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Top CDC Vaccine Adviser Says School Mandates Are ‘Not Necessary’
Dr. Martin Kulldorff, who leads the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) vaccine advisory panel, said in a new interview that school vaccine mandates are “not necessary.” The comments signal an apparent about-face for CDC leadership, which has broadly supported children’s vaccination efforts throughout its history. Authority over school vaccine mandates rests with state and local governments, though the CDC makes recommendations on which shots should be required.
Kulldorff said that the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices “should make recommendations based on what we think is best for children.” “I don’t think we should be involved at all in mandating any vaccines,” he added in an exclusive interview with Politico on Wednesday.
He also railed against COVID-19 vaccine mandates, saying the temporary restrictions “were both unscientific and unethical” and said they sparked backlash that public health authorities still deal with today.
The Surgeon General Nominee Who Wants to Make MAHA Moms Mainstream
The Wall Street Journal reported:
Dr. Casey Means wants to give the Trump administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda a less polarizing touch when she becomes U.S. surgeon general, a role where her experience as a new mother will be front and center. The wellness author, picked by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be surgeon general, was due to give birth to her first child Tuesday, just days before her scheduled virtual Senate confirmation hearing Thursday.
If confirmed, she will be the first in the job who is also a new mother. Means spent the days before the scheduled hearing preparing to testify, but hours before she was set to appear, she went into labor, according to people familiar with the matter. The hearing has now been postponed, a spokesman for the Senate’s health committee said.
She has taken an unusual path to the office, abandoning traditional clinical practice after four years of residency to focus on alternative medicine and health-tech projects.
“She is the pre-eminent MAHA mom,” Kennedy said in an interview, adding that he expects that as surgeon general, she will focus on nutrition and similar topics, such as his department’s efforts to improve baby formula. “She’s going to have a bully pulpit, and she can talk to moms about how to care for their kids, what kind of food to give them.”
Rep. Wortz Introduces Plan to Protect Parents’ Right to Seek a Second Opinion
Michigan House Republicans reported:
State Rep. Jennifer Wortz today announced new legislation that would protect parents’ rights to seek a second opinion in medical circumstances regarding their children. House Bill 5163 would ensure that parents cannot be held guilty of child neglect if they are seeking or following medical recommendations from another healthcare professional.
“Most parents want to ensure they are getting the best possible care for their child,” said Wortz, R-Quincy. “If you get terrible news about your child’s health, it should be completely OK for a parent to seek additional medical advice to confirm the diagnosis and analyze the best course of treatment. CPS agents or medical professionals shouldn’t be able to begin proceedings against parents just trying to get the facts straight and chart the best course or treatment for their children.”
Wortz said there have been instances in her community where parents have been given medical direction by one doctor, sought care from another source, and then learn they are being taken to court for doing so. “Doctors are not parents and often have financial bias in treatment recommendations,” Wortz said. “It’s absurd that we should need legal protections to seek second opinions, but the weaponization of the medical and legal system has proven these protections are critical. Asking for a second opinion should never land a parent in the courtroom or a child in foster care.”
HB 5163 was referred to the House Committee on Families and Veterans for consideration.
Calley Means, a Kennedy Adviser, Has Left the White House
Calley Means, an influential adviser to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the brother of President Trump’s nominee for surgeon general, quietly departed the White House at the end of his term as a special government employee about a month ago, he said in an interview on Wednesday night.
For much of the last six months, Mr. Means has acted as the health secretary’s right hand, coordinating a major presidential commission report on what it described as the dire state of children’s health and sparring on television and online with vaccine scientists and doctors who objected to Mr. Kennedy’s campaign to remake American medicine.
The Trump administration is likely to gain a different Means sibling to help steer health policy in short order. With Mr. Kennedy’s strong backing, Mr. Means’s sister, Dr. Casey Means, was nominated by Mr. Trump in May to be surgeon general.
Dr. Means, who alongside her brother became a high-profile emissary of the MAHA movement last year after they co-wrote a book about problems they saw as bedeviling American medicine, was to have appeared before a Senate health committee for her nomination hearing on Thursday. But Dr. Means, who had been due to give birth this week, went into labor shortly before the hearing, which was postponed.
EPA Accused of Misleading Public About Ongoing Production of Harmful PFAS
Federal regulators are falsely claiming that production of a dangerous PFAS chemical has been phased out in the U.S., according to a complaint filed this week by an environmental watchdog group alleging the statement is untrue since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) consistently finds the chemical and other PFAS in fluorinated plastic containers.
The complaint, filed Oct. 29 by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) under the Information Quality Act, calls the EPA’s claims that perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) is no longer produced or imported by the U.S. “inaccurate, incomplete, and misleading.” PEER demands that the agency within 90 days retract or offer a defense for the information on its website.
“It is the height of hypocrisy for EPA to pretend these chemicals are no longer being manufactured when they are permeating our chain of commerce,” Kyla Bennett, PEER’s science policy director, said in a statement. “EPA’s conflicted position epitomizes an approach to PFAS control that is both irresolute and irresponsible.”
