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Push by Kansas Lawmakers to Slash Childhood Vaccine Recommendation Falls Through
For now, at least, Kansas is sticking with its longstanding immunization standards. A push by GOP lawmakers to force the Department of Health and Environment to bring its vaccine schedule into alignment with scaled-back standards put forward by the Trump administration stalled out last week.
Health secretary and longtime vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. updated the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s guidelines in January by slashing the number of shots recommended for all children from 17 to 11. KDHE released a memo in January announcing that it would not adopt the CDC’s new standards, but Republican lawmakers tried to force the agency’s hand by adding a proviso to the state budget that would have mandated compliance.
Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, vetoed the budget item, saying the Trump administration’s recommendations “stand to create confusion among parents about which vaccines their families should receive.”
Trump Officials Consider Physician, a Fox News Regular, for Top Vaccine Post
The Trump administration is considering Houman Hemmati, an ophthalmologist, entrepreneur and frequent Fox News guest, to serve as the nation’s next top regulator of vaccines and treatments for complex diseases, according to three people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal conversations.
If selected, Hemmati would replace Vinay Prasad, who is slated to leave the high-ranking position at the Food and Drug Administration at the end of April after a rocky year. Prasad had overseen controversial decisions about drugs and a new plan to tighten vaccine approvals, which drew condemnation from former agency leaders.
FDA Commissioner Marty Makary is said to favor Hemmati, two of the people said. A final decision has not been made, according to the three people.
Hemmati, if given the job, would arrive amid scrutiny from the White House on FDA operations. Concerns over the agency’s direction mounted late last year as leadership turned over, rattling the drug industry, which relies on a predictable FDA to understand what it needs to do to win approvals for new treatments.
RFK Jr. Has Turned Corporate America’s Name to Mud, Politico Poll Finds
The party of business is now chock-full of voters who distrust food and pharmaceutical companies and want to regulate them. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is one of them and the health secretary’s drive to spread that message in Washington is proving costly for industry.
The POLITICO Poll of 3,851 U.S. adults conducted by Public First last month reveals that when it comes to Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again agenda, most GOP respondents, and more than Democrats, supported restrictions on ultraprocessed foods, pesticides, seed oils, and junk food advertising, among other things. On vaccines, most Republicans shared Kennedy’s view that vaccines should be optional.
Big American brands from Coca-Cola to Kraft Heinz are getting in line, changing their recipes to accommodate Kennedy, while others — from Dunkin’ to McDonald’s — have absorbed Kennedy broadsides. Drug companies have mostly laid low as Kennedy has disparaged their products. But both the food and pharma industries are spending more on lobbying in the capital than they have in years.
Who Controls Your Feed? Why The FTC’s Fight Against Ad Boycotts Matters For Your Online Freedom
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is in active negotiations with several of the world’s largest advertising firms to resolve an investigation into whether the companies illegally coordinated boycotts against social media platforms, most notably Elon Musk’s X.
According to a report from The Wall Street Journal, the probe involves industry giants including WPP, Publicis Groupe, Dentsu, Havas, and Horizon Media. The inquiry, which began last year, centers on allegations that these firms engaged in anticompetitive behavior by collectively steering advertising dollars away from specific platforms based on political or ideological content.
Under the terms of the proposed settlement, the advertising firms would commit to a “neutral” approach, agreeing not to direct client budgets away from media platforms solely because of the political viewpoints hosted on those sites. While the firms would be barred from coordinated efforts to withhold funds, the settlement would preserve the right of individual advertisers to make their own independent decisions about where their ads appear.
