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Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has taken the extraordinary step of firing the expert panel that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on immunizations, saying the action is needed to restore faith in vaccines. “A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science,” Kennedy said in an op-ed published Monday afternoon in the Wall Street Journal. (Branswell, Cirruzzo and Payne, 6/9)

Scroll down to our Opinions section to read HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s editorial in The Wall Street Journal.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) on Monday called Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s firing of all 17 experts on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) vaccine panel “excessive,” but she cautioned she needs to learn more about the decision. Kennedy announced the decision in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, catching many GOP lawmakers by surprise. (Bolton, 6/9)

American life expectancy in 1960 was almost ten years shorter than it is today. And the leading causes of death were chronic diseases. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. frequently tells a different story. (Simmons-Duffin, 6/9)

Updates on RSV, flu, pertussis, measles, covid, and mononucleosis —

The FDA approved clesrovimab (Enflonsia) to prevent lower respiratory tract disease from respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in infants born during or entering their first RSV season, drugmaker Merck announced on Monday. The long-acting monoclonal antibody is designed to provide "rapid and durable protection" through 5 months -- the typical length of an RSV season -- with a 105-mg dose, regardless of weight, the company said. (Henderson, 6/9)

A study of US pediatric outpatient prescriptions over a 10-year period found that flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are associated with meaningful proportions of pediatric antibiotic prescribing, researchers reported last week in the Journal of Infectious Diseases. (Dall, 6/9)

On Friday, Kentucky announced two pertussis deaths in infants over the past 6 months, and neither the infants nor their mothers had been vaccinated against the highly contagious bacterial infection also known as whooping cough. According to the Kentucky Department for Public Health (KDPH), these are the first whooping cough deaths in the state since 2018. (Soucheray, 6/9)

Colorado reported two more cases of measles Monday and warned that people who visited the emergency rooms at three hospitals last week may have been exposed. (Ingold, 6/9)

A meta-analysis of 11 studies suggests that 20% of patients, most with severe COVID-19, had at least one symptom 3 years after infection, primarily fatigue, sleep disturbances, and shortness of breath. Researchers in Europe, Asia, and Australia assessed the pooled prevalence of persistent COVID-19 symptoms 3 years after infection in observational studies published in 2023 and 2024. The studies, which reported data from 142,171 long-COVID patients aged 36 to 86 years (87% men), were conducted in Bulgaria, China, Japan, Italy, Romania, and the United States. (Van Beusekom, 6/9)

Jeff Cohen was 17 and living in Baltimore when mononucleosis knocked him off his feet. He thinks he got it from his high school girlfriend — now his wife — who once he got sick would ring the doorbell, drop off his homework and run away before he could get to the door. ... That teenage case of mono, also known as glandular fever, would make a lasting impression. Five decades later, Cohen is now chief of the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases inside the National Institutes of Health, where he’s leading efforts to create a vaccine for Epstein-Barr virus, or EBV, which causes mono. (Gale, 6/6)