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Senate Confirms Susan Monarez as CDC Director. Here’s What She’s Said About Vaccines, Fluoride and More.
The U.S. Senate voted Tuesday along party lines, 51 to 47, to confirm Susan Monarez as the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
President Trump nominated her for the role in March, praising her as “an incredible mother and dedicated public servant” who “understands the importance of protecting our children, our communities, and our future.”
Monarez has been serving as the acting head of the CDC since January, and previously worked as the head of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. She was viewed as somewhat surprising pick for the CDC role because unlike most recent CDC directors, she holds a Ph.D. but is not a medical doctor.
FDA Weighs Warning Labels on Antidepressants for Pregnant Women Despite Safety Consensus
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is considering adding warning labels to antidepressants for women who are pregnant, despite medical consensus that these medications are safe.
The agency convened an advisory panel on July 21 that included six professors from various universities, a psychiatrist from a clinic that speciailizes in getting patients off of psychiatric medications, a clinical psychologist, the chief of maternal-fetal medicine at MetroWest Medical Center in Massachusetts and the founder and CEO of Data Based Medicine in North Wales, which operates a website where patients directly report the effects of drugs. Most of the members of the panel have a longstanding history of being outspoken against the use of psychiatric medications.
“From a national standpoint, the more antidepressants we prescribe, the more depression there is,” said FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary without providing evidence for that claim.
RFK Jr. Is Completely Reshaping Vaccine Policy. This Is the Man Helping Him Do It.
“Who is Stuart Burns?” a scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention texted me from the organization’s all-hands meeting in June, attaching a photo of a man seated in front of his name card.
The 60-year-old conservative with a stout build and a boyish haircut was mostly unknown to the doctors, epidemiologists and officials who had gathered to ask questions about what many have described as the gutting of their agency and the threat many believe its new leaders pose to public health.
When asked about the researchers and doctors reportedly aligned with the anti-vaccine movement who had replaced the qualified experts on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, a federal vaccine advisory committee, deputy director of public affairs Nina Witkofsky opened the floor to Burns, who was seated at a long table with other agency leaders.
Hospitals Miss 49% of Patient Harm Events: HHS Report
Becker’s Hospital Review reported:
According to a July report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS’) Office of Inspector General (OIG), hospitals failed to capture 49% of patient harm events because staff either did not consider them harmful or were not required to disclose them.
The OIG established the first national rate of harm among hospitalized Medicare patients in a 2010 report, which found that more than 1 in 4 experienced harm, the report said. In 2012, the HHS branch said hospitals failed to identify 86% of harm events.
In 2022, the OIG reported 25% of hospitalized Medicare patients experienced harm during their stays in October 2018, and 43% of these harms were preventable. For this study, the OIG traced 299 harm events among 770 Medicare patients discharged in October 2018. The harm occurred at 154 hospitals, which provided information for 266 of the 299 events. The OIG used this data to estimate a national rate of harm events among hospitalized Medicare patients.
