Latest news with #immunization
The Verge
a day ago
- Health
- The Verge
RFK Jr. is coming for your vaccines
Last November, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that, as secretary of health and human services, he would not 'take away anybody's vaccines.' If you believed him, you were duped. The longtime anti-vaccine crusader remains intent on vilifying lifesaving immunizations and promoting the lie that the shots cause autism and all manner of other conditions. Maybe it's his long history of profiting off vaccine controversy, his convoluted distrust of germ theory, or a eugenicist ideology. But whatever his motivation, four months into Kennedy's term leading the federal department that oversees the CDC, NIH, and FDA, he has made several policy changes, proclamations, and decisions that directly imperil Americans' ability to access and afford routine vaccinations. Most recently, in accordance with the larger trend of Donald Trump's administration axing experienced, well-vetted advisors in favor of unqualified sycophants, Kennedy fired 17 people from the federal committee responsible for making vaccine recommendations. He replaced them almost entirely with close associates that echo his scientifically dubious and medically dangerous beliefs, or with those who seem to lack the relevant knowledge for the role. 'Today, we are taking a bold step in restoring public trust by totally reconstituting the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP). A clean sweep is necessary to reestablish public confidence in vaccine science,' he wrote on X — while acting to undermine medical experts' trust in federal health agencies. Physicians, epidemiologists, and public health advocates are disturbed by what's unfolded so far and fear what's yet to come. Some patients seeking covid vaccinations have now reportedly been turned away, mobile vaccine clinics are being forced to restrict or end operations, and research that could have cured cancer and prevented HIV infections has lost its funding, setting science back decades. Moving forward, it's unclear if routine childhood vaccinations will remain free to families, if pharma companies will continue to invest in vaccine development in the face of expensive new requirements, and if vaccination will remain a viable choice for many. 'You go to a pediatrician's office, you get four shots, you're going to get hit with an $800 or $1,000 bill.' When Kennedy gutted the ACIP, the group of independent, unpaid experts tasked with making vaccine recommendations to the CDC, on June 9th, he claimed he was doing so because of 'conflicts of interest' among the members. The committee has existed since 1964 and has never before been considered explicitly partisan, explains Sean O'Leary, a professor of pediatrics and infectious disease at the University of Colorado. 'These are not political appointees,' he says. It is entirely 'unprecedented,' a word O'Leary used repeatedly, that a new administration would fire all voting committee members. Kennedy announced eight new ACIP members to replace the 17 who were fired just two days later, in another post on X. In every prior case, ACIP appointees have been nominated and evaluated in a transparent, rigorous process over the course of months and often years, says Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist and director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University. The 17 terminated members were initially selected for ACIP because of their qualifications and lack of compromising conflicts, she says. Kennedy's new appointments weren't. At least half of the new ACIP appointees are outspoken in their controversial or outright anti-vax views. ACIP's decisions directly determine insurance and Medicaid coverage for vaccines. If this new group were to change federal immunization recommendations, then those shots could go from free to prohibitively expensive. Without proper federal support, many doctors' offices might stop carrying certain vaccines altogether. In Kennedy's announcement of his committee picks, he wrote that the group 'will review safety and efficacy data for the current schedule,' signaling a major revision is to come. The appointees include Vicky Pebsworth, a nurse who sits on the board of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), a group with a long history of advocating against vaccine requirements in schools. NVIC is also known for promoting conspiracy theories and spreading misinformation about vaccine risk, for instance, by presenting raw data from the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System without noting that these stats are unverified and that many initially reported injuries and issues are not legitimately related to immunization. There's also Robert Malone, previously an mRNA vaccine researcher and now a health influencer with a Substack who makes regular appearances on conservative talk shows, where he promotes claims like covid vaccines cause AIDS and lies about measles deaths. Then there's Martin Kulldorff, who has railed against childhood covid shots and co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration in October 2020, which called for a 'herd immunity' approach to covid, eschewing preventative measures. The declaration was roundly rejected as dangerous by dozens of epidemiologists. Both Malone and Kulldorff have served as paid expert witnesses against drugmaker Merck in vaccine-related trials. Retsef Levi, an operations management professor at MIT, is also among those appointed. He has no direct science or medical background, and has claimed — against scientific evidence — that mRNA shots are unsafe and ineffective. Two of the remaining appointees include an emergency room doctor and a psychiatrist and neuroscientist who studies the health impacts of dietary fat intake. Neither seems to have much experience in epidemiology, vaccine science, or infectious disease policy. 'You could think about it like taking the National Transportation Safety Board or even air traffic controllers, firing all of them, and replacing them with people who don't really know what they're doing, who don't really believe in flying airplanes,' says O'Leary. The changeover 'meets my worst expectations,' says Paul Offit, a vaccine scientist, virologist, and professor of pediatrics at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. 'ACIP has now taken a giant step backward.' Just one of the appointees appears fit to serve, in Offit's view: Cody Meissner, a Dartmouth pediatrics professor who has been an ACIP member before. Yet, even in his prior time on ACIP, Meissner had a tendency to go against the grain and to promote fewer infectious disease interventions. He endorsed the Great Barrington Declaration and voted against covid vaccinations for children, notes Offit. 'My biggest fear is that what this is really about is preventing Americans from getting the vaccines they want,' says Nuzzo. Immunizations recommended by ACIP, through the CDC childhood or adult vaccine schedules, are required to be fully covered by private insurers, as mandated by language in the 2010 Affordable Care Act. The Vaccines for Children (VCF) program, which covers the cost of immunizations for children who are uninsured, underinsured, Medicaid-eligible, or Native American, also bases its coverage on ACIP recommendations. Over half of all American children qualify for the VFC program. If ACIP were to remove vaccines from the schedule, it's very possible payers (including the VCF program) would stop covering them, all sources told The Verge. 'Those recommendations determine who gets access to vaccines,' Nuzzo explains. A single vaccine dose can cost well over $100, and then there's service fees and costs for storage. 'You go to a pediatrician's office, you get four shots, you're going to get hit with an $800 or $1,000 bill,' says Ashish Jha, a physician and dean of public health at Brown University and former White House covid-19 response coordinator under Joe Biden. 'Before we had certainty' routine immunizations would be free, says Jha. 'Now we don't.' If families can't shell out, children will go unvaccinated. Some will get sick. Some will make others sick. Some will be disabled. Some killed. We could reenter a time where hospitals have to dedicate entire wings to polio wards. 'My fear, and I don't say this lightly — it's devastating — is that this is going to cost lives. Children are going to suffer,' says O'Leary. Measles outbreaks corresponding to locally low vaccination rates are 'just the canary in the coal mine,' he notes, because measles is especially contagious. Other diseases that are less easily spread but more often fatal, like whooping cough, diphtheria, and pneumococcal infections, would resurge too if vaccination rates fell. 'There's much more to come.' Before the ACIP upheaval, Kennedy had already made it clear he wasn't going to let science get in the way of HHS decision-making. At the end of May, he unilaterally altered CDC vaccination schedules without consulting ACIP at all, and in direct contradiction to the CDC's own research. He axed the existing recommendation that pregnant people receive covid-19 shots and also proclaimed that the vaccine was no longer recommended for children. In a slightly defiant move, the CDC kept the covid shot on the childhood immunization schedule, but shifted it from a clear recommendation to a decision to be made via 'shared clinical decision making.' Yet even that small change left insurer and VFC program coverage for kids up in the air, O'Leary says. And pregnant people are facing new difficulties as they attempt to get vaccinated, says Richard Hughes IV, an attorney and vaccine law instructor at George Washington University. 'I've already heard of confusion in the pharmacy setting over whether a pregnant person can or cannot access vaccines … and of a patient being turned away,' he tells The Verge. Also in May, Kennedy announced that placebo-controlled clinical trials would be required for 'all new vaccines,' including routinely updated shots like the covid immunization and potentially even the seasonal flu shot. But mandating annual placebo trials would be impractical, costing tens of millions of additional dollars from manufacturers every year, Hughes says. 'It could discourage smaller manufacturers from making those investments,' meaning less effective, or simply far fewer, vaccines available in the future. Plus, it's roundly considered unethical to conduct a placebo trial for an intervention that is known to be safe and relatively effective in protecting against a dangerous illness. 'You can't knowingly give [a] placebo to somebody when you have a vaccine that works,' Offit says. 'I can't imagine any institutional review board would ever allow that to go through,' he adds. Just after the announcement, Moderna withdrew its application for a combined flu and covid vaccine. Separately, HHS has canceled its own existing contracts, including with Moderna for the development of a new bird flu vaccine, leaving us less prepared for the next possible pandemic. In the background, massive funding cuts implemented with no notice (most notably, the early termination of $11.4 billion in pandemic-era grants) and waves of layoffs have left federal, state, and local agencies far less equipped to actually manage, administer, and deliver the public health initiatives they're supposed to offer — including immunization programs, says Lori Tremmel Freeman, CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO). Her organization is made up of more than 3,300 local health departments across the country, which overall receive about 50 percent of their funds from the federal government. NACCHO has been tracking the effects of funding cuts nationwide. Tremmel shared two spreadsheets with The Verge, each containing over 100 entries, cataloging resource losses at local health agencies and the outcomes. Many departments describe reductions in mobile or school vaccination programs and ending or cutting back on disease contact tracing and monitoring. Some specifically note that their ability to respond to measles outbreaks was hampered. It's been 'an abrupt and chaotic end' to many programs, Freeman says, and she expects it to get worse. 'There's much more to come,' she says. Unable to detect new outbreaks early, track ongoing ones, or provide people with accessible immunizations, disease will spread faster and farther. States can fill some gaps, but not all, and the local agencies tasked with containing illness will struggle to keep up. Cuts at NIH have additionally left ongoing vaccine research completely unfunded. Scientists are euthanizing lab animals and shutting down projects that have been in progress for years, says Nuzzo. So far, studies that have lost federal support include work to produce an HIV vaccine, cancer vaccine research, and those related to examining public health communication and vaccine hesitancy. 'It's hard to say which will be more damaging: the destruction of funding for new vaccines or the destruction of funding for public health efforts to get vaccines delivered to patients,' says a recently terminated ACIP member and public health researcher who requested anonymity out of fear of reprisal from the government. Vaccines are a lifesaving technology that's shaped modern society. Immunizations prevented 32 million hospitalizations among US children born between 1994 and 2023. They've also saved hospitals, governments, and families trillions of dollars over just a couple of decades, according to a 2024 CDC report. 'What we're seeing is a broader dismantling of the vaccine infrastructure in our country that we have built up over 50 years — really in many ways since the early days of the polio vaccine. We have open, transparent discussions. We have recommendations. We have programs that get vaccines into peoples' arms. All of that is very quickly being dismantled,' Jha says. 'It's going to take us years to rebuild.'
The Independent
2 days ago
- Health
- The Independent
New CDC advisers will skip some expected topics and explore a target of antivaccine activists
U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s new vaccine advisers meet next week, but their agenda suggests they'll skip some expected topics — including a vote on COVID-19 shots — while taking up a longtime target of anti-vaccine groups. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices makes recommendations on how to use the nation's vaccines, setting a schedule for children's vaccines as well as advice for adult shots. Last week, Kennedy abruptly dismissed the existing 17-member expert panel and handpicked eight replacements, including several anti-vaccine voices. The agenda for the new committee's first meeting, posted Wednesday, shows it will be shorter than expected. Discussion of COVID-19 shots will open the session, but the agenda lists no vote on that. Instead, the committee will vote on fall flu vaccinations, on RSV vaccinations for pregnant women and children and on the use of a preservative named thimerosal that's in a subset of flu shots. It's not clear who wrote the agenda. No committee chairperson has been named and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not comment. Missing from the agenda are some heavily researched vaccine policy proposals the advisers were supposed to consider this month, including shots against HPV and meningococcal bacteria, said Dr. Susan Kressly, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Instead, the committee is talking about subjects 'which are settled science,' she said. 'Every American should be asking themselves how and why did we get here, where leaders are promoting their own agenda instead of protecting our people and our communities,' she said. She worried it's "part of a purposeful agenda to insert dangerous and harmful and unnecessary fear regarding vaccines into the process.' The committee makes recommendations on how vaccines that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration should be used. The recommendations traditionally go to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director. Historically, nearly all are accepted and then used by insurance companies in deciding what vaccines to cover. But the CDC has no director and the committee's recommendations have been going to Kennedy. Thimerosal is a longtime target of antivaccine activists Thimerosal was added to certain vaccines in the early 20th century to make them safer and more accessible by preventing bacterial contamination in multi-dose vials. It's a tiny amount, but because it's a form of mercury, it began raising questions in the 1990s. Kennedy — a leading voice in an antivaccine movement before he became President Donald Trump's health secretary — has long held there was a tie between thimerosal and autism, and also accused the government of hiding the danger. Study after study has found no evidence that thimerosal causes autism. But since 2001, all vaccines manufactured for the U.S. market and routinely recommended for children 6 years or younger have contained no thimerosal or only trace amounts, with the exception of inactivated influenza vaccine. Thimerosal now only appears in multidose flu shot vials, not the single-shot packaging of most of today's flu shots. Targeting thimerosal would likely force manufacturers to switch to single-dose vials, which would make the shots 'more expensive, less available and more feared,' said Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Doctors' groups have opposed Kennedy's vaccine moves Last week, 30 organizations called on insurers to continue paying for COVID-19 vaccines for pregnant women after Kennedy said the shots would no longer be routinely recommended for that group. Doctors' groups also opposed Kennedy's changes to the vaccine committee. The new members he picked include a scientist who researched mRNA vaccine technology and became a conservative darling for his criticisms of COVID-19 vaccines, a top critic of pandemic-era lockdowns and a leader of a group that has been widely considered to be a source of vaccine misinformation. The American Academy of Pediatrics has long put out its own immunization recommendations. In recent decades it has matched what the government recommended. But asked if they might soon diverge, depending on potential changes in the government's vaccination recommendations, Kressly said; 'Nothing's off the table.' 'We will do whatever is necessary to make sure that every child in every community gets the vaccines that they deserve to stay healthy and safe,' she said. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
News24
2 days ago
- Health
- News24
‘Concerning immunity gap': Gauteng measles outbreak linked to low vaccination rate
A measles outbreak has been recorded in Gauteng. More than 180 cases have been reported in the Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni districts. The outbreak has been attributed to a lack of vaccination. Gauteng is in the grips of a measles outbreak, prompting a 'public health response' from the provincial health department. Health and Wellness MEC Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko said 181 laboratory-confirmed measles cases were reported between the start of the year and 13 June in the Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni districts. The last cluster outbreaks were recorded in 2022. 'The outbreak has revealed a concerning immunity gap in the province, particularly among children who are either not fully vaccinated or have never received the measles or rubella vaccine,' Nkomo-Ralehoko said. 'Immunisation coverage for the second dose of the measles vaccine remains below 75% in both Johannesburg and Tshwane, significantly below the level required to prevent outbreaks. This has contributed to the steady increase in cases, including among individuals who had previously been vaccinated and even among some adults,' she added. Nkomo-Ralehoko urged parents and guardians to ensure children were vaccinated and to work with health teams during school and community campaigns. 'We must close the immunity gap in our communities and prevent the further spread of highly contagious diseases, particularly measles and rubella. Vaccination is simple and safe, and it is our best protection against harmful diseases. We encourage everyone to support our outreach teams and protect our children's health,' the MEC added. Sixteen hospital admissions linked to measles have been reported in Tshwane. All of the people have since been discharged. No deaths have been reported. 'The public is reminded that individuals infected with measles must isolate at home for at least seven days to prevent further transmission,' Nkomo-Ralehoko added. Gauteng has reported a total of 157 confirmed #Measles and 37 #Rubella cases this year. Parents are encouraged to ensure that they're children are immunised with the MR vaccine. The first dose is given at 6 months after birth and the second dose at 12 months. #VaccinesSaveLives — Gauteng Health (@GautengHealth) June 17, 2025 Dr Kerrigan McCarthy, a pathologist at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases' Centre for Vaccines and Immunology said national epidemiological data also showed an increase in laboratory-confirmed measles cases from Lejweleputswa municipality in the Free State. 'When community vaccination coverage is less than 95%, measles infection is able to spread within a community,' McCarthy added. 'Gauteng province presently has a low vaccination coverage, with estimated rates ranging from 75 to 85%. Measles vaccination is safe, and effective, and not only prevents measles, but also prevents complications that often follow measles infection, including increased risk of other infections, such as tuberculosis, hospitalisation and death from other causes of illness.'
New York Times
2 days ago
- Health
- New York Times
I Will Never Trust R.F.K. Jr. But I Want to Trust Public Health.
When Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices on June 9, I was devastated but not surprised. He is a longtime vaccine critic, and it was clear to me that he was gunning for the panel, which gives recommendations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccines. Though there has been public mistrust of new vaccines, this is not a group that has historically been politicized. In fact, this is the first time that a health and human services secretary has dismissed the full panel. The voting members of the advisory committee are highly vetted experts who typically meet three times a year, and they consider the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, as well as the feasibility of their recommendations. There's a legitimate fear that if the committee stops recommending certain vaccines, they won't be covered by insurance, and Americans will have to pay out of pocket to get them. On June 10, Kennedy posted on X that he was going to handpick the new panel and that 'none of these individuals will be ideological anti-vaxxers.' He then appointed eight members to the committee, one of whom posted this month, 'The term 'anti-vaxer' it is not a slur, but a compliment. Embrace it. Own it. and be proud to be a part of this fight.' Oy. As I was processing this information with new horror, I had a possibly perverse response: the urge to listen to a four-hour-and-27-minute 'Huberman Lab' podcast interview with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the director of the National Institutes of Health, because the episode was called 'Improving Science & Restoring Trust in Public Health' and was recorded before the advisory committee overhaul. Bhattacharya, who was a professor of health policy at Stanford University and has an M.D. and a Ph.D., was one of the creators of the Great Barrington Declaration in October 2020, which argued that 'current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short- and long-term public health.' His skepticism of mainstream public health during the Biden administration undoubtedly helped Bhattacharya get his current job. From what I know of Andrew Huberman, he can communicate some scientific concepts quite well, but I am suspicious about his supplement recommendations, his coziness with advertisers and his softball interviews with people like Casey Means. Still, neither Huberman nor Bhattacharya is a vaccine ideologue like Kennedy, and they both have expertise. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
CBS News
3 days ago
- Health
- CBS News
At least 3% of measles cases this year were in people who were fully vaccinated, CDC says
At least 3% of measles cases confirmed so far this year have been in people who received two doses of the measles vaccine, meaning they were fully vaccinated, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. About three dozen of the nearly 1,200 measles infections in 2025 have been in people with two vaccine doses, the agency said Friday in its weekly update on cases. An additional 2% of cases were in people who received at least one dose of the measles vaccine. Many of the cases were in Texas, which on Tuesday counted a 21st confirmed measles case in someone with at least two doses of the vaccine. The first 20 cases did not result in hospitalizations, Lara Anton, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of State Health Services, said Monday. Those cases were in children 8 years old or younger. Anton did not immediately respond to a request for more information about the additional case, which was reported on Tuesday after she spoke to CBS News. The first 20 cases also did not include people who received their second dose as a result of post-exposure prophylaxis, Anton said. Post-exposure prophylaxis is offering someone a drug or vaccine after they are exposed to a germ, to reduce the chance they will be infected or develop severe disease. The CDC says people exposed to measles can get vaccinated within 72 hours of when they were first exposed, if they are not fully immunized. "If administered within 72 hours of initial measles exposure, MMR vaccine might provide some protection against infection or modify the clinical course of disease," the agency's recommendations say. Texas has seen a deadly outbreak of the highly contagious virus this year. While cases there have recently slowed, CDC officials have said that authorities have been tracking more outbreaks in other communities across the U.S. linked to travel outside and inside the country. "Additional cases have been seeded from the outbreak in Texas, as well as related outbreaks in Mexico and Canada. Additionally, measles importation from international travel continues, especially as the busy summer of travel season ramps up," Brian Wakeman, deputy lead of the CDC's measles laboratory task force, said Monday. Wakeman, who spoke on a nationwide call for testing laboratories, said the U.S. is now on pace to top the 1,274 cases of measles seen in 2019. That was the most cases the U.S. has seen in a single year since endemic spread of the virus was declared "eliminated" at the end of the 20th century. "We're also on pace to be the greatest number of measles cases since the early 90s," Wakeman said. Six cases of measles in people who received at least two doses of the vaccine have also been in Colorado, that state's health department says. "None of the six cases with 2+ doses were seniors or required hospitalization," Hope Shuler, a spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, said in an email. Health authorities and experts have called for some seniors to check if they need a measles booster, especially if they are planning to travel, because of the kind of measles vaccines that were used before 1968. "That group is unlikely to have robust immunity from infection, because at that point in time, they were using less effective vaccines," said Dr. Celine Gounder, CBS News medical contributor and editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News. Colorado says many of its vaccinated cases have been in residents who were exposed during travel to other parts of the world facing large outbreaks like Canada and Europe. The state previously said it had linked multiple cases to an infectious traveler who exposed others at Denver International Airport and on a Turkish Airlines flight. The CDC has also issued new guidance for summer camps to prepare for the threat of measles spread this year, including urging camp operators to check for documentation of immunity among staff and children. Measles vaccines are 97% effective at preventing measles after two doses and 93% after one dose, the CDC says.
