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Americans Are Not Getting Seasonal Vaccines Ahead of the Holidays
As the holiday season approaches, public health experts are sounding the alarm about low vaccination rates against the coronavirus, flu and RSV. With gatherings and travel on the rise, many people are heading into the next few months unprotected against these respiratory illnesses, which typically peak from December to February.
Experts worry that the unenthusiastic embrace of vaccines could spark outbreaks and increased hospitalizations.
As of this month, about 37% of adults 18 and older had received a seasonal flu shot, while 19% had received updated coronavirus vaccines and 40% of adults 75 and older — the group at greatest risk — got an RSV vaccine. The vaccination rates are similar to last year’s figures, and the numbers reflect a persistent public health challenge achieving broader vaccine uptake for these illnesses.
A Possible Ban on DTC Pharma Ads Poses ‘Biggest Threat’ of RFK Jr.’s HHS Appointment: Analyst
With Robert F. Kennedy Jr. slated to take the top spot at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under President-elect Donald Trump, some in the biopharma industry are concerned about his tenure’s possible impacts on companies’ direct-to-consumer (DTC) outreach.
RFK Jr. has previously expressed a desire to put a stop to DTC pharma ads in the U.S. — which is one of only two countries in the world, along with New Zealand, where prescription drugs can be directly advertised to consumers.
In just one example, while still in the presidential race earlier this year, he wrote on X (formerly Twitter), “on my first day in office I will issue an executive order banning pharmaceutical advertising on television.”
Make America Healthy Again: An Unconventional Movement That May Be Having Its Moment
Within days of Donald Trump’s election victory, healthcare entrepreneur Calley Means turned to social media to crowdsource advice. “First 100 days,” said Means, a former consultant to Big Pharma who uses the social platform X to focus attention on chronic disease. “What should be done to reform the FDA?”
The question was more than rhetorical. Means is among a cadre of health business leaders and nonmainstream doctors who are influencing President Donald Trump’s focus on health policy. Trump’s return to the White House has given Means and others in this space significant clout in shaping the nascent health policies of the new administration and its federal agencies. It’s also giving newfound momentum to “Make America Healthy Again,” or MAHA, a controversial movement that challenges prevailing thinking on public health and chronic disease.
Trump Picks Jay Bhattacharya, a Critic of Covid Lockdowns, to Lead National Institutes of Health
President-elect Donald Trump said he intends to nominate Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford University professor known for his criticism of Covid lockdowns, to serve as the next director of the National Institutes of Health.
In a statement Tuesday, Trump said, “Dr. Bhattacharya will work in cooperation with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to direct the Nation’s Medical Research, and to make important discoveries that will improve Health and save lives.” In a post on X after Trump’s statement, Bhattacharya wrote that he was “honored and humbled” to be nominated.
“We will reform American scientific institutions so that they are worthy of trust again and will deploy the fruits of excellent science to make America healthy again!” he added.
Separately, Trump also said Tuesday that he planned to nominate Jim O’Neill to serve as the deputy secretary of Health and Human Services under Kennedy. O’Neill, a critic of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, held several Health and Human Services Department roles during the Bush administration.
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Cheap Ozempic? How Millions of Americans With Obesity May Get Access to Costly Weight-Loss Drugs
Millions of obese Americans would get access to popular weekly injectables that would help them shed pounds quickly if a $ 35 billion proposal from the Biden administration is blessed by President-elect Donald Trump. The rule, unveiled Tuesday by the Health and Human Services Department (HHS), would require Medicare and Medicaid to cover weight-loss drugs like Wegovy or Zepbound for a large segment of Americans who are obese.
But it’s unclear if the proposal, which would not go into effect until after Trump takes office, will have support from his new administration — including from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an opponent of the drugs whom the president-elect has tapped to serve as head of HHS.
Vaccine Hesitancy Continues to Rise in Oregon and Washington, Concerning Health Care Providers
The Thanksgiving holiday, for some, may be conjuring up bleak memories of the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only was it harder to see loved ones during the thick of the outbreak, but it made us aware — perhaps for the first time — that gatherings of families and friends carried the risk of spreading potentially deadly disease to more vulnerable people.
COVID-19 is still with us, but vaccines are at least widely available. At the same time, dissent that came to a head during the pandemic concerning perceptions of vaccine safety is being felt more keenly now than ever. Pertussis, more commonly known as whooping cough, is a respiratory infection that spreads easily. It starts with symptoms that seem like a cold: sneezing, runny nose, low-grade fever and a mild cough. But within two weeks it can cause fits of coughing so severe as to make it hard to catch your breath — accompanied by the characteristic “whooping” sound that earned the bacterial infection its nickname.
As of Nov. 2 of this year, the state of Washington had reported 1,193 cases of whooping cough for the season, compared to just 51 by the same time the year before. Likewise, in Oregon, the state had 850 reported cases as of Nov. 19, compared to just 33 the year before.
Survey: Doctors Rank Pertussis Vaccine Less Important Than Those for Other Respiratory Diseases
An online survey of physicians in the U.S., France, and Germany reveals that they consider pertussis (whooping cough) vaccines less important than those against COVID-19, influenza, and pneumococcal disease, although they recognize that adults with weakened immune systems and chronic respiratory illnesses are at elevated risk.
For the study, published today in BMC Primary Care, a team led by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and vaccine developer Sanofi surveyed 400 U.S. physicians and 200 each in France and Germany from Nov. 2022 to Jan. 2023. The respondents were listed in an independent database of physicians who indicated an interest in participating in research.
“Pertussis is a highly contagious respiratory tract infection that affects all ages, though it is most severe in young infants,” the authors wrote. “Adults, especially those with respiratory conditions or other chronic illnesses can also suffer serious consequences of pertussis.”
U.K. Data Tie Acetaminophen to Increased Ulcer Risk
Widespread belief holds that the popular over-the-counter painkiller acetaminophen does not cause stomach ulcers, but a new study from Great Britain puts that in doubt.
General practice records from 1998 to 2018 in the U.K show that, among some 180,000 people age 65 and older who received prescriptions for acetaminophen (also known as paracetamol in Britain), risks for peptic ulcers, bleeding from ulcers, and any type of lower gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding were increased from 20% to 36% compared with more than 400,000 people not prescribed the drug, according to Jaspreet Kaur, PhD, MPH, of the University of Nottingham in England, and colleagues.
Acetaminophen use was also associated with increased rates of more general health problems including heart failure, chronic kidney disease, and hypertension, the group reported in Arthritis Care & Research.
