Vox clamantis in deserto
A dream of the woods
“WABANAVIA’’ (digital film), by Jason Brown, at the Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine.
In the dreamscape video Wabanavia, Brown, with Maine Wabanaki and Swedish backgrounds, serves as the lead protagonist who explores familiar yet fantastical environs that draw upon his personal heritage, traditional Wabanaki greeting songs, Scandinavian musical notes and Norse mythology.
Chris Powell: The $45 million Randy Cox case displays Contradiction of Two political Principles in Connecticut
MANCHESTER, Conn.
While there was plenty of negligence in the case of Randy Cox, the man who was paralyzed after his arrest by New Haven police in 2022, the court decision concluding the case's criminal aspects suggests that the negligence really wasn't that of the officers it was blamed on.
Cox had gotten drunk and was holding a bottle of liquor and brandishing a gun he carried illegally as he walked past a street fair, scaring people, one of whom called the cops. They arrested him and put him into a van for transport to the police station. Inside the van he resisted arrest, yelled, kicked, and rolled on the floor before sitting on the van's bench. But the bench had no seatbelts and when the driver stopped hard to avoid a collision, Cox slid head-first to the wall at the front of the passenger compartment, breaking his neck.
Rather than wait for an ambulance, the officer driving the van continued to the station, where other officers didn't believe Cox's protests that he couldn't move. They figured he was just drunk and faking injury, so they manhandled him into a wheelchair and then into a cell before medical help arrived.
Since Cox is Black, New Haven and then the country were filled with shrieks of racism as his catastrophic injury became clear, though most of the officers who handled him after his arrest were also members of minority groups. Mayor Justin Elicker, who is white and whose city is two-thirds minority, was quickly intimidated out of treating the situation honestly. Scapegoats were needed to calm the political controversy.
Fortunately for the mayor, five officers were soon charged criminally. Two pleaded guilty in plea bargains -- one of them was fired and lost her appeal for reinstatement and the other retired. The remaining three insisted on innocence and this month were more or less vindicated. Superior Court Judge David Zagaja granted them "accelerated rehabilitation," a probation that dismisses charges, ruling that the officers had not meant to hurt Cox and had not caused his catastrophic injury.
Impartial observers could have seen as much long before now. The city's responsibility for Cox's injury was entirely a matter of the failure to install seatbelts in the prisoner transport van, a failure dating back many years, a failure for which New Haven and its insurance company have paid Cox and his racism-contriving "civil-rights" lawyer $45 million, which, it is hoped, will cover the lifetime care Cox is likely to need.
While politically correct Connecticut may not be able to acknowledge it, the heavier responsibility here falls on Cox himself. Getting drunk in public is never a good idea. Getting drunk, carrying a gun illegally, and brandishing it at a street fair, scaring people and compelling police to arrest you, is a worse idea.
Of course no one is paying more for his mistake than Cox himself, but if he had been white and a member of the National Rifle Association, he might not have been forgiven as quickly he was, with the criminal charges against him dropped because of his injury and the mayor, still playing politics, treating him as an innocent who was persecuted by the police.
As for the three officers who now have beaten the criminal charges against them, all were fired but one regained his job through an appeal and the two others continue their appeals.
Mayor Elicker says he disagrees with the judge's decision to dismiss the charges against the three officers, so presumably he will continue to oppose reinstating the two still appealing. But a fairer resolution would be a settlement reinstating them with less than full back pay in recognition that for three years they have suffered far out of proportion to whatever they did wrong.
All this leaves political liberalism in Connecticut to sort out the wonderful contradiction of its two silliest principles: that minorities are always right, and so are members of government-employee unions.
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Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years (CPowell@cox.net).
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Sonali Kolhatkar: The big abusers are Trump and other rich and Powerful Men connected with Epstein, not migrants, etc.
“Best Friends Forever” (also known as “Why Can't We Be Friends?”’) statue of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein, briefly installed at the National Mall in downtown Washington, D.C., last Sept. The Feds took it down.
Via OtherWords.org
Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi’s contentious House hearing about the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein files offered a clear message to the nation: sex trafficking of women and minors is perfectly acceptable as long as wealthy white men do it.
Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced late sex trafficker, fixer, and political networker, was found to have ties to huge number of the world’s elites on both sides of the political aisle — including Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Ehud Barak, Bill Gates, Steve Bannon, Larry Summers, Bill Clinton, and of course, Donald Trump.
For years, Trump’s conservative backers have attacked LGBTQ+ people, drag queens, immigrants, and others, claiming a desire to protect women and children from rapists and groomers. Trump even boasted that “whether the women liked it or not,” he would “protect” them from migrants, whom he slandered as “monsters” who “kidnap and kill our children.”
But when given the opportunity to seek justice for countless women and children who were trafficked, abused, and exploited by the world’s wealthiest, most powerful people, the MAGA movement and its leaders have shown a startling disinterest in accountability. During her hearing Bondi tried desperately to deflect attention, claiming that the stock market was more deserving of public attention than Epstein’s victims.
Even the Republican rank and file is now mysteriously detached from the Epstein files.
Polls show that in summer 2025, 40 percent of GOP voters disapproved of the federal government’s handling of the Epstein files. But by January 2026, only about half that percentage disapproved — even after the Trump administration missed its deadline to release millions of files and then released them in a way that exposed the victims while protecting the perpetrators.
While some European leaders, such as the former Prince Andrew, are facing harsh consequences for associating with Epstein, no Americans outside of Epstein and his closest associate Ghislaine Maxwell have faced any consequences, legal or otherwise.
That’s despite very concrete ties between the Trump administration and the sex trafficker. Not only did Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick admit to visiting Epstein island after lying about it (and has so far faced no consequences), but Trump himself is named more than a million times in the files, according to lawmakers with access to the unredacted documents. Several victims identify Trump by name, alleging he raped and assaulted them.
And it’s not just Trump. Epstein was an equal opportunity fixer. He was just as friendly with liberals as he was with conservatives, including Summers, Clinton, and, disconcertingly for the American left, Noam Chomsky. For elites like Epstein, ideological differences were superficial. The real distinction was money, power, and connections.
Epstein was a glorified drug dealer and his drugs of choice were the vulnerable bodies of women and children, offered up to his friends and allies as the forbidden currency he traded in. A useful moniker has emerged to describe the global network of elites whose power and privilege continues to protect them from accountability: the Epstein Class.
Georgia Senator John Ossoff, who faces reelection in 2026, is deploying this label, understanding that voters — at least those who haven’t bought into the MAGA cult — are increasingly aware of the double standards that wealthy power players are held to.
“This is the Epstein class, ruling our country,” said Ossoff in reference to those who make up the Trump administration. “They are the elites they pretend to hate.”
He’s right. And if the Trump administration won’t hold them to account, Americans should demand leaders who will.
Sonali Kolhatkar is host and executive producer of Rising Up With Sonali, an independent, subscriber-based syndicated TV and radio show.
‘How meaning is built’
“Blackened Wood’’ (detail), by Erica Wessmann, in her show “Someone’s Home,’’ at Kingston Gallery, Boston, April 2-26.
The gallery says the show “approaches space as an active, unstable field. Their installations weave together research, constructed forms, and coded material histories to create environments that suspend fixed perspective. Often immersive and physically commanding, the work invites viewers to reconsider how meaning is built, disrupted, and shared within social and spatial systems.’’
‘Pinched little joykillers’
Largest reported ancestry groups in New Hampshire by town as of 2013. Dark purple indicates Irish, light purple English, pink French, turquoise French Canadian, dark blue Italian, and light blue German. Gray indicates townships with no reported data.
“New Hampshire has always been cheap, mean, rural, small-minded, and reactionary. It's one of the few states in the nation with neither a sales tax nor an income tax. Social services are totally inadequate there, it ranks at the bottom in state aid to education--the state is literally shaped like a dunce cap--and its medical assistance program is virtually nonexistent. Expecting aid for the poor there is like looking for an egg under a basilisk.... The state encourages skinflints, cheapskates, shutwallets, and pinched little joykillers who move there as a tax refuge to save money.’’
— Alexander Theroux (born 1939), Massachusetts-based novelist and poet
The birth of the Beast
Printed in March 1812, this political cartoon was made in reaction to the newly drawn state senate election district of South Essex created by the Massachusetts legislature to favor the Democratic-Republican Party. The caricature satirizes the bizarre shape of the district as a dragon-like monster, and Federalist newspaper editors and others at the time likened it to a salamander. But it came to be called the Gerrymander, after then-Gov. Elbridge Gerry, who supported the weird redistricting.
Llewellyn King: Big tech has become a ruthless autocratic oligopoly
Standard Oil's monopoly at the turn of the 20th Century was often depicted as an octopus, its tentacles infiltrating all aspects of American life. Vanderbilt Law Prof. Rebecca Allensworth says Big Tech companies are like octopuses — "every tentacle is a new set of products."
— Wikimedia Commons
Mark Zuckerberg, in 2005, as another rich kid at Harvard. See the movie The Social Network.
WEST WARWICK, R.I.
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’’
—Lord Acton (1834-1902), English Liberal Party politician, and writer.
For me the most remarkable thing about Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg’s appearance at a Los Angeles court, to answer questions about the addictive aspects of social media, was that he was there at 8:30 a.m. wearing a suit.
Sarah Wynn-Williams, in her excellent book about Facebook, Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed and Lost Idealism, said Zuckerberg doesn’t see anyone before noon because he has to sleep, having been up most of the night.
This had Wynn-Williams, who rose to head Facebook’s international relations team, sometimes telling heads of state that they would have to wait for the great man to alight from his bed at noon or later.
Zuckerberg could be uninterested or uninformed about the country from which he was trying to get favors for Facebook, she wrote. As Facebook had electorates in its thrall, countries’ leaders were prepared to defer to the sleeping titan.
This doesn’t mean that Zuckerberg is evil, but it does point to enormous self-regard. His sleeping routine is a de facto declaration: I am so rich and so powerful that I can command world leaders to rearrange their schedules to accommodate mine. They did, according to Wynn-Williams.
While the venerable observation by Lord Acton in 1887 is nearly always directed at politicians and autocrats, it is as true for billionaires and their companies.
More so with the tech gargantuans that are a force in the financial markets, a force in politics, and will control much of the future if their investments in artificial intelligence pay off. Among them are Meta (Facebook), Alphabet (Google), Amazon, Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, Tesla, Anthropic and OpenAI.
Another point, which Wynn-Williams made in her book, is that most of the heads of state whom Zuckerberg treated with minimal respect won’t be in power in 10 years, but Zuckerberg, who is 41, may be around for half a century. The long game is his, along with his colleague-companies and their CEOs, especially when they own a commanding amount of the stock, such as Tesla’s Elon Musk.
The impact of Big Tech as a lobbying force is apparent: Any CEO has access to the White House and is in turn cultivated by the White House. Congress has a permanent welcome mat out to Big Tech lobbyists – and their campaign contributions.
A more damaging impact might be what Big Tech does to new tech.
The biggies buy up every startup that looks as though it might become a mega company. All of the Big Tech companies are conglomerates, and history has shown that conglomerates discard unprofitable enterprises and favor the cash cows. Tech autocracy is no kinder than any other autocracy.
Startups are what keep America ahead of the world in tech, and they are keenly watched for any sign that they may grow into another agent of change. Whereas at the beginning of the tech boom successful startups headed for an initial public offering, now they calculate from the get-go which behemoth tech company will buy them. The circle is closed.
The big get bigger and the startup is absorbed into a giant organization, where it might prosper or whither. Either way it is out of reach, including regulatory reach. It is in the castle walls.
As we see with the fate of CBS and The Washington Post, Big Tech can play havoc with the media and our right to know what is going on. The money is so large that it is almost impossible for politicians not to seek the favor of the mighty techs and their Vesuvian cash flow.
The obverse of that is what they might do if they overreach, as they may be doing now with AI investments, and bring down the stock market.
Big Tech has showered us with wonders that can make life easier and fun for many, but there is a price. The price is that we have handed the future to a group of companies that, understandably, are interested in self-preservation first, as with all autocracy.
Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS and an international energy-sector consultant. His email is llewellynking1@gmail.com, and he’s based in Rhode Island.
Ready to return home?
“Bubble Gum, Camp Pinecliffe, Maine (1981),’’ by Gay Block, in the group show “Welcome Home,’’ at the Addison Gallery of American Art, at Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., March 3-July 31,
The gallery says about the show:
“What is home? How does it shape you? How do you shape it? Artists have long explored these difficult questions, capturing the idea of home and belonging in ways both tangible and abstract. Visitors are invited to ponder their own ideas of home in this exhibition curated by Phillips Academy students enrolled in ‘Art 400 Visual Culture: Curating the Addison Collection.’’’
Fidelity diving into crypto
Edited from a New England Council report
Fidelity Investments will soon launch the Fidelity Digital Dollar (FIDD), marking a significant expansion into the stablecoin market. The Boston-based financial-services giant will issue the digital currency through Fidelity Digital Assets, National Association, a national trust bank that received conditional approval from the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in December.
FIDD will be pegged one-to-one to the U.S. dollar and backed by reserves held in short-term Treasury securities and cash, managed by Fidelity Management & Research Company LLC. The stablecoin will be available to both retail and institutional investors through Fidelity’s digital asset platforms and on crypto exchanges.
“We believe stablecoins have the potential to serve as foundational payment and settlement instruments,” Mike O’Reilly, president of Fidelity Digital Assets, told Bloomberg. “Real-time settlement, 24/7, low-cost treasury management are all meaningful benefits that stablecoins can bring to both our retail and our institutional clients.”
Make it stand out
Ready for anything
“Crown Maker” (oil on canvas), by Taha Clayton, in his show “Historic Presence,’’ at the Hotchkiss School’s Tremaine Gallery, Lakeville, Conn., through April 5.
The gallery says:
The show “features Brooklyn-based artist Taha Clayton’s portraits inspired by the 1930s to 50s, honoring the resilience, joy, culture, and dignity of elders. The exhibition includes works in oil, charcoal and graphite, enhanced with props from the artist’s creative process. Through these intimate and powerful depictions, Clayton invites viewers to reflect on legacy, identity, and the enduring beauty found in everyday life.’’
‘Hopeful offering to a world in pain’
“Purple Neighborhood Decoration’’ (oil on panel), by Nick Benfey, in his show “Neighborhood,’’ at Moss Galleries, Falmouth, Maine, through April 11.
The artist says:
“Before I could drive a car, when I was about 13 or 14, I’d often walk from my friend’s house across our small town back to mine. Instead of going inside, I’d walk behind our house and stand by the garage. About 8 p.m., the sky deep blue or black depending on the season, my parents would be inside, maybe with friends over, talking. I’d stand there in the dirt next to the garage for a while, looking at the orange windows, breathing and not talking, a feeling of peace overtaking me. It was my secret that I’d do this, every time I walked home at night.
“Eventually I’d go inside and things would resume, the feeling wouldn’t last, I’d have to talk, I’d feel insecure and embarrassed again.
“That feeling is tied to these paintings, and I’m still unsure how to think about it, how to write about it, without feeling in some way guilty about relishing those memories of happiness. I hear another voice, With all the suffering in the world, you’re thinking about these trivial nostalgic… etc. It’s true, these are not paintings of the world’s sufferings. These are about joy, and peace, and quiet beauty, my inner world at the best moments of my life, a hopeful offering for a world in pain."
–Nick Benfey
Chris Powell: Teachers unions ready to take over Connecticut
“Dutch schoolmaster and children” (1662), by Adriaen van Ostade.
MANCHESTER, Conn.
For many years Connecticut's teacher unions ran a discreet political racket. Many of their members would hold teaching jobs in towns adjacent to the towns in which they lived and then seek municipal office in their home towns, particularly office on their local board of education. They were usually elected.
This arrangement -- working in one town, getting elected in another -- would mask a potential conflict of interest, wherein, as municipal officials, these board members would decide on or even negotiate contracts with a local affiliate of the statewide union to which they also belonged via their job in a neighboring town. Were board members most loyal to the public interest or to their union interest?
Since the connection of school board members to the union whose members get most money spent by school boards was seldom reported by news organizations, the question of primary loyalty was not posed in public forums. If it had been posed, it might have elicited a claim that the public interest and the union interest were identical. That might have been an interesting discussion.
The teacher unions racket is no longer discreet. For the Yankee Institute's Meghan Portfolio reported the other day that the state's largest teacher union, the Connecticut Education Association, now celebrates the racket. The union's December newsletter proclaims that in November's municipal elections 57 CEA members won elections in more than 45 towns, with only five of the union's candidates losing.
The CEA newsletter, Portfolio writes, “makes clear this was no spontaneous wave of civic participation. Candidates were guided through a union-run pipeline, including a formal questionnaire process and participation in the National Education Association's ‘See Educators Run' program."
The union threw its resources into its members' campaigns with e-mails, text messages, flyers, telephone calls, and door-to-door canvassing. Since name recognition and personal contact are the main deciders of most municipal elections, such electioneering is usually successful, especially since news coverage of school board elections, always skimpy, has vanished.
Indeed, the CEA may already have figured out that with just a little more effort it can gain control of every school board and town council in the state before people realize what is going on, there being no one left to tell them.
Of course this is only democratic politics in the era of local journalism's demise. Even people with the worst potential conflicts of interest have the right to run for public office, and special interests with access to big money, especially money derived from government, heavily influence if not control all sorts of political nominations and elections everywhere, though this is most pronounced with teacher unions’ power in the Democratic Party. Teacher union members typically constitute 10 percent of the party's national convention delegates.
But the special-interest influence in politics and government may be worst with teacher unions, since education is the prerequisite of democracy. Destroy education and you destroy democracy, and the trends in American education are terrible. Enrollments, student proficiency, and accountability are falling even as school costs keep rising, and civic engagement is collapsing along with journalism and literacy generally.
This is the perfect environment for special-interest control of government. No wonder the CEA, special interest No. 1, is celebrating.
College-student-loan debt remains a huge problem, so people may have welcomed the announcement last week that Connecticut's Student Loan Reimbursement Program has begun accepting applications for reimbursement of college student loan payments made in 2025.
Reimbursement of up to $5,000 per year is available to Connecticut residents who earned a degree in the state and are making $125,000 a year or less.
This isn't fair. It's really a bailout for the failure of higher education, which is grossly overpriced, long having awarded degrees of little use in making a living and having stuck its victims with debt that seriously impairs their lives or that, as with Connecticut's reimbursement program, is transferred to taxpayers, many of whom did not attend college or paid their own way.
It's another part of the education racket.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years (CPowell@cox.net).
Taste test
“The Crystal Gaze,’’ by Jodie Kain, in the group show “Delicate Balance,’’ at Galatea Fine Art, Boston, through March 1.
Llewellyn King: Washington press corps is swollen, but the news evades it
President Trump, Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi and Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche take questions in the White House Press Room last June.
WEST WARWICK, R.I.
The Trump administration — with the power of the White House being felt from the universities to the Kennedy Center — isn’t the only top-heavy institution in Washington. The media is top-heavy, too.
While state houses around the country go uncovered and local courts go about their business without the light of press scrutiny — a frightening reality — the White House and Congress have more general coverage than they have ever had.
The press briefings at the White House are tightly packed with more standing than sitting. Droves of reporters roam the halls of Congress.
Washington, in media terms, is a two-ring circus.
This doesn’t mean that either the administration or Congress is being better covered. Here, more is less.
The politics that bitterly divide the country have also crippled the old camaraderie between those who made the news and those who reported it.
In the Capitol, reporters thought to have strong political views are favored accordingly. The old repartee, the fun, has gone. Access, the coinage of Washington, is only for those who are subservient.
The White House is a daily pitched battle between the press in general and the administration. Information doesn’t change hands in that atmosphere.
The White House press staff, led by the gladiatorial Karoline Leavitt, abuses and baits the press. It responds with barbs. It’s “Saturday Night Live” every day of the week.
The trend of over-coverage of Washington has been building for a long time, but it has accelerated in Trump’s second term. From day one, it has been a news gusher, a Roman candle of shining, and some dark things, to write about.
Incessant coverage has also been stimulated by the maturing of technology, allowing fast delivery of the product with minimal cost. When the threshold of entry is low, many will avail themselves.
What is harder to get is the real news, what is really happening.
No more do reporters, as I did once, stroll though the West Wing. No more do high officials brief reporters confidentially. And, worse for governance, no more do members of the administration or Congress seek input from the media.
New Hampshire’s John Sununu, President George H.W. Bush’s chief of staff, once told me,“What you tell us is as valuable as what we tell you.” The exchange of information, once seen as vital, is no more.
One phenomenon of the new media ecosystem has been that magazines have started daily feeds, dedicated to what is or isn’t happening in Washington; and what has been triggered from Washington, like the unrest in Minneapolis.
Weekly magazines and a few monthlies are now reporting daily. They are an inbox coagulant. These include Newsweek, The Economist, The New Yorker, The Spectator, The Atlantic, The American Prospect and many others. Even Vanity Fair often files daily.
Add to these the British newspapers that now treat the United States as part of their universe. The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Daily Express, The Daily Mail and The Daily Mirror all have daily American news feeds and virtual editions.
Then there are the noncommissioned combatants, the bloggers, some of whom are favored by the White House and hold White House press passes. No wonder you can’t get a seat when Leavitt’s daily briefing is underway.
It is theater. It is the greatest daily show on earth. The jugglers and the clowns are at work, tossing and catching, and somersaulting. Catch Leavitt on the high wire. Watch CNN’s Kaitlin Collins try to bring her down.
This lack of communication from officialdom extends across the Washington spectrum. Television producers have tired of inviting Cabinet secretaries and members of Congress to come on their programs only to get talking points. That is one reason so much cable television consists of reporters talking about the news they covered or the news they chased but didn’t catch.
As the late Arnaud de Borchgrave, the world-traveling Newsweek correspondent, once told me,“When you and I were young reporters, we wanted to be foreign correspondents. Now everyone wants to cover politics.”
True, and good luck with that.
Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle, on PBS, and an international energy-sector consultant. His email is llewellynking1@gmail.com and he’s based in Rhode Island.
The Hub of Negativity
Rick Pitino
“I wish we could buy the world. We can’t; the only thing we can do is work hard, and all the negativity that’s in this town sucks. I’ve been around when Jim Rice was booed. I’ve been around when Yastrzemski was booed. And it stinks. It makes the greatest town, greatest city in the world, lousy."
— Rick Pitino, then Boston Celtics coach, on March 1, 2000.
Gay summer?
“Figures by a Fountain” (oil on canvas), by Walter Stuemfig , at the Lyman Allyn Art Museum, New London, Conn.
Amanda Seitz: Kennedy breaks some promises he made to get confirmed
Mumps, measles and rubella combined vaccine (MMR vaccine)
— Photo by Dctrzl
From Kaiser Family Foundation Health News (except image above)
“Kennedy can kill off access to vaccines and make millions of dollars while he does it. Kids might die, but Robert Kennedy can keep cashing in.”
— Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)
One year after taking charge of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hasn’t held true to many of the promises he made while appealing to U.S. senators concerned about the longtime anti-vaccine activist’s plans for the nation’s care.
Kennedy squeaked through a narrow Senate vote to be confirmed as head of the Department of Health and Human Services, only after making a number of public and private guarantees about how he would handle vaccine funding and recommendations as secretary.
Here’s a look at some of the promises Kennedy made during his confirmation process.
The Childhood Vaccine Schedule
In two hearings in January 2025, Kennedy repeatedly assured senators that he supported childhood vaccines, noting that all his children were vaccinated.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) grilled Kennedy about the money he’s made in the private sector from lawsuits against vaccine makers and accused him of planning to profit from potential future policies making it easier to sue.
“Kennedy can kill off access to vaccines and make millions of dollars while he does it,” Warren said during the Senate Finance Committee hearing. “Kids might die, but Robert Kennedy can keep cashing in.”
Warren’s statement prompted an assurance by Kennedy.
“Senator, I support vaccines,” he said. “I support the childhood schedule. I will do that.”
Days later, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, declared that Kennedy had pledged to maintain existing vaccine recommendations if confirmed. Cassidy, a physician specializing in liver diseases and a vocal supporter of vaccination, had questioned Kennedy sharply in a hearing about his views on shots.
“If confirmed, he will maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ recommendations without changes,” Cassidy said during a speech on the Senate floor explaining his vote for Kennedy.
A few months after he was confirmed, Kennedy fired all the incumbent members of the vaccine advisory panel, known as ACIP, and appointed new members, including several who, like him, oppose some vaccines. The panel’s recommendations soon changed drastically.
Last month, the CDC removed its universal recommendations for children to receive seven immunizations, those protecting against respiratory syncytial virus, meningococcal disease, flu, covid, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, and rotavirus. The move followed a memorandum from the White House calling on the CDC to cull the schedule.
Now, those vaccines, which researchers estimate have prevented thousands of deaths and millions of illnesses, are recommended by the CDC only for children at high-risk of serious illness or after consultation between doctors and parents.
In response to questions about Kennedy’s actions on vaccines over the past year, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said the secretary “continues to follow through on his commitments” to Cassidy.
“As part of those commitments, HHS accepted Chairman Cassidy’s numerous recommendations for key roles at the agency, retained particular language on the CDC website, and adopted ACIP recommendations,” Nixon added. “Secretary Kennedy talks to the chairman at a regular clip.”
Cassidy and his office have repeatedly rebuffed questions about whether Kennedy, since becoming secretary, has broken the commitments he made to the senator.
Vaccine Funding Axed
Weeks after Kennedy took over the federal health department, the CDC pulled back $11 billion in covid-era grants that local health departments were using to fund vaccination programs, among other initiatives.
That happened after Kennedy pledged during his confirmation hearings not to undermine vaccine funding.
Kennedy replied “Yes” when Cassidy asked him directly: “Do you commit that you will not work to impound, divert, or otherwise reduce any funding appropriated by Congress for the purpose of vaccination programs?”
A federal judge later ordered HHS to distribute the money.
The National Institutes of Health, part of HHS, also yanked dozens of research grants supporting studies of vaccine hesitancy last year. Kennedy, meanwhile, ordered the cancellation of a half-billion dollars’ worth of mRNA vaccine research in August.
A Discredited Theory About Autism
Cassidy said in his floor speech that he received a guarantee from Kennedy that the CDC’s website would not remove statements explaining that vaccines do not cause autism.
Technically, Kennedy kept his promise not to remove the statements. The website still says that vaccines do not cause autism.
But late last year, new statements sprung up on the same webpage, baselessly casting doubt on vaccine safety. “The claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism,” the page on autism now misleadingly reads.
The webpage also states that the public has largely ignored studies showing vaccines do cause autism.
That is false. Over decades of research, scientific studies have repeatedly concluded that there is no link between vaccines and autism.
A controversial 1998 study that captured global attention did link the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine to autism. It was retracted for being fraudulent — though not until a decade after it was published, during which there were sharp declines in U.S. vaccination rates.
Amanda Seitz: aseitz@kff.org, @AmandaSeitz
Hannah Norman: hannahn@kff.org, @hnorms
Related Topics
Profit center
“Never get in the way of an older car that needs extensive bodywork. Massachusetts is a no-fault insurance state and the other driver has nothing to lose.’’
— From WorcesterMass.com
National cross-section
From the show “August Sander’s People of the 20th Century,’’ at the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Conn., opening Feb. 27.
The show presents the fullest expression of the German photographer August Sander’s (1876-1964) career-long work: a monumental endeavor to amass an archive of 20th Century humanity through a cross-section of German culture.
