The Year of Vaccine Backsliding

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Slate Podcasts

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.6 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Today, the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee will be meeting to vote on recommendations for childhood vaccinations. But under RFK Jr.’s leadership, this committee looks much different now than it did a year ago.How is the impact from the HHS secretary being seen across America today?

Guest: Dr. Paul Offit, Director of the Vaccine Education Center and professor of pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

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Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Just looking at the numbers, the Centers for Disease Controls headquarters in Atlanta
0:10.7	ought to be a ghost town right now.
0:15.9	Over the last year, the agency has lost a third of its staff.
0:23.2	During the government shutdown, the administration tried to fire hundreds more people before realizing they were essential. If you scroll around,
0:29.7	you'll find pictures of the notes employees are allegedly leaving behind. Some simply present data
0:35.4	supporting their work, like 1.4 million children are living with HIV.
0:41.2	In the women's bathroom, though, messages are reportedly more pointed.
0:45.7	They include post-its that remind workers, it's okay not to be okay.
0:50.6	Despite all this, this agency is still going about its business.
0:56.0	Today, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, ASIP for short, will meet as they do, three times a year.
1:05.0	It's just, this meeting is going to play out a little differently than it may have in the past.
1:17.3	I called up Dr. Paul Offutt to talk to me about what he thinks is going to happen.
1:23.5	I'm wondering if you're going to be watching this meeting as it goes down.
1:32.3	Well, I can't watch it, actually. I mean, that's why I can get updates, but I actually can't watch it. It's too painful. You used to be a member of this advisory committee, right?
1:40.1	Yeah, between 1998 and 2003, I was a voting member on the ACIP. How would you compare the way this committee is operating now to how it operated when you were a member?
1:49.6	You can't hear it, but I could see Dr. Offutt's reaction to this question.
1:51.1	He laughed.
1:55.7	Then he said, the members of this committee are straight up novices.
2:04.2	I mean, they really don't understand much about vaccines or immunology or virology or bacteriology.
2:05.6	So it's hard to watch.
2:15.5	I mean, I sort of remember when I was in high school, you know, you can be part of the, like a mock UN, you know, like a mock United Nations where you decide like the fate of Rwanda.
2:19.3	Now it's just like that except we would be deciding the fate of Rwanda. Now it's just like that, except we would be deciding the fate of Rwanda.
	...

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