Login
HHS to Stop Recommending Routine Covid Shots for Children, Pregnant Women
The Wall Street Journal reported:
The Trump administration is planning to drop recommendations that pregnant women, teenagers and children get COVID-19 vaccines as a matter of routine, according to people familiar with the matter.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), led by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is expected to remove the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) recommendations for those groups around the same time it launches a new framework for approving vaccines, the people said.
The exact timing of the announcement wasn’t clear, the people said, though it was expected in the coming days.
The CDC currently recommends that everyone six months and older, including pregnant women, receive Covid vaccines. It wasn’t clear if the department is planning to remove the recommendation for COVID-19 shots entirely for those groups, or just suggest that patients talk with their doctors about risks and benefits.
Spokespeople for HHS, CDC and the White House didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Kennedy has long been a foe of the COVID-19 vaccines and petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2021 to revoke their emergency-use authorizations. Trump appointees working closely with him have also been critics of the shots, especially those that use messenger-RNA technology or are authorized for use in children.
GOP Sen. Bill Cassidy, Who Wavered Over Confirming RFK Jr., Says He’s ‘Lived up’ to His Promises on Vaccines
Sen. Bill Cassidy helped clinch Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s bid to lead the Department of Health and Human Services months ago after securing commitments from Kennedy to, among other things, avoid undercutting public faith in vaccinations. Now, the Louisiana Republican says the secretary has “lived up to” those promises — even as critics accuse Kennedy of trying to poison the well of faith in vaccines.
Ahead of Kennedy’s Wednesday testimony in front of the Senate committee Cassidy chairs, the senator told NBC News that he has a “good working relationship” with Kennedy. And asked whether the secretary has lived up to his commitment not to sow distrust in vaccines, Cassidy replied: “All I’ll say about the commitment is, so far, he’s lived up to them.”
Later in the hearing, Kennedy, the former chair of an anti-vaccine group that has long spread unfounded claims about immunizations, sparred with Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., over vaccines. Murphy accused Kennedy of deciding to “repeatedly undermine the [measles] vaccine with information that is contested by public health experts,” adding that “if I were the chairman, [Cassidy], who believes in vaccines and voted for you because he believed what you said about supporting vaccines, my head would be exploding.”
FDA Commissioner Says New Vaccine ‘Framework’ for Industry Is Coming Within Weeks
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Marty Makary said the agency is planning to unveil new guidance for vaccine makers, focused primarily on COVID-19 shots, in the coming weeks.
“We want to be very transparent, and we want to create a framework for vaccine makers that they can use so they have a predictable FDA where they don’t have to worry,” Makary said at the Food and Drug Law Institute conference on Thursday.
Makary said Vinay Prasad, the new director of the center overseeing vaccines, is meeting with industry and FDA staff as he plans to “unleash a massive framework” clarifying the FDA’s regulatory expectations for vaccines. Makary didn’t offer many more details when talking to reporters after his session, but indicated the framework would take the form of agency guidance.
Judge Allows CIA to Fire Official Who Played Role in Biden’s Military COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate
A federal district judge is allowing the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to fire the agency’s director of the Center for Global Health Services Dr. Terry Adirim. Adirim filed a lawsuit against the CIA on May 2 after she was fired by the agency and accused it of denying her due process and also caving to criticism over her role in mandating COVID-19 vaccines for military service members.
Despite Adirim’s attempt to block her removal, U.S. District Judge Michael Nachmanoff ruled that the former director’s case lacked sufficient evidence to prevent her termination, according to Politico.
In 2021, Adirim served as acting assistant secretary of health affairs and played a role in the Department of Defense’s rollout of mandatory COVID-19 vaccines. “We’re honest and up-front in acknowledging the department is confronting many of the same challenges that the rest of America is in maximizing vaccine acceptance. We’re using every tool possible to increase vaccination, and we’ll continue to do so from the secretary to the most junior leader,” Adirim said during a 2021 press conference.
The former director was reportedly removed from the CIA on April 4, with reports of her termination beginning to circulate on April 8 after being reposted online by former U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency employee Ivan Raiklin, according to The New York Times.
Farmers Sued Over Deleted Climate Data. So the Government Will Put It Back.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will restore information about climate change that was scrubbed from its website when President Trump took office, according to court documents filed on Monday in a lawsuit over the deletion. The deleted data included pages on federal funding and loans, forest conservation and rural clean energy projects.
It also included sections of the U.S. Forest Service and Natural Resources Conservation Service sites, and the U.S. Forest Service’s “Climate Risk Viewer,” which included detailed maps showing how climate change might affect national forests and grasslands.
The lawsuit, filed in February, said the purge denied farmers information to make time-sensitive decisions while facing business risks linked to climate change, such as heat waves, droughts, floods and wildfires. The suit was brought by the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York along with two environmental organizations, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Working Group.
The plaintiffs had sought a court order requiring the department to restore the deleted pages. On Monday, the government said it would oblige.
Op-Ed: To Curb Chronic Disease in Americans, the FDA Needs to Assert Regulatory Control Over Toxic Chemicals in Our Food
Environmental Health News reported:
As senior environmental health researchers and physicians, we are united in our concern about the escalating prevalence of chronic diseases in the U.S. To stop the increase of these chronic disease epidemics, it is essential to change the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s current lack of regulatory oversight of toxic chemicals in food.
There is consensus among the scientific and medical communities — including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Endocrine Society, the United Nations Environment Program, the World Health Organization, and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, among others — that the health of Americans is at a crisis point.
Regulatory inaction has increased while Americans are becoming progressively sicker with chronic diseases, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, immune disorders, and declining fertility.
Six in 10 Americans suffer from at least one chronic disease, and four in 10 have two or more. Of additional concern is the increasing incidence of altered brain function, including learning disabilities, autism, ADHD, dementia, and Parkinson’s disease.
The consumption by Americans of non-nutritious, highly processed food clearly contributes to these chronic disease epidemics. And microplastics from food, food packaging sources, and elsewhere have become a major concern now that they have been identified in the tissues of virtually all humans. These food-related issues must also be addressed.
