2025 and 2026 have seen many changes in federal vaccine policy and programs, some of which threaten to harm the health and safety of millions of Americans. This list—drawn from news reports and other information—ranks the most significant changes to vaccination policy, with brief commentary from the editors.

Updates are published regularly and can be viewed by clicking the dated entries below. This page collects all Straight Shot updates as well as relevant vaccine-related content from CSPI and NutritionAction. 

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The Straight Shot searchable database

New: The Straight Shot now has a searchable database. Each vaccine-related headline in the database is associated with a series of actions, a detailed description of each action, and commentary in the form of editors' notes. Each headline is also associated with an agency or agency, and a classification by type of action (such as personnel, policy, and funding). To search by headline, agency, or type of action, or to download the database, visit here.

The Straight Shot Archive

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About the authors

Peter Lurie

Peter Lurie, MD, MPH

President and Executive Director

plurie@cspi.org

Peter Lurie (he/him/his) has been President and Executive Director of CSPI since 2017.
Sarah Despres

Sarah Despres

Sarah Despres (she/her/hers) served as a counselor to the Secretary of HHS from 2021 to 2025.
Josh Rising, MD, MPH

Josh Rising, MD, MPH

Josh Rising, MD, MPH, (he/him/his) is a pediatrician and most recently worked as a Senior Clinical Advisor to the FDA Commissioner.
Joshua M. Sharfstein, M.D.

Joshua M. Sharfstein, MD

Joshua M. Sharfstein, MD, (he/him/his), is a pediatrician and former principal deputy commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, health commissioner of Baltimore City, and health secretary of Maryland.

How CSPI is fighting threats to public health

Today, our health is under threat like never before. President Trump, Elon Musk, and their underlings have taken a chainsaw to our public health institutions and are defunding and understaffing the programs that keep us safe—giving corporations free reign over our food and health. And they are perverting the tools of federal power to wage an all-out assault on equity, workers, the environment, and public health—and consequently, risking making people and the planet sicker. As one of the nation’s leading independent advocacy groups standing up for sound science to inform nutrition, food safety, and health, we are playing a critical role in fighting the Trump administration’s efforts to silence, dismantle, and weaponize our science-based federal health institutions.

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