The many options, as Kennedy already undermines vaccines
During his hearing of the Senate confirmations for the Minister of Health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. presented himself as a supporter of vaccines. But in office, he and the agencies he heads have far -reaching and sometimes subtle steps to undermine the trust in the effectiveness and safety of vaccines.
The National Institutes of Health have stopped financing for researchers who hesitate and hoped to find paths to overcome them. Programs were also canceled to discover new vaccines to prevent future pandemics.
The centers for the control and prevention of diseases and prevention have set up an advertising campaign for flu vaccination. Mr. Kennedy said inaccurately that the scientists who advise the CDC about vaccines have “serious, serious conflicts of interest” in promoting the products and are not trustworthy.
The Department of Health and Human Services Reduce billions of dollars to state health authorities, including the means that are necessary to modernize state programs for vaccination in childhood. In a television interview on Wednesday, Mr. Kennedy said that he was not aware of this widespread development.
The Food and Drug Administration has canceled an open meeting on flu vaccine with scientific consultants and later held behind closed doors. A top official held the agency’s review on the Novavax vaccine vaccine. In a television interview last week, Mr. Kennedy wrongly said that similar vaccines did not work against respiratory viruses.
Some scientists said they had seen a pattern: the efforts to undermine the support for routine vaccination, and for the scientists who have long held as a goal for public health.
“This is a simultaneous process that increases the likelihood that you will hear his voice and reduce the likelihood that you will hear other voices,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of Annenberg Public Policy Center, about Mr. Kennedy.
He “decerts other authority voices,” she said.
HHS did not agree that Mr. Kennedy worked against vaccines.
“Secretary Kennedy is not an anti-vaccine; he is a security,” said Andrew Nixon, a spokesman for the department, in an explanation. “His focus was always on ensuring that vaccines are strictly tested for effectiveness and security.”
The explanation continued: “We take measures so that the Americans receive the transparency they deserve and can make well -founded decisions about their health.”
After Mr. Kennedy took part in the funeral of a child who was not vaccinated who died of measles in West texas on Sunday, he supported the measles vaccine on X as “the most effective way to prevent measles”.
However, he also described vaccination as a personal choice with poorly understood risks and suggested that miracle treatments were slightly available. On Sunday, he praised two local doctors on social media who promoted dubious, potentially harmful treatments for measles.
Even if measles in the United States has dropped over 600 over 600 jurisdiction, Mr. Kennedy recently claimed in an interview that the measles vaccine causes deaths every year (untrue). that it causes encephalitis, blindness and “all diseases that cause themselves” (untrue); And that the effect of the vaccine decreases so dramatically that older adults are “essentially unkind” (untrue).
According to an E -Mail received by the New York Times, HHS intends to revise its websites to say “the decision to vaccination is a personal” and “people should also be informed about the potential undesirable events with vaccines”. (Vaccines are administered by the statutory declaration of consent.)
The tensions with mainstream experts came last week when Dr. Peter Marks, the top vaccine regulator, come to the fore under pressure from the FDA when Dr. Peter Marks was marked
“It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the secretary, but he wants submissive confirmation of his misinformation and lies,” said Dr. Marks in his letter of withdrawal.
Mr. Kennedy’s position has triggered the alarm for decades. But it has now become particularly noteworthy, against the background of increasing skepticism towards vaccines And deteriorated outbreaks of measles and bird flu, experts said.
The MMR vaccine-one combination product to prevent measles, mumps and rubella, which have been available since 1971-has long been a goal of anti-accyc campaigns because it can no longer cause autism. Mr. Kennedy said that he would like to visit the problem again, partly to say the fears of the parents that the vaccines are unsure.
But he commissioned David Geier to examine the data again. Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, doctor and chairman of the Senate Health Committee, has the decision to issue tax money to test a discredited hypothesis, even if the administration cuts billions for other research.
“When we piss off money here,” he said last month, “this is less money that we actually have to pursue according to the real reason.”
The refusal to accept the scientific consensus is “worrying because we then get into a very strange area in which someone is a guess that does not happen or does not work,” said Stephen Jameson, President of the American Association of Immunologists.
In interviews, Mr. Kennedy played down the risk of measles and emphasizes what he sees as the advantages of infection.
“Everyone has measles and measles gave them protected life protection against measles infections – the vaccine does not do that,” he said in an interview about Fox News.
Two doses of the MMR vaccine provide decades of immunity. And while immunity against infection can last a lifetime, “people also suffer from the consequences of this natural infection,” said Dr. Jameson.
A consequence was only discovered a few years ago: a measles infection can destroy the memory of the immune system to other penetrating pathogens and make the body susceptible to them again.
Measles kills about 1 out of 1,000 infected people, and According to the CDC, 11 percent of the people infected this year were taken to the hospital, many children under the age of 5 Two girls aged 6 and 8 died in West texas.
In contrast, side effects are unusual after vaccination. But Mr. Kennedy suggested that people should find out about the risks before they decide on the shot.
The phrasing implies: “If you are better informed, you can make another decision,” said Dr. Jamieson from the Annenberg Center.
Doctors have long expected that health secretaries and the CDC have clearly wasted a widespread vaccination in the middle of an outbreak and in the past.
But Mr. Kennedy was enthusiastic about liver oil, a steroid and an antibiotic that are not standard therapies. Some of these treatments may make children sick.
“The news I see focuses on potential treatments for measles,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary, chairman of the committee for infectious diseases of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Closed doors
At his hearing, Mr. Kennedy promised that he would not change the CDCs Vaccination plans for children in childhood. About two weeks later, he announced a new commission that she would check.
The schedule is based on recommendations from the advisory committee for immunization practices, a body of medical experts who check data and effectiveness data, potential interactions with other drugs and the ideal time to maximize protection.
At his hearing for confirmation, Kennedy claimed that 97 percent of ACIP members had financial conflicts of interest. He has long since stated without evidence that the federal supervisory authorities are impaired and hidden information about the risk of vaccines.
“To be honest, it is wrong,” said Dr. O’Leary, which serves as a connection to the committee from the Pediatric Academy.
Mr. Kennedy’s statistics came from a report from 2009, in which it was found that 97 percent of the disclosure forms had errors, e.g. B. missing data or information in the wrong section.
In fact, ACIP members are carefully examined for essential conflicts of interest and cannot accommodate shares or serve in consulting bodies or speaker offices associated with vaccine manufacturers.
On the rare occasion that members have indirect conflicts of interest – for example, if an institution where they are working on receiving money from a drug manufacturer – they open the conflict and revoke themselves from the associated votes.
The committee’s votes were publicly discussed.
“When I was CDC director, the people from Korea and all over the world flew to watch the ACIP meetings because they were a model of transparency,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, who headed the agency from 2009 to 2017.
Mr. Kennedy has repeatedly promised more transparency and accountability, but he has proposed to end public comments on health policy.
His department canceled a meeting of the ACIP in February, in which the members discuss vaccines for meningitis and flu and postpone them for April.
The department also canceled a meeting to discuss the seasonal flu vaccine. Officials later met without the scientific advisors of the agency.
“After all the conversation about how they want to be transparent, one of the first things he does is to absorb the things behind closed doors and to reduce the amount of public inputs that we receive,” said Dr. Georges Benjamin, Managing Director of the American Public Health Association.
When hearing his confirmation, Mr. Kennedy repeated a border theory that black Americans should not receive the same vaccines as others because they “have a much stronger reaction”.
Senator Angela Sobrooks, democrat of Maryland, who is black, warned him for his “dangerous” opinion: “Her voice would be a voice that would hear the parents.”
Two weeks later, a 19-year-old woman in a clinic for teenage mothers in Denver leaned all vaccines and her 1-year-old son-a few measles and chickenpox shots that he should have that day.
She told the pediatrician Dr. Hana Smith, who described the incident that she had read online, that vaccines for people with more melanin are bad in her skin.
On the contrary, there are tons of evidence. Nevertheless, Dr. Smith quickly realized that nothing would change her patient’s opinion.
“No matter how much information I can give, the damage is already done,” said Dr. Smith.
Misorials are particularly difficult to accommodate. Dr. Smith said: “If it is someone who has a leadership position, especially within the health system.”
