This week's public health roundup (Aug 7 edition)
CDC director confirmed, mRNA flu vaccine approved, a possible executive order on autism and vaccines, and more
Welcome to the Public Health Roundup! Every week I highlight my top 5 public health stories I think are worth your time… this week we’ve got a new CDC director, a new mRNA flu vaccine, a new virus made by AI, a possible executive order on autism and vaccines, and more.
Let’s dive in, and if you’d like to follow along, hit subscribe.
Schwartz confirmed as CDC director
After nearly a full year without a CDC director, Dr. Erica Schwartz was confirmed by the senate. While she has a track record of supporting vaccination, during her confirmation hearing she provided seemingly evasive answers to questions about them, such as avoiding directly answering whether she would refuse an order to stop promoting the flu vaccine. (RFK Jr. ordered the CDC to stop its ‘wild to mild’ campaign promoting flu vaccination in February 2025 during an especially deadly flu season.) Dr. Susan Monarez was the last CDC director who served in the position last summer for less than a month. She was fired by RFK Jr. over her refusal to accept his recommendations for vaccine advisors.
Rumors of an executive order on autism and vaccines
An insider source reports the White House may be considering an executive order on autism and vaccines. The president has reportedly been pushing RFK Jr. to make this topic a priority along with reducing the number of immunizations children in the United States receive. Recent reporting revealed RFK Jr. wanted to spend $5 billion, a tenth of the entire NIH budget, studying vaccines and autism, despite decades of research on the topic finding no link. The specifics and timing of the new executive order are unknown, but it could come as soon as next week. Read more from Reuters:
AI is now making new, real viruses
A new study in Science reports the creation of novel viruses using AI. The researchers fed AI existing viral genomes and then asked it to write new ones — and it succeeded. They report 16 functional, novel viruses with genomes written by AI. These viruses are bacteriophages, which infect bacteria, and don’t pose a threat to humans. However, biosecurity experts warn that governments and science organizations have not put sufficient guardrails in place to block the technology from being used to create deadly viruses. Read more from the New York Times:
mRNA vaccine for flu approved by FDA
After the FDA initially refused to review Moderna’s new mRNA flu vaccine, it has now received FDA approval for people 50 and older. This is the first mRNA-based vaccine for influenza and is anticipated to provide a significant advantage over prior flu vaccine technology, as it can be updated more quickly to match circulating flu strains. The new vaccine is expected to be available this upcoming flu season. Read more from NPR:
The trusted messengers public health is ignoring
This perspective piece dives into the world of influencers as trusted messengers and explores how they have achieved something traditional health communication has not: the ability to build trust at scale through sustained relationships. But many influencers don’t fit neatly within an ideal public health framework — they might support vaccination but also talk about drinking raw milk, for example. This piece argues that when public health rejects working with these trusted messengers because they are not 100% on board with all of evidence-based medicine, an opportunity is lost to reach the people who most need to be reached. Definitely worth the read:
That’s all for this week! If you enjoyed this roundup, subscribe below to get next week’s curated list in your inbox.
The Public Health Roundup is a newsletter created by Kristen Panthagani, MD, PhD, an emergency physician, health communicator, and author of the newsletter You Can Know Things. Subscribe to get the weekly roundup in your inbox.