As the calendar year comes to an end, the Trump administration continues its campaign against science. Since January 20th, 2025, there have been 536 attacks on science—actions, decisions, and policies that sideline, undermine, or ignore the best available science in federal policy and decision-making.
This is an undeniable pattern, an onslaught on science that follows a structured strategy from the Project 2025 playbook.
As I’ve said each month, this is not a comprehensive rundown of the Trump administration’s systemic and methodical attack on the federal scientific enterprise. But if you’ve been following my monthly reviews, you’ll see that the total number of attacks continue to climb month over month.
If this feels overwhelming, that’s understandable—but you’re not alone. There are many individuals, communities, and organizations (like UCS!) who are continuing to advocate for science and democracy amid this authoritarian threat. If you want to help us, check out the resources I’ve included at the bottom of this page.
Here are a few of the significant attacks on science we’ve tracked during November.
Shots in the dark
Throughout November, multiple incidents have come to light showing how federal health agencies have attacked the science behind vaccine safety, development, and efficacy. This is, unfortunately, a result of deliberate actions by Trump administration officials, who have brought in anti-science influence and conflicts of interest that distort and derail the decision-making process. Practically, this manifests as vaccine denialism, conspiracy theory endorsement, and ableism, overruling the scientific evidence and the public interest that should shape these decisions. It puts all of our health and safety at risk.
One example includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) changing scientifically-informed guidance on their “Autism and Vaccines” webpage. This new language questions the longstanding empirical evidence that says there is no connection between vaccines and autism. Shortly after, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), claimed that he directed CDC officials to change the language on the webpage himself.
You read that right: a political appointee who is not a scientist of any kind, with a history of peddling anti-vaccine conspiracies and a record of conflicts of interest, directed changes to a federal health agency webpage, changes that defy the best available vaccine science or guidance from recommendations by agency scientists, and instead reflect his demonstrably false anti-vaccine beliefs.
ProPublica recently uncovered how the Indian Health Services (IHS), another subagency of HHS, has been impacted by political interference related to vaccinations similar to what we’ve seen imposed on the CDC, the National Institutes of Health, and the National Cancer Institute. In these other three agencies, we’ve seen the Trump administration pull the funding rug out from under vaccine-related studies, bury agency reports on the need for vaccinations, and censor federal scientists’ external messaging on vaccines and autism (among other topics).
ProPublica’s investigation found that at IHS, words related to vaccination were flagged as needing additional review before being used in external messaging. At the same time, agency messaging downplayed the importance of vaccines, and less information was shared about upcoming vaccination clinics. Whether these changes are associated with less vaccine uptake in Native communities is not yet known.
And in a separate investigation, reporters at News of the United States (NOTUS) recently uncovered that Vaccines.gov, which was created to help users find nearby places to receive vaccinations, is no longer usable. Confirming NOTUS’ article, I was not able to find any nearby pharmacies or clinics when I typed my zip code into the search feature. And as we saw reported about IHS, NOTUS documents changes to the Vaccines.gov website that ultimately de-emphasize the importance and efficacy of vaccinations.
An appointee at another HHS subagency, the Food and Drug Administration, has threatened changes that would make approving new vaccines for widespread use more difficult. This same official has also, on two separate occasions, overturned agency scientists’ decisions on COVID-19 vaccinations. Unfortunately, this is just another example of a political official interfering in federal scientists’ work and expertise, at a real cost to our ability to stay healthy and trust information that comes from our government.
A broader assault
These attacks on vaccines are taking place against the backdrop of a broader campaign targeting public health and safety policies throughout the year. To name a few:
- The administration has gutted federally funded research on vaccine safety, efficacy, and uptake, and have tagged related studies as “not aligned with administration priorities.” As a result, this has paused or permanently stopped research studies that were working to, for example, expand vaccine technology and facilitate vaccinations among vulnerable populations (like pregnant people), and will also make it harder for such studies to receive federal funding into the future.
- Simultaneously, the administration has started its own research initiatives to study anti-vaccine theories that have been famously and repeatedly debunked.
- There are now multiple people with a record of attacking science and promoting misinformation who now hold decision-making power, or who are leading federal research projects on vaccines and autism, in HHS or its subagencies. This includes the federal advisory committee whose historical purpose has been to make scientifically-informed recommendations to federal health agencies on vaccine doses and scheduling. Instead, Secretary Kennedy dismissed all experts on this committee and filled it with well-known vaccine skeptics, who have, at least on one occasion, created confusion around how people can access different vaccines, and barriers that made it more difficult to receive them.
And to add further context, this is all occurring during the worst outbreak of measles, a vaccine-preventable disease, since 2000 (25 years ago). Measles vaccinations have saved tens of millions of lives.
It’s a scary reality: people appointed to lead public health institutions (that used to benefit from very high public trust) are cutting federal support for critical public health studies, making it more difficult for people to receive preventative care, and systemically “injecting” doubt into the well-established scientific consensus behind vaccine safety and efficacy.
The science on this is very clear: vaccines are very safe and help protect us, our loved ones, and our communities from disease, including severe seasonal illnesses like the flu, COVID, and RSV. These vaccinations are especially important to people who are more vulnerable to getting really sick, like children, older adults, and people with compromised immune systems. And in certain cases, vaccines greatly minimize the chance of contracting some diseases at all. The success and safety of vaccines are the reason why so few of us have personal experience with deadly diseases like smallpox, measles, and polio.
Vaccines have been accessible to the public, safe to use, and effective because of funding and resources from the federal government. It’s critical for public health and safety that they continue to be accessible and safe to the public. But political interference in federal research studies, programs, and messaging, based on fabrications and conspiracy theories, will only continue to undermine public health.
And if it weren’t bad enough that the Trump administration is using politics to sow confusion and limit access to lifesaving vaccines, the administration is also seeking to limit your access to healthcare providers.
Science protects us all—and needs to be protected
Although these actions paint a scary picture, there are ways to come together and advocate for evidence-based policy in the federal government, including protecting the science behind the safety and effectiveness of vaccinations. What we need are protections against political interference in federal science, things like federal agency scientific integrity policies that the Trump administration are rescinding.
The Scientific Integrity (SI) Act would go a long way to prevent this interference. It would better prevent political appointees or elected officials from gutting programs and studies that don’t align with the current administration’s priorities, like vaccines. It would make scientific integrity protections universal across all federal agencies that fund, conduct, and oversee scientific work; in practice, this would codify explicit protections for federal scientists and their work against censorship, retaliation, and interference. Currently, the SI Act has bipartisan support in the House of Representatives, but it needs more cosponsors. If you want to help us codify protections for federal scientists and their work into law, please urge your members of Congress to co-sponsor the SI Act. You can contact your Representative easily using this link.