It's hard to think of a precedent for the epoch we find ourselves living through, as the federal government of the United States turns all its strength on the self-annihilation of American science, of American higher education, of American research at the highest levels, and, it could even be said, of Yankee can-do and reason itself. Is this the new cultural revolution? The dawn of a modern dark ages?
It's difficult to keep up with all the systems and structures being swept aside by the forces of pure, blind, culture-war vengeance unleashed by the ascendance of the authoritarian hard right of what was once the Grand Old Party, and in this context many of us may not even have blinked on Monday when Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "retired" — that is, fired — all 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control advisory committee responsible for making vaccination recommendations.
Does your child need a chickenpox vaccine or a Tdap booster? Should a pregnant woman have access to a Covid-19 shot or should she not? And will insurance cover these things? These are among the practical questions determined by the C.D.C., following this independent committee's recommendations.
Make no mistake about it: Mr. Kennedy is not just a vocal vaccine skeptic, he is a conspiracy theorist who believes that this committee is a secret cabal manipulating vaccine mandates to line their pockets with gold. They are not. They are a volunteer panel of top epidemiologists, pediatricians, and public health experts who provide evidence-based recommendations with great gravity.
In addition to firing this panel of experts, Mr. Kennedy has canceled programs working to find new vaccines that could prevent future pandemics, and halted scientists' work on an H.I.V. vaccine and a bird flu vaccine. The Big Beautiful Bill, meanwhile, ends funding for global programs that provide lifesaving vaccines for things like malaria and polio for people who need them around the world. Yes, people will die.
Red voters and blue voters alike should recognize that none of this is rational and it is most certainly not in the interest of keeping Americans healthy and safe. Former members of the vaccine advisory panel told Reuters that it had taken about a year and a half for them to go through the careful background check process before they were approved; right now, the panel is empty and, Reuters reports, "it is unclear who would serve on that panel" or how they would be "vetted for conflicts of interest."
Mr. Kennedy wrote in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal this week that his "clean sweep" was meant to re-establish public trust in the system that makes vaccine recommendations. In Donald Trump's America, down is up, left is right, and truth is stranger than fiction. Dr. Sean O'Leary, chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Committee on Infectious Diseases, pointed out to Reuters the richness of the irony here: Mr. Kennedy, he said, "is, as an individual, more responsible for sowing distrust in vaccines than almost anyone I can name." Perhaps we could borrow a phrase from "Stranger Things" and call this moment the Upside Down — if only too many lives weren't at stake for it to be an occasion for jokes.