RFK Jr. Pulled Flu Vaccine Ads Mid-Season, Emails Confirm

The Order Came Directly from the Secretary

In mid-February 2025, with flu season raging, CDC communications official Nicole Coffin sent an internal email to colleagues explaining that HHS communications chief Andrew Nixon had instructed the agency to "pull out of circulation all campaign ad buys related to flu or anything encouraging shots or vaccinations." The request, Coffin wrote, "came directly from the Secretary."

Another CDC official immediately flagged what should have been obvious to anyone with a pulse and a basic understanding of public health math. "Given that this is the worst flu season in years, halting a campaign currently in the field presents significant reputational risk to the agency," he warned in an email, also noting likely legal problems with existing contracts and appropriated funding. Nobody wanted to hear it.

The framing HHS offered in place of actual vaccination encouragement? "Informed consent" messaging. Which sounds reasonable until you realize they were applying it to flu shots during a flu crisis, at the specific direction of a man who has spent decades suggesting vaccines are more dangerous than advertised. A campaign called "Wild to Mild" was paused immediately. Another called "Get My Flu Shot" was allowed to survive, at least for the moment.

He Didn't Care Which Members. He Just Wanted Them Gone.

The flu ad story is bad. The Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices story is worse. Kennedy removed all 17 members of ACIP, the panel that makes vaccine recommendations for the country, and the internal emails show exactly how that decision was made.

Before the purge went public, a Kennedy aide drafted a memo noting that ACIP only had one vacancy after 2024, with new openings not coming until 2027. The conclusion: Biden appointees would have "significant sway" over the committee until 2028. According to CBS News, meeting notes from an internal CDC discussion summarized Kennedy's position bluntly: "Secretary wants to replace 10 members on the ACIP committee. He has a bench of 10 ready to replace. He doesn't care which members."

Let that land for a second. He didn't care which members. Not about their qualifications, their research records, their expertise in immunology or pediatric medicine. He had a list. He wanted them in. The existing scientists were an obstacle.

Ultimately he didn't stop at 10. Kennedy removed all of them, writing in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that "a clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science." His replacements included close allies, members of his own inner circle, people with histories of criticizing vaccine safety, and at least one person who said he had previously invested in a vaccine. A federal judge ruled in March that the whole operation was unlawful. HHS appealed.

Nothing Gets Out Without Political Sign-Off

In mid-August 2025, a senior HHS aide emailed then-CDC Director Susan Monarez to stress the "absolute need for political review of major policy decisions at CDC." The email instructed Monarez to ensure a Kennedy adviser and her own chief of staff reviewed "any major policy decision coming out of CDC before changes occur." She was told to "err on the side of caution" when deciding what qualified as major.

Eight days later, Monarez was fired. She had been Senate-confirmed less than a month before her ouster, though she'd been leading the CDC in an acting capacity before that. Several other top officials resigned at the same time, including chief medical officer Dr. Debra Houry, who is the source of the emails Senate Democrats released Thursday, and Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who had led the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

Monarez later wrote in her own Wall Street Journal op-ed that Kennedy had called her into a meeting and pressured her to resign or face termination. She also testified to the Senate that in the weeks before her firing, Kennedy pressured her to pre-approve upcoming changes to the childhood vaccination schedule and to commit to firing CDC scientists. When she refused, she said, Kennedy told her he had already made his decision.

Sanders Says It Out Loud

The emails were formally released by Democrats on the Senate HELP Committee, with ranking member Bernie Sanders leading the charge. Sanders argued the documents show Kennedy "prioritized politics over public health, ignored expert guidance, and endangered people, particularly children." CBS News reports it reached out to HHS for comment.

The emails span from the earliest days of the administration through last August's leadership purge at the CDC. They paint a picture of an agency under sustained pressure to subordinate scientific judgment to the ideological preferences of a cabinet secretary who built his career on vaccine skepticism and is now in charge of the agencies that make vaccine policy for 340 million people.