Saléyan.
0:12.8	And I'm your co-host, Dr. Caitlin Jodalina.
0:15.6	And we're recording this on Wednesday, August 20th at 11 a.m. Pacific time.
0:27.2	All right. So, Kaelin, it has been quite a week for you. We are going to jump right in. So there's been a whole resistance brewing when it comes to
0:33.6	the pushback against RFK Jr.'s complete demolition of all we hold dear when it comes
0:38.4	to public health infrastructure and the attempt not just to break down that infrastructure,
0:42.9	but to reframe everything we know and the general way we do science overall.
0:48.6	And some of that has come to a head this week in the form of the Vaccine Integrity Project.
0:52.7	It's an outside group of experts from everything
0:55.8	from epidemiology to pediatrics to immunology who came together to provide an alternative
1:01.6	viewpoint to, of course, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which has made news
1:07.0	quite a bit because it's a group of people that in effect, RFK Jr. decided to summarily
1:12.6	fire and replace with his own lackeys. And here's the reason it's needed because ASIP's recommendations
1:18.9	aren't just for shits and giggles. This is about what gets covered by insurers, what physicians
1:24.7	are guided to provide for folks, particularly as we head into the
1:30.0	back to school season. And so if you can't rely on the federal government to bring together the
1:34.5	country's best experts to make recommendations for vaccines, then, well, people who believe in
1:40.3	science and believe in expertise, they're going to fill in the gaps. And that's exactly what
1:44.7	happened here. So I want to ask you, Caitlin, you're involved in the Vaccine Integrity Project.
1:50.4	And you guys met for the first time yesterday. You're one of the experts on the panel. Tell us
	...

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