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Trump and RFK Jr. Are Mulling Their Most Disruptive Vaccine Policies yet — Alarming Manufacturers
As the Trump administration moves ahead on what could be its most wide-reaching vaccine changes yet, the makers of the shots are weighing their options — and privately warning that officials could severely limit access to key vaccines and upend the childhood vaccine schedule for years to come.
U.S. health authorities, under the direction of U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., are considering how they might discourage or even ban vaccines that rely on a common ingredient to boost their effectiveness, or break up ones that protect against multiple diseases in a single shot.
If policymakers follow through on these ideas, vaccine makers could have to develop new alternatives to several key vaccines, a process that can take a decade or more and cost upwards of $1 billion, employees of vaccine makers said. The changes would impact a substantial share of the shots on the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule.
Should the administration seek rapid changes to vaccine ingredients, certain shots could become less available and protection against dangerous diseases that haven’t been a widespread threat in decades — including measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, and polio — could wither.
Tylenol Maker Kenvue Shares Fall as US Court Weighs Reviving Autism Lawsuits
Shares of Kenvue Inc. fell Monday as an appeals court weighed whether to revive lawsuits claiming the company concealed the risks of autism for children if mothers take Tylenol during pregnancy.
A three-judge panel raised the possibility Monday that a lower-court judge who blocked 500 cases from going to trial erred in rejecting the scientific evidence behind the autism allegations and the analysis by experts supporting it.
Judge to Approve Purdue Pharma Bankruptcy, Releasing Billions for Opioid Plaintiffs
The drugmaker Purdue Pharma, which along with its owners came to symbolize greedy indifference to surging opioid overdose deaths, will soon cease to exist, after a bankruptcy judge said Nov. 14 that he would give final approval to a plan to settle thousands of lawsuits against the company.
The agreement comes more than two decades after the first legal actions were filed against Purdue over its aggressive sales tactics and promotion of the opioid painkiller OxyContin as largely nonaddictive. It requires members of the billionaire Sackler family to relinquish ownership of the company and pay as much as $7 billion over 15 years to states, communities, tribes and others harmed in what became a decades-long national opioid addiction crisis.
“I will tell you now that I’m going to confirm the plan,” Judge Sean H. Lane of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York said Friday afternoon at the conclusion of three days of testimony. He said he would issue a formal ruling on Tuesday.
Purdue will immediately contribute $900 million and then be dissolved. It will be reborn as a public benefit company called Knoa Pharma, which will manufacture limited quantities of opioid painkillers and also opioid overdose-reversal medications. Profits will go to programs to remediate the continuing devastation related to opioids.
Most Americans Believe in the Effectiveness of Childhood Vaccines — but There’s a Catch
Although a majority of Americans are confident that childhood vaccines are highly effective against serious illness, Republicans’ trust in vaccine safety and support of school requirements is dropping, according to new polling from Pew Research Center.
Sixty-three percent of Americans are extremely or very confident in the effectiveness of childhood vaccines, according to a survey published Tuesday. But Democrats and those who lean Democrat are much more likely than Republicans and Republican-leaners to hold that view — 80% versus 48%.
And while the majority of Americans believe in the safety of vaccines — 53% believe childhood vaccines have been tested enough for safety and 51% agree that the childhood vaccine schedule is safe — there is significantly more uncertainty among Republicans.
For Democrats, 74% show high confidence in the safety testing of vaccines and 71% believe the childhood vaccine schedule is safe. For Republicans, those numbers are 35% and 32%, respectively.
Emergency Department Messaging Doesn’t Increase COVID Vaccine Uptake, Study Finds
Emergency department (ED) patients who received tailored messages or a simple inquiry about the COVID-19 vaccine were no more likely to take the vaccine than patients who didn’t receive interventions, according to a recent study published in JAMA Network Open.
For the cluster randomized clinical trial, a team led by University of California researchers divided 852 ED patients into three groups. The first group received a tailored message about the COVID-19 vaccine followed by a question about their willingness to accept the vaccine. The second group received a vaccine acceptance question only, and the third group received no intervention beyond usual care.
The 464 women and 388 men who participated in the trial had a median age of 47 and had not been vaccinated for COVID-19 within the past six months. Participants were enrolled across six emergency departments. Vaccine uptake at 30 days was not significantly higher in either intervention group (5.7% vs 3.0%; absolute difference, 2.7 percentage points) compared with the control group (4.0% vs 3.0%; absolute difference, 1.0 percentage point).
Pfizer Cuts BioNTech Stake: Strategic Pivot or Quiet Retreat From the mRNA Era?
Pfizer’s decision to slash its BioNTech holdings by more than half — announced via Reuters on Nov. 13 — marks a symbolic turn in one of the most consequential pharmaceutical partnerships of the century. The regulatory filing shows Pfizer reduced its stake by 54.7%, leaving 1.66 million ADS shares, valued at roughly $163.5 million as of Sept. 30.
The sale arrives five years after the historic alliance that birthed Comirnaty, the world’s first authorized mRNA COVID-19 vaccine and, briefly, one of the most profitable medical products ever marketed.
Reuters reports that BioNTech insists nothing in the scientific partnership has changed. But capital markets — and Pfizer’s own behavior — not to mention TrialSite News insight — suggest something else: a company rebalancing away from its pandemic-era identity and toward a new set of revenue priorities.
