Trump Public Health Officials Attacked mRNA Vaccines, CDC For Years Before August 8 Shooting

The violence has put misinformation spreaders under the microscope. Many are working inside HHS.

On August 8, a gunman opened fire on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention campus in Atlanta, hitting several buildings with 180 rounds and killing one responding police officer. The shooter had repeatedly expressed anger over the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, which he believed were killing him and many other people, and wanted to make the country aware. His father blamed online misinformation for his son’s radicalized worldview.

Vaccine skepticism in the United States has been on the rise for years. But the last few, since COVID hit, have been a golden age for conspiracy-mongers, who found amplification and larger audiences as they were embraced by right-wing politicians, media, and dark money groups seeking to restore economic normalcy to the country at the height of the crisis. Thanks to this alliance, misinformation, like the SARS-CoV-2 virus, has reached a sort of endemicity in the population. Online bullying and harassment of doctors and scientists has correspondingly increased.

The August 8 attack put a spotlight on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vax conspiracy theorist who was named in a 2021 report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate as one of its most prolific vaccine misinformation spreaders. Kennedy once called the mRNA shots the “deadliest” vaccine ever produced and has long been a critic of the CDC, which he has called a “cesspool of corruption.” Even in his response to the August shooting, the secretary took a jab at the CDC for its handling of the pandemic, declaring “One of the things that we saw during COVID is that the government was overreaching in its efforts to persuade the public to get vaccinated and they were saying things that are not always true.”

In the aftermath of the attack, calls for Kennedy’s resignation have been mounting inside and outside HHS—from political leaders like Sens. Bernie Sanders and Jon Ossoff to public health groups like the Infectious Diseases Society, the American Academy of HIV Medicine, the American Association of Immunologists, the American Public Health Association, and others. Petitions demanding he step down had racked up tens of thousands of signatures online.

Kennedy’s firing of CDC Director Susan Monarez—which Monarez said followed her refusal in a closed door meeting to green light his anti-vax agenda—only inflamed the situation. Earlier this week, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) introduced articles of impeachment against him.

But Kennedy is not the only public health official working in the Trump administration to have spread misinformation about the mRNA vaccines and attacked the CDC as corrupted or compromised in the years preceding the shooting. Important Context has compiled a list of these individuals, who have spent years casting doubt on the mRNA shots and the CDC, and who were elevated to key roles in America’s vital public health apparatus.

Dr. Marty Makary

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary has been a prominent critic of mRNA vaccines for years and sought to limit access to them in his government role. He has also been a vocal critic of the CDC, rising to national prominence on the Right by attacking public health authorities for their response to the pandemic—and embrace of the COVID shots.

In August 2022, Makary was one of several medical voices promoting a misleading narrative, popular in anti-vax circles, that the updated boosters the agency was recommending had only been tested on a handful of mice and were not ready for human use. While Pfizer’s preliminary vaccine tests did use eight mice, the booster saw little additive changes from previous iterations. That fact combined with the urgency of addressing the Omicron variant trumped the need for human trials.

Ultimately, the vaccines proved both safe and effective against hospitalization and death, but Makary would not acknowledge it. Instead, he published a dubious paper in December that year, arguing that the shots had proven to be a “net clinical harm” for young people ages 18 to 29. Two of his co-authors are also now working inside FDA with him—Vinay Prasad, head of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, and Tracy Beth Høeg, who serves as a senior advisor for clinical sciences at the agency and at CBER.

In New York Post op-ed from September 2023, he and Høeg asked readers a series of leading questions that cast doubt on the COVID boosters, like, “What if I told you one in 50 people who took a new medication had a ‘medically attended adverse event’ and the manufacturer refused to disclose what exactly the complication was — would you take it?”

“And what if we told you the Food and Drug Administration cleared it without any human-outcomes data and European regulators are not universally recommending it as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is?” they wrote. “That’s what we know about the new COVID vaccine the Biden administration is firmly recommending for every American 6 months old and up.”

The op-ed rejected the idea the COVID booster would reduce the risk of hospitalization, infection rate, and the potentiality of long COVID, claiming, “None of those claims has a shred of scientific support.” Independent studies from across the world have shown that the boosters, promoted by the CDC, do indeed lessen the extraneous risks associated with the disease.

In a June 2023 op-ed, Makary accused the CDC of “absolutism,” “groupthink science,” and having “deferred to Big Pharma” on the issue of COVID vaccine safety for pregnant people. He claimed the agency was “ignoring the role of natural immunity.” COVID vaccines have been shown to offer critical protection during pregnancy to both the recipient and their newborns and are recommended by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Makary has even attacked the CDC for promoting water fluoridation, calling it ‘inexplicable’ that “Despite the many now-recognized potential harms of putting fluoride in America’s drinking water, the CDC still…lists on their website that the fluoridation of drinking water is one of the 10 greatest public health achievements in modern history.”

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya

National Institutes of Health director Jay Bhattacharya also has a long history of attacking the mRNA vaccines and CDC. Bhattacharya was recently defending cuts to mRNA vaccine research on the grounds that the mRNA platform is “no longer viable” for public health. The letter to Kennedy from HHS workers following the CDC shooting included a request to Bhattacharya that he cease making such false assertions.

The NIH director rose to national prominence advocating against COVID mitigation measures, promoting herd immunity through widespread infection. Bhattacharya eventually allied himself with anti-vaxxers like Kennedy and began casting doubt on the safety, efficacy, and necessity of the vaccines—particularly for young people. In an op-ed from January 2021, weeks before India suffered its worst COVID wave, he argued that universal vaccination in the country would be a net harm because the population had allegedly achieved herd immunity.

Bhattacharya appeared in the 2024 pseudo-documentary COVID Collateral, which pushed a number of false and contradictory narratives about the pandemic, and promoted an anti-vaccine conspiracy theory. During his interview, he claimed that effective early treatments for COVID had been suppressed in order to enable the vaccines’ emergency use authorization. He specifically mentioned ivermectin, which the overwhelming body of research shows is not effective against COVID.

Like Makary, Bhattacharya has spent years attacking the CDC over its response to the pandemic, stating that the agency “failed utterly.” He has painted the CDC as both politically compromised and incompetent, claiming that it did great harm to Americans supporting shutdowns, child masking—which he called “lunacy”—and vaccine mandates. Last March, for example, he suggested that its isolation guidelines for the sick were insane and accused it of having taken marching orders from teachers unions on school closures. That July, he said the agency had committed “data crimes,” overstating the damage of COVID.

When it came to mRNA vaccines, Bhattacharya alleged that the agency had embraced the shots without adequate testing data. The NIH director made his comment about the mRNA platform not being viable days after the CDC shooting on Steve Bannon’s misinformation-spreading War Room podcast.

Dr. Tracy Beth Høeg

Høeg, a prominent ally of FDA Commissioner Makary, was appointed as Senior Advisor for Clinical Sciences at the FDA in May. As Important Context covered in April, Høeg has a cache of evergrowing sway in national public health politics despite her lack of experience in the field. Like Makary, Høeg made a name for herself on the Right opposing CDC-recommended health measures to combat COVID infection, particularly efforts to keep schools safe like mask and vaccine mandates. A sports medicine physician, she went to work as a consultant epidemiologist for Florida’s anti-vax surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo. Her initial appointment in the FDA as the commissioner’s special assistant raised eyebrows.

She has a long record of casting doubt on the mRNA and other vaccines as well as the CDC. Sharing the September 2023 op-ed she co-authored with Makary about the COVID boosters, Høeg asked her X followers, “Do FDA/CDC work for the 🇺🇸people or pharma?”

Vaccines are not the only topic Høeg has slammed the CDC over. After an illegal Chinese-owned laboratory was found in Reedley, California, holding infectious diseases like Dengue and HPV, Høeg was quick to stoke conspiratorial speculation over the nature of the work conducted at the facility—dragging the public health agency.

Although the lab posed no danger according to officials—and though the diseases were held legally—Hoeg suggested that the CDC was not looking deep enough into the matter. In a post on X about the lab, she hinted that corruption was the reason, suggesting a connection between the lab, the CDC and the CCP, Bill Gates, the Pandemic Preparedness Treaty, among others.

”As soon as I read about this lab I wondered about ties to not just the CCP but Bill Gates, the WEF & WHO OneHealth & Pandemic Preparedness Treaty,” she wrote. “If these things aren’t interrelated along w CDC’s reluctance to get involved w the lab, I’ll be shocked.”

Dr. Vinay Prasad

Another Kennedy ally who has been a prolific mRNA vaccine opponent and critic of the CDC is Vinay Prasad, who is currently the nation’s current top vaccine regulator.

Before joining the Trump administration, Prasad made a name for himself opposing government efforts to control the spread of COVID, particularly in younger populations, emerging as one of the loudest voices against the mRNA vaccines. Prasad, who allied with anti-vaxxers, even letting the Brownstone Institute republish his Substack, has repeatedly asserted that the boosters were inadequately tested and possibly even dangerous. His evidence? The risk of myocarditis from COVID vaccination—which is very low as noted in a study by the European Society of Cardiology. Other studies, such as one from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association (AHA ASA) Journals, note that the risk of myocarditis from vaccines is far lower than the risk of heart damage from COVID infection.

In making his claims, Prasad has often targeted public health authorities—especially the CDC, which he has castigated for allegedly misleading the public about a host of mitigation measures, including vaccines.

In February, after the Trump administration slashed the CDC staff by 10 percent, Prasad went on a tear defending the cuts, citing a litany of alleged transgressions by the agency. In one post on X, Prasad wrote “Some people [at] CDC are responsible for 1 inaccurate death statistics for kids during covid 2 masking toddlers with cloth masks 3 pushing boosters on young men who had COVID-19,” adding, “These people must be fired” and, “You can’t have incompetent experts.”

In another post, Prasad highlighted the fact that “The CDCs website still lists covid 19 shots on the childhood schedule for every 6 month old,” adding, “You really have to be incompetent to do this.”

“CDC should remove this immediately and fire those who permitted it,” he wrote.

In November, Prasad wrote a Substack post calling on Kennedy to implement a rule across HHS, limiting the amount of money any independent group advising the department could receive from the pharmaceutical industry.

”A generation of physicians without conflicts will think differently about medicine,” he wrote. “They won’t recommend off label drugs based on a hail mary— lacking good evidence. They won’t want to treat pre-malignant conditions. They will be more disciplined and think more about what is best for patients.”

Prasad himself has listed health insurance industry consulting fees on papers in his conflict of interest statements.

Some of Prasad’s rhetoric has bordered on extreme. He once suggested that he would fire 10,000 CDC staffers and anyone else involved in recommending masking toddlers, and in the fall of 2022, he was all in on payback—or “accountability”—for public health officials who promoted pandemic control measures. At the time, there was discussion of pandemic “amnesty,” or moving on from disagreements over COVID policy. The idea had been floated in an op-ed for The Atlantic by COVID contrarian economist Emily Oster. Prasad utterly rejected the idea.

“I don’t believe in forgiveness because in my opinion, these pieces of shit are still lying,” he said in an interview last November. “I mean, if you want forgiveness, the first thing you have to say is what you actually did wrong, and they’re still fucking lying.”

Dr. Martin Kulldorff

There is also Martin Kulldorff, who has chaired the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) ever since Kennedy remade the body by stacking it with his anti-vax and contrarian friends. In his government role, Kulldorff has continued promoting misinformation about vaccines. He recently attacked the American Academy of Pediatrics as “pro-mercury” after it criticized ACIP’s decision to recommend only flu vaccines without thimerosal, an organomercury compound that has not been shown to be harmful.

But Kulldorff has been promoting fringe views about vaccines and public health for years. The Swedish biostatistician fell from Harvard Medical School into the world of right-wing and anti-vax dark money. He is a longtime collaborator of Bhattacharya and critic of government efforts to control the spread of COVID. Like the NIH director, he has cast doubt on the mRNA shots and attacked the CDC and other public health authorities.

In June 2022, for example, he tweeted that it was “Tragic how CDC, FDA, NIH, university & pharmaceutical leaders abandoned evidence-based medicine during the pandemic,” while tagging Makary, Bhattacharya, Høeg, and Prasad, claiming they and others “filled the void.”

One of Kulldorff’s favorite accusations—one that has been made by Bhattacharya, Makary, and others on the right as well—is that the CDC ignored or denied “natural immunity” from COVID as an alternative to lockdowns and vaccine mandates. In August 2022, he wrote, “Now that CDC has finally admitted that there is natural immunity after covid infection, all unions should demand the reinstatement with backpay for unvaxxinated employees that were fired.”

Last November, he shared Prasad’s post calling for an HHS-wide rule limiting pharmaceutical funding for independent department advisors, writing, “Eliminate scientists with pharma-ties from FDA, NIH, CDC and CMS advisory boards.”

Like Prasad and other officials named in this article, Kulldorff’s advocacy has bordered on extremism. In December 2021, for example, Kulldorff shared an op-ed by Brownstone Institute founder Jeffrey Tucker calling for “accountability” for public health officials who recommended COVID mitigation measures. The piece, which focused on lockdowns and the public health officials who supported them, used the image of a guillotine as the cover photo.

“It is very likely that the people who did this to us will never be held accountable, not in any court and not in any legislative hearing,” it read.” They will never be forced to compensate their victims. They will never even admit they were wrong. And herein lies what might be the most egregious feature of evil public policy: this is not and will not be justice or anything that even vaguely resembles justice.”

Dr. Robert Malone

Then there is notorious anti-vax physician and biochemist Robert Malone, a Kennedy ally and conspiracy theorist who serves on ACIP. Purporting to be the inventor of the mRNA technology, Malone has claimed that millions of Americans were hypnotized by the government to accept COVID mitigation measures, including the vaccines—which he has falsely suggested have killed hundreds of thousands of people. He has also promoted disproven COVID cures like the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine and the anti-parasitic ivermectin.

Malone has repeatedly attacked the CDC to his more than 1 million followers on social media, claiming that the agency conceals data on the harms of the vaccines. In late July, less than three weeks before the August 8 shooting, Malone shared an article on his X account titled, “Where Does the CDC’s Pervasive Dishonesty Come From?” He called it “recommended reading.”

On August 5, Malone suggested, in a post on his lucrative Substack, that there was dangerous “lot-to-lot variability in safety and effectiveness with the mRNA products.” On August 11, three days after the shooting, Malone posted on X that the Trump administration had identified individuals at the agency who were “responsible” for “hiding ‘CRITICAL’ data regarding the jab and hospitalizations.”

Retsef Levi

Another anti-vax ACIP member appointed by Kennedy who has spread misinformation about the COVID shots and cast doubt on the CDC is Retsef Levi.

A professor of operations management at MIT, Levi has written dozens of posts on X expressing his disbelief in vaccinations for a variety of reasons, ranging from potential myocardial injury to the supposed risk of sudden death for which there is no evidence. He has even falsely suggested the COVID vaccines are the real cause of long COVID. Levi has attacked the American Academy of Pediatrics advocating for vaccinations for children in a majority of cases, calling them “vaccine-fanatics, or perhaps financially conflicted.”

Levi has long been a critic of the CDC for recommending COVID vaccines. In a post on X from September 2023, tagging Høeg, Bhattacharya, and others, he slammed the agency for recommending the shots to children.

“CDC continues to recommend COV vacc’s for children 6-48 mo. How many red flags needed to stop?” Levi wrote. “More harm in vacc’s vs. placebo in Pfizer trial, 6 vs. 2 severe COV & 23 vs. 11 other severe viral infections! Concerns of prolonged reduced immune response to viruses & bacteria! Not to mention risk of cardiovascular injury, for which Pfizer holds back its trial results!”

“Seems like the burden of proof of safe & effective changed to the burden of proof of not-safe & not-effective,” he added.

In another post from November 2024, he suggested that the agency had abandoned science, writing, “To rebuild the trust in the US regulatory system, we need to bring back truly science-based approach that puts patients’ health at the center!”

Dr. Kirk Milhoan

A recent addition to ACIP, Kirk Milhoan is a pediatric cardiologist and pastor from Hawaii who was serving as a senior fellow at the anti-vax group Independent Medical Alliance. Formerly the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, the group is known for its promotion of ivermectin for COVID despite the anti-parasitic drug not being effective for that purpose, and its anti-vax stances.

Like the other names in this report, Milhoan has cast doubt on the mRNA vaccines and the public health authorities who recommend them. During an appearance this June on American Thought Leaders, a podcast of the anti-vax Epoch Times hosted by Bhattacharya ally and anti-vaxxer Jan Jekielek, Milhoan called vaccine myocarditis “a silent killer” and made a number of other false claims about the shots. For example, he asserted that they were more likely to cause myocarditis than the virus and had “negative efficacy,” meaning the vaccinated were more susceptible to COVID than the unvaccinated.

Milhoan suggested that the vaccines had been rolled out “very quickly” with inadequate testing before being used on children. He said that given the low risk profile of young people, “we” had done harm by vaccinating them and claimed that the shots could trigger a “chronic vaccinated state” where the body continues producing the spike protein, which he blamed for inflammation.

Later, he endorsed unproven COVID treatments—namely ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine.