CDC Halts Vaccination Campaign

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) halted a seasonal flu shot campaign days after the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary.

According to NPR, the public health agency pulled its “Wild to Mild Initiative,” which sought to encourage people to take the influenza vaccine.

“On Thursday, the HHS then ordered the CDC to indefinitely postpone a meeting of its vaccine advisory committee — which Kennedy has criticized in the past — slated for Feb. 26 and Feb. 28,” Chief Nerd noted, citing the New York Post.

“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention killed a campaign promoting seasonal flu shots and canceled a major conference with virus experts just days after outspoken vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. became the nation’s top health official.

Under Kennedy’s leadership,… pic.twitter.com/gPGHukkqXV

— Chief Nerd (@TheChiefNerd) February 21, 2025

Per NPR:

The “Wild to Mild” flu vaccination campaign sought to encourage people to get the flu vaccine. In particular, the campaign aimed to communicate that flu vaccination can lessen symptoms and the chance of getting severely ill, even if it doesn’t prevent someone from catching the flu.

The Trump administration’s decision to pull the campaign comes in the midst of a brutal flu season that’s still raging. More than 50,000 patients were admitted to hospitals for influenza during the week ending Feb. 8, the highest level in 15 years.

Paid media for the ad campaign was ending on Wednesday, according to one of the current CDC staff members who spoke to NPR.

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On Wednesday, the webpages for the “Wild to Mild” vaccination campaign were entirely offline. On Thursday a link came back online, but it now directs to a webpage with older material, rather than the previous pages that contained shareable images from the 2024 campaign.

RFK Jr. has scrapped the CDC’s seasonal flu shot campaign and cancelled a vaccine conference.

Follow: @AFpost pic.twitter.com/vLa7oKEPnk

— AF Post (@AFpost) February 21, 2025

RFK Jr. just ended a CDC propaganda campaign to promote flu vaccines

The CDC ads “used animals as an analogy for the lowered threat of the flu virus … using the image of a kitten versus a lion.”

HHS also ordered CDC to “indefinitely postpone” meetings of its vaccine… pic.twitter.com/JxYT0U7D0d

— Holden Culotta (@Holden_Culotta) February 21, 2025

From the New York Post:

The moves come less than a week after Kennedy was sworn in as President Trump’s Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services.

The HHS denied that the flu shot campaign had been yanked from the website.

“No, the CDC was not told to take down the flu vaccination campaign webpage,” Health and Human Services said in a statement, according to the tech news site arstechnica.com.

“Unfortunately, officials inside the CDC who are averse to Secretary Kennedy and President Trump’s agenda seem to be intentionally falsifying and misrepresenting guidance they receive,” the statement said.

An HHS spokesperson also told The Washington Post that the vaccine conference was “postponed to accommodate public comment in advance of the meeting.”

As of Friday, however, the conference hadn’t been rescheduled.

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This is a Guest Post from our friends over at 100 Percent Fed Up.

View the original article here.