People demonstrate outside the main campus of the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention on April 1, 2025 in Atlanta, Georgia. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. laid off thousands of employees across multiple agencies on April 1, as part of an overhaul announced in March. (Photo by Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images)

A coalition of Democratic state officials sued the Trump administration Tuesday over plans to cut more than $11 billion in grants by the Department of Health and Human Services, on the same day thousands of HHS workers reportedly found they’d been swept up in a mass layoff.

In Washington, the Republican chairman and top Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee wrote HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. asking him to appear before the panel and discuss his plans for the massive agency.

The federal suit, signed by 22 attorneys general and two Democratic governors, alleges Kennedy revoked, without warning, billions in grant funding appropriated by Congress during the COVID-19 pandemic, starting last week. That led to states scrambling to adjust plans for vaccination efforts, infectious disease prevention, mental health programs and more.

The sudden and chaotic rollout of the grant cuts foreshadowed a scene at HHS offices, including at big campuses in Maryland, on Tuesday morning. Termination notices to laid-off workers were reportedly emailed early Tuesday, but many workers did not see them before arriving at the office and finding out they’d lost their jobs when their key cards did not work.

Few specifics

Both the mass layoffs and the grant funding cuts challenged in the lawsuit stem from Kennedy’s March 27 announcement that the department would be “realigning,” by shuttering several offices and cutting 10,000 workers.

It was unclear Tuesday exactly what offices or employees were affected.

An HHS spokesperson responded to a request for comment by referring States Newsroom to Kennedy’s announcement, a press release and an accompanying fact sheet from March 27.

None provided a detailed breakdown but laid out plans to eliminate 3,500 full-time positions at the Food and Drug Administration, 2,400 employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1,200 staff at the National Institutes of Health and 300 workers at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The spokesperson did not respond to a follow-up inquiry requesting more details of the positions eliminated and other clarifications.

Efficiency doubted

In a written statement, Andrés Arguello, a policy fellow at Groundwork Collective, a think tank focused on economic equity, said the cuts would have “the exact opposite” effect of the administration’s stated goal of government efficiency.

“Gutting 10,000 public servants means higher costs, longer wait times, and fewer services for families already struggling with the rising cost of living,” Arguello, an HHS deputy secretary under former President Joe Biden, wrote. “Entire offices that support child care, energy assistance, and mental health treatment are being dismantled, leaving working families with fewer options and bigger bills. This isn’t streamlining—it’s abandonment, and the price will be paid by the sick, the vulnerable, and the poor.”

The lack of communication led to confusion among advocates and state and local health workers about the impacts of the staff cuts and cast doubt about the administration’s goals, speakers on a Tuesday press call said.

“There are so many more questions than answers right now,” Sharon Gilmartin, the executive director of Safe States Alliance, an anti-violence advocacy group, said. “They clearly are eliminating whole divisions and branches, which doesn’t speak to bureaucratic streamlining. It speaks to moving forward an agenda, which has not been elucidated for the public health community, it’s not been elucidated for the public.”

While specific consequences of the cuts were not yet known, Gilmartin and others said they would be felt at the state and local level.

“I think what we do know is that … when we’re cutting these positions at the federal level, we are cutting work in states and communities,” Gilmartin said.

Pain in the states

The lawsuit from Democratic officials is full of details about the impacts of the loss of federal funding on state programs.

The suit was brought in Rhode Island federal court by the attorneys general of Colorado, Rhode Island, California, Minnesota, Washington, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon and Wisconsin and Govs. Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.

HHS revoked “more than half a billion dollars” of grants from Pennsylvania, the Democratic officials said, affecting more than 150 state employees and contracted staff. The grants funded work “to respond to and mitigate the spread of infectious disease across the Commonwealth” and mental health and substance abuse programs.

In Nevada, “HHS abruptly terminated at least six grants” that had funded epidemiology and lab capacity, immunization access and mental health services, according to the suit.

“These terminations led Nevada to immediately terminate 48 state employees and to order contractors working under these awards to immediately cease all activity,” the complaint reads. “The loss of funding will have substantial impacts on public health in Nevada.”

The cutoff of $13 million in unobligated grants for local communities in Minnesota will mean the shuttering of clinics to provide vaccines for COVID-19, measles, mumps, rubella, influenza and other diseases, the suit said.

“One local public health agency reported that it held 21 childhood vaccination clinics and provided approximately 1,400 vaccinations to children in 2024,” a paragraph in the complaint about Minnesota local vaccine clinics said. “It also held 87 general vaccination clinics in 2024. As a result of the termination of the … funds, it has immediately ceased all vaccination clinics for 2025.”

The grant terminations also affected state plans already in the works.

Rhode Island had received an extension from HHS for a grant with $13 million unspent, but that money was revoked last week.

“Accordingly, the state public health department developed a workplan for its immunization program that included an April 2025 vaccination clinic for seniors, provided salaries for highly trained technicians to ensure that vaccine doses are stored and refrigerated correctly to prevent waste of vaccines purchased with other tax-payer dollars, planned computer system upgrades, and covered printing costs for communications about vaccine campaigns,” the suit said.

Senators want RFK Jr. on the Hill

Democrats on Capitol Hill issued a slew of statements opposing the cuts and warning of their effects.

Republicans were more deferential to the administration, asking for patience as details of the cuts are revealed.

But the letter from the top members of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee also brought both sides together to write Kennedy asking him to testify before the committee to make those explanations plain.

“The hearing will discuss your proposed reorganization of the Department of Health and Human Services,” the letter from Louisiana Republican Bill Cassidy and Vermont independent Bernie Sanders said.

In a written statement, Cassidy said the hearing would be an opportunity for Kennedy to inform the public about the reorganization.

“The news coverage on the HHS reorg is being set by anonymous sources and opponents are setting the perceptions,” Cassidy said in a written statement. “In the confirmation process, RFK committed to coming before the committee on a quarterly basis. This will be a good opportunity for him to set the record straight and speak to the goals, structure and benefits of the proposed reorganization.”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of Health and Human Services, testifies during his Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Jan. 29, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration announced a sweeping plan Thursday to restructure the Department of Health and Human Services by cutting an additional 10,000 workers and closing down half of its 10 regional offices.

The overhaul will affect many of the agencies that make up HHS, including the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. HHS overall will be downsized from a full-time workforce of 82,000 to 62,000, including those who took early retirement or a buyout offer.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. released a written statement along with the announcement, saying the changes would benefit Americans.

“We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic,” Kennedy said. “This Department will do more — a lot more — at a lower cost to the taxpayer.”  

The U.S. Senate voted to confirm Kennedy as the nation’s top public health official in mid-February.

Democrats immediately reacted with deep concern.

Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., said that she was “stunned at the lack of thought about what they are doing to the American public and their health.”

Murray said the committee, which controls about one-third of all federal spending, “absolutely” has an oversight role to play in tracking HHS actions.

Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin, the top Democrat on the Appropriations subcommittee that funds HHS, said she believes HHS has overstepped its authority and expects the panel will look into its actions.

“These individuals who are going to be terminated under this plan play vital roles in the health of Wisconsinites and people nationally,” Baldwin said. “And I believe that they do not have the authority, the Trump administration does not have the authority to do this wholesale reorganization without working with Congress.”

Maryland Democratic Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, whose constituents in suburban Washington likely hold many of the jobs in question, wrote in a statement the HHS’ restructuring plans are “dangerous and deadly.”

“I warned America that confirming RFK Jr. would be a mistake,” Alsobrooks wrote. “His blatant distrust of science and disregard for research and advancement makes him completely unqualified.”

Cuts across department

The announcement says reorganizing HHS will cut its $1.7 trillion annual budget by about $1.8 billion, in part, by lowering overall staff levels.

Staffing cuts will be spread out over HHS and several of the agencies it oversees. The restructuring plans to eliminate 3,500 full-time workers at the FDA, 2,400 employees at the CDC, 1,200 staff at the NIH and 300 workers at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

“The consolidation and cuts are designed not only to save money, but to make the organization more efficient and more responsive to Americans’ needs, and to implement the Make America Healthy Again goal of ending the chronic disease epidemic,” according to a fact sheet.

Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, or HELP, Committee Chairman Bill Cassidy, R-La., wrote in a statement that he looks “forward to hearing how this reorganization furthers these goals.”

“I am interested in HHS working better, such as lifesaving drug approval more rapidly, and Medicare service improved,” Cassidy wrote.

Regional offices, divisions affected

HHS did not immediately respond to a request from States Newsroom about which five of its 10 regional offices would shutter or when those closures would take effect.

Its website shows the offices are located in Boston; New York City; Philadelphia; Atlanta; Chicago; Dallas; Kansas City, Missouri; Denver; San Francisco; and Seattle.

HHS plans to reduce its divisions from 28 to 15 while also establishing the Administration for a Healthy America, or AHA.

That new entity will combine the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health, Health Resources and Services Administration, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

That change will “improve coordination of health resources for low-income Americans and will focus on areas including, Primary Care, Maternal and Child Health, Mental Health, Environmental Health, HIV/AIDS, and Workforce development. Transferring SAMHSA to AHA will increase operational efficiency and assure programs are carried out because it will break down artificial divisions between similar programs,” according to the announcement.

HHS will roll the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response into the CDC.

The department plans to create a new assistant secretary for enforcement, who will be responsible for work within the Departmental Appeals Board, Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals and Office for Civil Rights.

House speaker says HHS is ‘bloated’

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., posted on social media that he fully backed the changes in store for HHS.

​​”HHS is one of the most bureaucratic and bloated government agencies,” Johnson wrote. “@SecKennedy is bringing new, much-needed ideas to the department by returning HHS to its core mission while maintaining the critical programs it provides Americans.”

Advocates shared Democrats’ concern about the staff cutbacks.

Stella Dantas, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, released a statement saying the organization was “alarmed by the sudden termination of thousands of dedicated HHS employees, whose absence compounds the loss of thousands of fellow employees who have already been forced to leave U.S. health agencies.”

“Thanks to collaboration with HHS, ACOG has been able to contribute to advances in the provision of maternal health care, broadened coverage of critical preventive care, increased adoption of vaccines, raised awareness of fetal alcohol syndrome, strengthened STI prevention efforts, and more,” Dantas wrote. “This attack on public health—and HHS’ ability to advance it—will hurt people across the United States every single day.”

A woman receives a flu vaccination at a recent clinic in Cambridge, Mass., conducted by health care providers from the Cambridge Health Alliance. Flu-related deaths are at a seven-year high as vaccination levels fall, according to a Stateline analysis. (Courtesy of the City of Cambridge)

As vaccine skepticism gains a greater foothold in the Trump administration and some statehouses, some Americans may already be paying the price, with deaths from influenza on the rise.

Flu-related deaths hit a seven-year high in January and February, the two months that usually account for the height of flu season, according to a Stateline analysis of preliminary federal statistics. There were about 9,800 deaths across the country, up from 5,000 in the same period last year and the most since 2018, when there were about 10,800.

Despite that, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has canceled or postponed meetings to prepare for next fall’s flu vaccine, when experts talk about what influenza strains they expect they’ll be battling.

The cancellations raised protests from medical professionals and state and federal officials. U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat, said in a statement that her state is having its worst flu season in at least 15 years, with more deaths from flu and other causes as the state’s health care system struggles under the strain of flu patients.

Some experts say putting off vaccine planning will only feed false narratives that discourage lifesaving vaccinations.

“These delays not only weaken pandemic preparedness but also undermine public confidence in vaccination efforts,” said Dr. Akram Khan, an Oregon pulmonologist and associate professor at Oregon Health & Science University who has studied attitudes toward vaccines.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. has expressed doubt about the need for vaccines, including flu vaccines, despite evidence that they reduce deaths and hospitalizations.

Deaths fluctuate naturally from year to year depending on the severity of current flu strains and the effectiveness of that year’s vaccines. But some see a hesitancy to use any vaccine, fed by misinformation and political mistrust of government, already taking a toll on lives.

“It’s been a bad winter for viral respiratory infections, not just in the United States but across the Northern Hemisphere,” said Mark Doherty, a vaccine scholar and former manager for GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, a vaccine manufacturer.

“The U.S. does appear to be hit a bit harder, and it’s possible lower vaccination coverage is contributing to that,” Doherty said.

Flu vaccine distribution in the United States has been declining in recent years, and as of the first week of 2025 was down 16% from 2022, according to federal statistics.

The flu was a factor in 9,800 deaths in January and February, according to the analysis, using provisional data collected by states and compiled by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The highest death rates were in Oklahoma, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Kentucky, all at about four deaths per 100,000 population so far this year. Some counties in Florida, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, as well as Oklahoma and Kentucky, were even higher — at about six deaths per 100,000.

The highest rates have been among older people. Statistics show the deaths hit white people and American Indians especially hard.

Tragedies are happening across the country to people of all ages and races, however. A 43-year-old Indiana father died after a brief bout of the flu, according to family members. After two 10-year-olds died in Prince George’s County, Maryland, area schools drew crowds to vaccine clinics.

Doug Sides, a pastor at Yulee Baptist Church in northern Florida, has held funerals for three congregation members who died from flu — all within one month, all of them over 70 years old. That compares with only one victim of COVID-19 from his congregation during the pandemic, he said.

“Flu death is a reality,” Sides told Stateline on a phone call from a Jacksonville hospital, where he was visiting another 84-year-old congregation member who was rescued from her home with severe pneumonia from an unknown cause.

“I encourage my church members to keep their hands clean, use hand sanitizer and to stay home if they’re feeling sick,” he said. He said he hasn’t personally gotten a flu vaccine recently because he gets conflicting advice about it — some doctors tell him to avoid them because he and some family members have cancer, while another “rides me all the time about getting a flu shot.”

“We’re all getting conflicting advice. We’re living in strange-o times,” he said. (The American Cancer Society says vaccination for people with cancer may or may not be recommended depending on individual circumstances.)

Many states are relaxing vaccine requirements as public skepticism rises. But many are taking action to warn residents and reassure them that vaccinations are safe and can help prevent deaths, despite misinformation to the contrary.

Burlington County, New Jersey, has had the highest flu-associated death rate of any county this year, according to the analysis, with 31 deaths among fewer than 500,000 people. The county held 30 free vaccine clinics from September to January, then extended them into February because of the severity of the flu season, said Dave Levinsky, a spokesperson for the county health department.

In Oklahoma, death rates are highest in the eastern part of the state where the Cherokee Nation is centered. A state publicity campaign stresses that flu shots are safe, effective and free at many community health centers. However, vaccination rates in the state are low compared with other states as of December, according to federal statistics: Only about 16% of Oklahoma residents had gotten flu vaccinations by then. Rates were even lower in Louisiana (just under 16%), Mississippi (12%) and Texas (10%).

States with the highest flu vaccination rates by December were Maine (37%), Connecticut and Vermont (33%), and Wisconsin and Minnesota (31%). But even those were down since 2022.

People have become less likely to get vaccinated in recent years, a phenomenon researchers call “vaccine hesitancy.”

A report published last year in the medical journal Cureus found three-quarters of patients in a rural New York state community refused flu vaccine with comments such as “I do not trust vaccines” or “I do not believe in vaccines.” The most common reasons cited were that earlier vaccinations made them feel sick, that they got the flu anyway, or that they thought they shouldn’t need a new shot every year. (Doctors recommend flu vaccinations annually and note that even vaccinated patients who get the flu usually face less severe forms.)

And in a paper published in February in the journal Vaccine, researchers found that people refuse flu vaccinations for many of the same reasons they refused COVID-19 shots: a feeling of “social vulnerability” that leads to distrust of government and medical guidance. One hopeful sign, the report noted, is that vaccine recommendations from trusted health care professionals can turn around such attitudes.

“Unfortunately, vaccine hesitancy is deeply entangled with misinformation, political rhetoric and public distrust,” said Khan, the Oregon pulmonologist and the study’s author. “Scientific data alone may not be enough to shift public perceptions, as many vaccine decisions are driven by gut feelings and external influences rather than evidence.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

A nurse administers a measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to a patient in Utah. More states are loosening vaccine mandates, scaling back vaccine promotion efforts and taking other steps that likely will lower vaccination rates. (Photo by George Frey/Getty Images)

More states are loosening vaccine mandates, scaling back vaccine promotion efforts and taking other steps likely to lower vaccination rates — even as a major measles outbreak spreads in Texas.

Meanwhile, public health experts worry that the confirmation of vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services could add fuel to such efforts, leading to the resurgence of long-tamed infectious diseases. Kennedy has made numerous baseless or false claims about vaccines, including linking them to autism and cancer and saying there is “poison” in the coronavirus vaccine.

This week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which Kennedy now oversees, canceled the upcoming meeting of a scientific panel that was slated to discuss next year’s flu vaccines. Also this week, an unvaccinated child died of measles in Texas — the country’s first measles death in a decade. The outbreak, which has spilled into neighboring New Mexico, has now grown to more than 130 cases.

Already, vaccination rates are lower than they were before the pandemic. The COVID-19 vaccines saved millions of lives, but many Americans bristled at vaccine mandates, and disinformation and rapidly evolving public health advice undermined many people’s trust in scientific authorities.

Changing attitudes have had an impact: Vaccination rates among children born in 2020 and 2021 declined by between 1.3 and 7.8 percentage points for recommended shots, compared with children born in 2018 and 2019, according to a September report by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The anti-vaccination trend is “the antithesis of public health,” Dr. Scott Rivkees, a pediatric endocrinologist who served as Florida’s surgeon general and health secretary from 2019 to 2021, told Stateline.

“The role of people in departments of health and the role of people in health care and medicine is to promote health and make sure the public is safe,” Rivkees told Stateline. “There’s such a rich history of legal precedent, such a rich history of public health precedent, saying that society benefits by having individuals vaccinated.”

In all 50 states plus the District of Columbia, children must receive certain vaccines to attend school. Every state offers an exemption for children who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons. Thirty states plus the district allow families to skip the vaccinations for religious reasons, 13 states grant exemptions for religious or personal reasons, and two states — Louisiana and Minnesota — don’t require people to specify whether their objection is religious or personal.

Five states — California, Connecticut, Maine, New York and West Virginia — don’t allow nonmedical exemptions.

Republican officials in more than a dozen states have introduced legislation to loosen vaccine rules or otherwise reduce their use.

Legislation in Arizona would make it easier to claim a school exemption, while GOP-sponsored bills in Connecticut, Minnesota, New York and Oregon would limit or prohibit vaccine mandates for adults.

As childhood immunization rates fall, Wisconsin urges families to get kids vaccinated

In Idaho, a Senate panel last week debated a bill that would ban mRNA vaccines, including COVID-19 vaccines, for a decade. Montana and Mississippi lawmakers considered but defeated similar proposals. And in West Virginia — one of the five states that currently does not allow nonmedical exemptions to school vaccine requirements — lawmakers are advancing a bill that would allow religious and philosophical objections.

“Public health will always, to some extent, involve politics, because it requires resources,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Offit serves on the FDA panel that was supposed to discuss next year’s flu vaccines.

“But it doesn’t have to be partisan, which is what has happened.”

A shift in Louisiana

Earlier this month, Dr. Ralph Abraham, Louisiana’s first-ever surgeon general, sent a memo to staff at the Louisiana Department of Health saying they should no longer recommend that Louisianans get “any and all vaccines.” The memo also said the agency will “no longer promote mass vaccination.” Instead, Abraham said, health workers should encourage residents to discuss the risks and benefits of vaccines with their doctors.

The memo puts an end to the Louisiana health department’s robust history of promoting vaccinations through local public health departments, community health fairs and media campaigns.

“Vaccines should be treated with nuance, recognizing differences between seasonal vaccines and childhood immunizations, which are an important part of providing immunity to our children. … Getting vaccinated, like any other health procedure, is an individual’s personal choice,” the memo states.

The agency did not respond to multiple requests for comment via email and phone call. But in a letter posted to the department’s website earlier this month, Abraham wrote that the state had made several missteps during the pandemic, including: promoting “inaccurate and inconsistent guidance on masking, poor decisions to close schools, unjustifiable mandates on civil liberties, and false claims regarding natural immunity.”

Abraham wrote that vaccinations can be good for some, but can be harmful for others, and that for decades public health has been driven by an ideology that “the sacrifice of a few is acceptable and necessary for the ‘greater good.’”

“We should reject this utilitarian approach and restore medical decision-making to its proper place: between doctors and patients,” he wrote.

Louisiana Republican lawmakers have embraced this sentiment, saying that after the COVID-19 pandemic, they want to see less government involvement in vaccinations.

“I’m pleased that Dr. Abraham has taken this approach,” said Republican state Rep. Kathy Edmonston, who last year authored laws prohibiting Louisiana schools from requiring COVID-19 vaccinations and mandating that they provide exemption information to parents. “I’m not against vaccinations. He’s not against vaccinations. I’m for people being able to make up their own mind.”

Jill Hines, co-director of Health Freedom Louisiana, a group that opposes vaccine mandates, dismissed the significance of ending mass vaccination campaigns, because “everybody should have a primary care physician if they want one, and nobody is really denied access to a vaccine.”

But Kimberly Hood, former assistant secretary of the Louisiana Office of Public Health, noted that the state is largely rural, and many residents don’t have easy access to a health care provider.

“Failing to promote vaccination may not sound like a huge deal, but it actually invalidates what we in public health have seen and learned for many, many years, which is that you have to make it easy, affordable, accessible,” Hood told Stateline.

“It’s not just stepping away from vaccination; we’re stepping away from our kind of obligation together, what it means to live together in a society.”

Staying the course in Mississippi

But in neighboring Mississippi, which is also Republican-dominated, GOP leaders are staying the course — at least so far. More than two dozen anti-vaccine bills have died in the Mississippi legislature in the past two years, including this year’s proposed ban on mRNA vaccines.

The state struggled with COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy during the pandemic, and in 2022 Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed into law a measure banning COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

But for years, Mississippi maintained one of the highest childhood vaccination rates in the nation. The state slipped from first to third between 2023 and 2024, after a federal judge ruled that the state must allow religious exemptions. Its current childhood vaccination rate is 97.5%, well above the 91% national average but lower than the 99.3% rate it had in 2019.

“Our law is still in effect, and if you don’t have a medical or religious exemption, then you must be fully vaccinated to attend school or go to day care in Mississippi,” said Dr. Daniel Edney, Mississippi’s state health officer. “The science is clear and in Mississippi we stand on the science.”

Edney said he hasn’t faced any political pressure to reverse course. Unlike in Louisiana, where Republican Gov. Jeff Landry tapped Abraham — a former three-term Republican congressman who co-chaired his transition committee — as surgeon general, Edney was selected by the 11-member Mississippi State Board of Health. The governor chooses the members of that panel, but they serve staggered four-year terms.

“I have zero pressure from the governor or legislative leadership regarding our approach to vaccines,” Edney told Stateline. “We’re not focused on politics. We don’t blow in the wind based on what administration is in power.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Reading Time: < 1 minute

Recent peer-reviewed studies connect water fluoridation with less dental decay in children.

A Feb. 4 post on a Wisconsin section of Reddit raised the issue. 

The post alluded to a pediatrician’s 2019 statement that dental infections increased significantly after Calgary, Alberta, ended fluoridation in 2011.

Calgary aims to reintroduce fluoridation by March 2025.

In a 2021 study Canadian researchers found that seven years after Calgary ended fluoridation, 65% of Calgary second grade children had cavities, versus 55% in Edmonton, Alberta, which fluoridated.

Canadian researchers in 2024 reported more occurrences of general anesthesia dental treatments among children in non-fluoridated communities.

Israeli researchers in 2024 found treatment of dental problems among children doubled after Israel stopped fluoridation.

The American Dental Association and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control support fluoridation.

U.S. Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. has advocated for ending fluoridation.

About 84% of Wisconsinites had fluoridated water in 2024, down from 87% in 2022, as more communities stopped fluoridating water systems.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Reddit: Sunnysideup2day post
• Canadian Broadcasting Corp.: 'Children are suffering' as Calgary's 60+ year fluoride debate drags on, bioethicist says
• Minnesota Star Tribune: RFK Jr. says fluoride ‘is on its way out.’ Here’s why Minnesota uses it, and what the risks are.
• City of Calgary: Fluoride in Calgary's water
• Canadian Journal of Public Health: Community water fluoride cessation and rate of caries-related pediatric dental treatments under general anesthesia in Alberta, Canada
• Community Dentistry and Oral Epidemiology journal: Fluoridation cessation and children’s dental caries: A 7‐year follow‐up evaluation of Grade 2 schoolchildren in Calgary and Edmonton, Canada
• Israel Journal of Health Policy Research: The effect of cessation of drinking water fluoridation on dental restorations and crowns in children aged 3-5 years in Israel – a retrospective study
• X: Robert Kennedy Jr. post
• Reuters: Fluoride: What is it and why does RFK Jr want it removed from water?
• Wisconsin Watch: https://wisconsinwatch.org/2024/11/wisconsin-fluoride-water-health-cdc-dental-environment-data/
• American Dental Association: Community Water Fluoridation is Effective at Preventing Cavities
• U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Community Water Fluoridation Recommendations
• PolitiFact: Does fluoride cause cancer, IQ loss and more? Fact-checking Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s claim
• FactCheck.org: CDC, Experts Say Fluoridated Water Is Safe, Contrary to RFK Jr.’s Warnings
• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: More Wisconsin communities rejecting fluoride in water. Health groups say fears unfounded.
• Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews: Water fluoridation for the prevention of dental caries
• California Deptartment of Public Health fluoridation consultant/University of California San Francisco dentistry professor Howard Pollick: Email

Do recent studies link water fluoridation with less dental decay in children? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Reading Time: < 1 minute

The sale of raw or unpasteurized milk generally is illegal in Wisconsin, although “incidental sales” are legal.

An incidental sale is when a dairy farm sells raw milk directly to a consumer at the farm.

But those sales are illegal “if done as a regular business, or if they involve advertising of any kind.”

Robert Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to head the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, has indicated he would promote raw milk.

Public health authorities consider raw milk a health danger because it hasn’t been pasteurized — heated enough to kill illness-causing bacteria such as E. coli. But 13 states allow raw milk sales in stores. Advocates say it’s more nutritious, though experts say there isn’t enough evidence to prove that.

A Wisconsin Senate bill introduced in December 2023 would have created licensing for farms that want to sell raw milk. It failed to pass the Senate.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Wisconsin State Legislature: 2023 Senate Bill 781
• Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection: Raw Milk
• The Hill: Five of RFK Jr.’s most controversial views
• X: Robert Kennedy Jr. post
• U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Raw Milk
• U.S. Food and Drug Administration: Food Safety and Raw Milk
• World Population Review: Raw Milk Legal States 2024
• WebMD: Raw Milk: Are There Health Benefits?
• Harvard Medical School: Why drinking raw milk can be dangerous
• Wisconsin State Legislature: Senate Bill 781 history

Is there a legal way to get raw milk in Wisconsin? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.