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Courts May Deliver the Anti-Vaccine Movement’s Biggest Win
The anti-vaccine movement’s momentum has slowed. A judge put Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s sweeping changes to the childhood vaccine schedule on ice. Kennedy has largely stopped publicly talking about vaccines amid polling indicating that it’s politically unpopular. And some efforts in statehouses to eliminate vaccine mandates, including Iowa and Louisiana, have faltered. But there is one strategy that could deliver the anti-vaccine movement a major win: the legal argument that vaccine mandates without a religious exemption violate First Amendment religious freedoms.
“There are cases moving towards the Supreme Court from many different corners that are going to bring to a head this conflict and create this legal reckoning,” Mary Holland, head of the anti-vaccine group Kennedy founded, Children’s Health Defense, told a crowd of supporters in D.C. in March. “The truth is on our side, the ethics are on our side, the science is on our side, and the law is on our side. Let us win.”
Two of the most prominent anti-vaccine groups, Children’s Health Defense and Informed Consent Action Network, have spent nearly $50 million on legal expenses since 2016, according to a Post analysis of publicly available tax records. Holland’s group spent at least $21 million, with ICAN spending at least $28 million. Some of that money has gone toward fighting vaccine mandates, but it is unclear how much.
As these groups work to challenge vaccine mandates, their leaders say that it is inaccurate to say they oppose vaccines.
Holland told The Post in a statement that her group “is not anti-vaccine. We are pro-vaccine safety and anti-vaccine mandates.” The head of Informed Consent Action Network, Del Bigtree, said in a statement “we are not seeking to eliminate vaccines” but to ensure informed consent.
‘A Lot of Travel’: Ex-CDC Chief Warns U.S. May Likely See Ebola Cases
Former CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield tells NewsNation he would not be surprised if there are multiple Ebola cases inside the United States. A new outbreak of Ebola, caused by the Bundibugyo virus, has spread undetected for weeks across eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and into Uganda. The Congolese government has confirmed more than 1,000 suspected cases with at least 220 deaths since it declared an outbreak May 15.
The rare strain of the virus has caused nearly 1,000 suspected cases and more than 220 suspected deaths in Congo, and seven cases with one death in neighboring Uganda. The outbreak is already the third-largest in history, and the World Health Organization has declared it a public health emergency of international concern. There are currently no approved vaccines or treatments.
“I won’t be surprised if we don’t have one or two or three sporadic cases,” Redfield told “Elizabeth Vargas Reports.” “I’m only saying that because of the World Cup coming, a lot of travel. It depends on how much of this virus does get outside the DRC,” he added.
WHO Says Suspected Ebola Cases Drop to 116 After Hundreds Ruled Out
U.S. News & World Report reported:
The World Health Organization said there have been 321 confirmed cases of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo outbreak and 116 suspected cases, marking a large drop in the number of suspected cases as hundreds were ruled out after investigation.
The agency said on Tuesday there had been 48 deaths and six people had recovered in Congo. The Congolese authorities first put out the new case numbers on Monday.
In Uganda there have been nine confirmed cases and one associated death, WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier told reporters in Geneva. Later, Uganda’s health ministry confirmed six more new cases of Ebola, bringing the total confirmed in the country so far to 15, the health ministry said on Tuesday. The ministry said in a statement on its X account that the six were confirmed among contacts of other confirmed cases.
The WHO said on Friday that there were 906 suspected cases of the Bundibugyo Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of Congo, including 223 suspected deaths that were being investigated. Later Jean Kaseya, director-general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said in an FT op-ed published on Sunday that more than 1,100 suspected cases were being investigated.
As FDA Misses Deadline on Electric Shock Ban, Disability Advocates Speak Out
Two years ago, the Food and Drug Administration gave itself a deadline. The agency would eventually decide whether to ban electrical shock devices that have been used for decades to manage self-injurious behavior in people with intellectual disabilities and autism. The deadline, pegged to the end of May, has now passed without a verdict, leaving disability rights activists and former recipients of these shocks worried that they will continue.
The practice — dubbed a form of “torture” by United Nations officials and “punishing” by the American Academy of Pediatrics — has mostly fallen out of favor in the United States in recent decades but is still used at one institution: the Judge Rotenberg Center in Massachusetts. Disability advocates have been trying to shut down JRC for decades, especially after a video of a resident being shocked for seven hours was shown in court in 2012.
The institution offers schooling in addition to therapy, but it is mostly seen as a last resort and sought after for its use of behavioral treatments for kids and adults who have not responded to other types of therapy.
The shock therapy treatment has faced legal challenges for years. The FDA started the process to ban it in 2013 and tried to outlaw it in 2020 before a federal appeals court judge overruled the agency’s decision. The institution has 347 residents, with 54 residents receiving some shock treatments, according to a JRC spokesperson.
FDA Approves First Oral Drug to Prevent COVID-19 Post-Exposure
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the first oral antiviral medication that can help prevent COVID-19 after exposure to the virus. Xocova is a five-day pill regimen approved for those 12 and older. The treatment works by blocking viral replication before symptoms develop, says drugmaker Shionogi.
Trials found the drug reduced the risk of developing symptomatic COVID by 67% compared to a placebo. The pill does come with some common side effects, including headache, diarrhea and cough.
The USDA’s Local Food Program Transformed Regional Food Systems. Now It’s Gone.
Ed Dubrick and his wife, Lindsey, grow vegetables, graze sheep, and raise chickens that forage for grubs in grassy pastures on seven acres in the middle of otherwise flat, endless fields of corn and soybeans around Cissna Park, Illinois. When they started DuChick Ranch in 2020, they sold their meat and eggs at farmers’ markets. But as their family grew, loading two kids in addition to a whole lot of food into a trailer before dawn on weekends became less sustainable, so they decided to try a shift into local wholesale markets.
Dubrick also advocates for small-scale livestock farms as a policy organizer at the Illinois Stewardship Alliance, so he knows more about markets than the average farmer. Still, he soon discovered it would be no easy feat.
Wholesale buyers, for example, often wanted him to meet impossible minimums or provide the same vegetables every week year-round, which doesn’t square with seasonal fluctuations on a small farm. When he got the opportunity to participate in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) program, everything changed.
States Grapple With Billions in PFAS Costs and Ask EPA for Assistance
State regulators say they need the federal government to direct more financial support to water systems struggling with PFAS contamination. The total costs to implement destruction and control technologies nationwide will be in the billions, speakers at the annual Summit on PFAS Regulation, Compliance, and Litigation in New York City said on Thursday.
Katrina Kessler, a commissioner with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, said the federal government may need to consider a fee system or other revenue-generating authority from upstream producers of PFAS chemicals in order to ensure the cost doesn’t fall entirely on taxpayers.
While she is “sympathetic” to passive receivers of contaminated material, like wastewater treatment plants and landfills, Kessler said she’s worried about shrinking the pool of facilities that can be held responsible for shouldering the cost. “Frankly, this administration likes to talk about polluter pays, but I’m not seeing a lot of leadership on the polluter pays side,” Kessler said. “How are states and local governments going to meet the costs without bankrupting small towns across the country without a true polluter pays model?”
