Up First from NPR - Marines Deployed to LA, CDC Vaccine Board Ousted, Overdose Deaths Drop

Episode Date: June 10, 2025

For the fourth straight night, people in Los Angeles took to the streets to protest ICE immigration raids. Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is removing all 17 members of a key vaccine committee that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And, after a decade of carnage when more than 230,000 people under the age of 35 died from overdoses in the U.S., drug deaths are rapidly declining. Want more comprehensive analysis of the most important news of the day, plus a little fun? Subscribe to the Up First newsletter.Today's episode of Up First was edited by Eric Westervelt, Jane Greenhalgh, Andrea DeLeon, Lisa Thomson and Alice Woelfle. It was produced by Ziad Buchh, Nia Dumas and Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Zo van Ginhoven and our technical director is Carleigh Strange. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

President Trump sends active-duty Marines to respond to immigration protests in LA. He's not for peacemaking. He's here for war. He wants a civil war on the streets. What will the Marines be allowed to do? I'm Ian Martinez, that is Michelle Martin, and this is Up First from NPR News. Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has removed all members of a CDC vaccine advisory committee. We are heading in the direction of U.S. vaccine policy becoming the laughing stock of the globe.

What's the reason for the dismissal? And fetal overdoses from fentanyl are down among young people. What we're seeing is a massive reduction in overdose risk among Gen Z in particular. Stay with us. We've got news you need to start your day. This is Ira Glass with This American Life. Each week on our show, we choose a theme, tell different stories on that theme. All right, I'm just going to stop right there. You're listening to an NPR podcast. Chances are you know our show. So instead, I'm going to tell you we've just been on a run of really good shows lately.

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now sending hundreds of active-duty Marines into the city and an additional 2,000 National Guard troops doubling the amount he mobilized over the weekend. Trump says it's to control the protests. California's governor and LA's mayor, both Democrats, are calling this an unnecessary escalation. NPR's Adrian Florido is in Los Angeles and is with us now to tell us more about all this. Good morning, Adrian. Good morning, Michelle. So what's the latest on these Marines heading into the city? Well, the Defense Department said it's bringing 700 active duty Marines in from 29 palms, a military base 150 miles east of LA. A defense official told NPR they will be working with the already deployed National Guard troops.

So this is a combined 4,700 military troops being deployed to Los Angeles for what so far have been largely peaceful protests with flare-ups of violence and vandalism. What do we know about what these Marines will be allowed to do? Well, for now the Pentagon says that they will be working with the National Guard troops to protect federal buildings and federal agents carrying out immigration enforcement. It's uncertain how much more they can do. Federal law generally bars active-duty forces from domestic law enforcement unless the president invokes the Insurrection Act. Trump has not done that yet but has suggested that

he could. He's already called these protesters insurrectionists. So what's been the response of California's governor Gavin Newsom, who is as we said a Democrat? Well he's been saying since the weekend that the president is trying to sow chaos. He calls this escalation unneeded and provocative. He said local and state police have been able to handle protesters who have turned violent and that they've been working to keep the peace on the streets.

But here's what Newsom said to Fox's LA affiliate KTTV. That's not what Trump is after. He's not for peacemaking. He's here for war. He wants a civil war on the streets. Newsom filed suit challenging Trump's decision to take over the State National Guard without his authorization and has said that he'll also sue over the deployment of the Marines. For his part, Michelle, Trump yesterday endorsed the idea of arresting Gavin Newsom, which

is an extraordinary thing to say about a sitting governor. And so you've been talking to a lot of people who've been participating in these protests. What are they saying about these thousands of troops being sent into the city? A lot of them are saying they fear that these troops coming in will inflame tension on the streets even further, like Sandra Martinez. She was out peacefully protesting last night. They're going to make it worse. Look at what everybody's doing. People are just going to wild up. There is people protesting, but with that also comes people that they don't hold back. LA Mayor Karen Bass, Michelle said that the Trump administration is trying to see how

far it can go to take control away from cities and states. I don't think that our city should be used for an experiment to see what happens in the nation's second largest city, well maybe we can do this to other cities. She called on ICE to end its raids in Los Angeles. She said it conducted at least five yesterday. Adrienne, before we let you go, I understand that these protests against ICE raids are now spreading to other cities. They are. There were protests in at least two dozen cities across the country yesterday, and officials in different places are starting to express concern that things could get out of hand if the Trump administration continues down this path. Last night, Senator

Jack Reid, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee said the president is using the military as a political weapon, which Reid said could, quote, turn a tense situation in L.A. into a national crisis. That is NPR's Adrienne Florido in Los Angeles. Adrienne, thank you so much. Thank you, Michelle. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is removing all 17 members of a key vaccine committee

that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Kennedy made the announcement Monday afternoon and it's alarmed many in the medical and public health establishment. NPR Health correspondent Will Stone is with us now to tell us more about this. Good morning, Will. Good morning. First, would you just tell us what the committee does or what it's supposed to do and why it's important?

Yeah, this group of outside experts has a big hand in vaccine policy. It's called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, ACIP for short. They review evidence, make recommendations to the CDC on the vaccine schedule for children and adults. This also helps determine which vaccines get covered by health insurance. The members tend to be experts in vaccines, immunology, pediatrics, and the committee has been around since the 60s actually, but they got a lot of visibility during the early days of the COVID pandemic. As Secretary of Health, Kennedy does have the authority to replace anyone on the committee because his department oversees the CDC,

and that's what he decided to do yesterday when he got rid of everyone. What was his rationale? Did he explain why? Yes, Kennedy was very clear in a press release. He said, quote, a clean sweep is necessary to reestablish public confidence in vaccine science, end quote. It's worth noting that Kennedy himself

spent years undermining confidence in vaccines. He also claimed the committee was rubber stamping recommendations and had conflicts of interest. Kennedy has made these allegations of conflicts of interest before. My NPR colleague, Ping Huang, looked into this and found that a government report Kennedy brings up doesn't back up his claim. There are ethics rules. Members have to disclose if they have any conflict before they take a vote and recuse themselves if they do. The possibility that Kennedy would replace everyone on the committee with his choices is what some politicians and public health experts worried about when he was originally nominated.

And now that he's gone ahead and done it, what's been the reaction? Well very quickly, prominent groups like the American Medical Association, the Infectious Diseases Society of America denounced the move, as did some past directors of the CDC. They warned it's reckless, short-sighted, could undermine confidence in vaccine recommendations, and efforts to get more kids vaccinated, especially during a measles outbreak. I spoke with Dr. Jonathan Temte, who's at the University of Wisconsin. He's no longer on ACIP, but he served as chair of the committee from 2012 to 2015. ACIP has been across the entire world, the paragon of good, solid, well thought out,

evidence-based vaccine policy. I hate to say this, we are heading in the direction of US vaccine policy becoming the laughing stock of the globe. And I wrote to another former ACIP chair, Grace Lee, who's at Stanford, to get her reaction, I got a one word reply from her, speechless. So what's next? Kennedy has said there are new members under consideration. We don't know who those people will be. Will they have the vaccine related expertise that you typically expect committee members to have? Kennedy did make the point that the entire committee he's replacing was appointed by Biden, many of them just last year. We do know the next official meeting will be later this month at CDC headquarters in Atlanta. That is NPR health correspondent, Will Stone.

Will, thank you. Thank you. There is more hopeful news about America's fentanyl crisis, this time about young people. Yeah, after a decade of carnage when more than 230,000 people under the age of 35 died from overdoses in the US, drug deaths are finally dropping fast. NPR addiction correspondent Brian Mann

is with us now to tell us more about this. Brian, good morning to you. Good morning, Michelle. So how big and how promising is this shift? Well, this is an extraordinary moment. Fentanyl killed young Americans at a rate unlike anything the U.S. or really any other country had ever seen, devastating families and whole communities. But Navarund Descubta, a researcher at the University of North Carolina,

says federal data shows a huge pivot. What we're seeing is a massive reduction in overdose risk among Gen Z in particular. Ages 20 to 29 lowered their risk by 47 percent, cut it right in half. And teenagers too have finally seen a big drop in fatal overdoses. Taken together, Michelle, this is saving about 15,000 lives among young people per year. Well, it's remarkable. So, Brian, could you just remind us again why for young people in the US, the fentanyl crisis was different and deadlier than what we saw with, say, heroin or crack cocaine? Yeah, for decades, it's been fairly common for many young Americans to experiment with drugs, you know, trying cocaine, trying maybe a pill they got from a friend at a party. Noah Kravchak studies overdose patterns at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. She says after 2014, as much more powerful and lethal fentanyl started

turning up everywhere mixed into drugs, teens and 20-somethings were really vulnerable. Whatever drugs they are using, whether intentionally or not, it is mostly fentanyl. In your generation, people use drugs. In my generation, people use drugs. You just didn't use to die as much from them. And Crab Check study published last month in the journal Pediatrics found fentanyl deaths among people aged 15 to 24 nearly quadrupled over a five-year period through 2022. It seemed unstoppable at times. Then finally last year, we saw this national recovery. Again, thousands fewer teens and young adults dying. So do researchers know why this improvement is happening?

There are a lot of theories. You know, there's better addiction to health care now. Narcan, also known as naloxone, is being widely distributed. It's this medication that reverses fentanyl overdoses. Tragically, one factor scientists are looking at is that many vulnerable kids are already gone. But there is one more thing. There's growing evidence that many vulnerable kids are already gone. But there is one more thing. There's growing evidence that young people are being more careful.

Studies show they're using fewer hard drugs that might be laced or contaminated with fentanyl. After a decade of all this death from fentanyl, at least some young people seem to be a lot more cautious. So let's look forward. Is this recovery likely to continue? A lot of the parents and frontline health workers I've been talking to say more needs to be done. Remember the U.S. still saw more than 17,000 drug deaths among people under age 35 last year. That's according to provisional data from federal health agencies. Now that's the lowest number

since 2015, but it's still a lot of loss, a lot of sorrow. So more work to be done here. But one concern I'm hearing from experts and families, the Republican budget, Michelle passed by the House, it would cut billions of dollars from Medicaid and from public health and science agencies. There's fear that grants for fentanyl and other addiction programs will dry up and this recovery could unravel. The Trump administration says it's simply looking for efficiencies and ways to consolidate programs. That is NPR's Brian Mann. Brian, thank you. Thank you, Michelle. And that's up first for Tuesday, June 10th. I'm Michelle Martin. I'm Ian Martinez. How about listening to Consider This from NPR? We here to first give you the

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