First, the context: around 10,000 employees of the department have lost their jobs, and another 10,000 have left with early retirement packages and voluntary separation offers. 

Back in June, Kennedy fired all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and he has since replaced 13 members, most of whom have previously expressed skepticism about vaccines or vaccine mandates. 

At the first meeting in June, the committee recommended against the use of flu vaccines containing thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative. The impact of this decision will be limited in the U.S. due to the fact that thimerosal is only found in multi-dose vials of flu vaccines, according to Nature. However, public health officials have argued that the symbolic effects of the vote are significant while they are battling anti-vaccine rhetoric. 

The committee met for the second time since the firings September 18-19, 2025, to review recommendations on several shots, including for Covid-19 and hepatitis B. The committee unanimously voted that people must consult with a health care provider in order to receive a Covid-19 vaccine. The Acting CDC Director Jim O’Neill must sign off on the recommendations before they go into effect. The committee delayed a vote on the hepatits B vaccine for newborns. 

In response to Kennedy’s actions in June, 80 medical associations and societies in the U.S. released a joint statement showing their support for vaccines to prevent respiratory viruses, such as COVID-19 and the flu. 

The American Medical Association has also expressed concern about the recent resignations of senior leadership at the CDC as well as Florida’s plan to end all vaccine mandates. The American College of Physicians, and most recently, every surgeon general of the U.S. of the past thirty plus years, have called for the removal of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, in large part because of the actions he has taken at CDC related to vaccine guidelines and research. 

With a background studying global health—including past research on the culture surrounding COVID-19 vaccines in Atlanta—I (S. Black) have been especially attentive to what my friends and neighbors, many of whom are public and global health experts, are saying and doing right now. Many rushed to get the new COVID vaccines before the September meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. They felt that recommendations would likely change, resulting in less access to the vaccine and less insurance coverage of it (after a period of uncertainty, it seems that access remains largely unchanged at least for now). 

I myself followed suit. I found that I had to send a message to my primary care doctor and ask for a prescription to be eligible This is an added step that may make it difficult, esepcially for those without a regular primary care doctor, to access the vaccine. When I went to the local CVS to get the shots on the evening of September 17, the pharmacist who was helping me even commented about how busy it had been. She remarked that most people don’t follow the vaccine recommendation news like those living in my area. 

It is a privilege to live in a place where, as one Decatur-based journalist put it, “you can’t throw a rock without hitting a PhD around here.” But what about elsewhere? Places in Atlanta and beyond where people may not be interested in getting the updated vaccines, or may be interested but unable to access it? 

According to a Pew Research Center survey in 2023, overall Americans (88%) believe the benefits of childhood vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) outweigh the risks, compared with just 10% who say the risks outweigh the benefits. However, parents of children within the age to receive vaccinations weigh the risk as slightly higher.  

In addition, it appears that the coronavirus pandemic swayed public opinion regarding vaccination requirements for attending public school. The percentage of people who believe healthy children should be required to be vaccinated to attend public school lowered to approximately 70%, which is a significant drop from 82% in 2019 and 2016. 

Vaccine refusal was pervasive throughout the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. and was mostly attributed to the speed in which the COVID vaccination was created and distributed, according to an analysis by Muhammad Ittefaq, Hong Tien Vu, Ali Zain, Tayyeb Ramazan, and Gary L Kreps. The researchers also found that people were motivated to receive a vaccine from various sources, and vaccine mandates did not increase inoculation among individuals who were initially skeptical. T.S. Harvey adds that while naming COVID-19 with an acronym sidestepped issues with stigma associated with previous epidemic names, this may have lowered public perceptions of risk.  

A global study analyzing conversations on Twitter found “widespread negative sentiment and a global lack of confidence in the safety, effectiveness, and trustworthiness of mRNA vaccines and therapeutics.” In addition, a study focusing on exploring the reasons why parents refuse or delay vaccinating their children devised four categories for parental refusal: religious reasons, personal beliefs or philosophical reasons, safety concerns, and a desire for more information from healthcare providers. 

Anthropological literature highlights four main reasons for vaccine refusal: religion, history and politics, the context of the broader health system, and the delivery of immunizations themselves. Other studies focus on underserved communities and provide guidance to reach greater vaccine coverage, such as the CommuniVax 2021 report regarding equity in vaccination campaigns. The report utilized ethnographic methods to understand the reasons behind the lack of immunization in underserved populations and produced three key findings. First, the report highlights an issue with using terms, such as “vaccine hesitancy” and “noncompliance,” because they ignore issues related to access. Second, the assumption that communities of color are homogenous ignores the nuances within those communities. Third, the report highlights the importance of grassroots groups and community-led organizations to encouraging vaccination. 

Whether on CDC’s home turf, nationally, or around the globe, anthropology and social science have important things to say about current vaccine policy and public opinions. We need to continue to find ways to share these contributions with public health experts and the public at large. And the “Public Health Futures” project is one effort to do so!