During the Senate confirmation sessions to be the Minister of Health, Robert F. Kennedy Junior himself as a supporter of vaccines. But in his position, he and the agencies led by long -term steps, sometimes hidden to undermine confidence in the effectiveness and safety of vaccines.
National Institutes of Health Funding For researchers who study the frequency of the vaccine and hope to find ways to overcome it. also Site programs It aims to discover new vaccines to prevent future epidemics.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention appointed an advertising campaign for the fluency of influenza. Mr. Kennedy said inappropriate “Severe conflicts in interests” In promoting products and cannot be trusted.
Department of Health and Human Services Reducing billions of dollars For government health agencies, including funds needed to update state immunization programs. Mr. Kennedy said in a televised interview on Wednesday that he was not aware of this extensive development.
Food and Drug Administration He canceled an open meeting On influenza vaccines with scientific advisers, they later detained behind closed doors. A Senior officials Temporarily Agency review Novavax Covid vaccine. In a televised interview last week, Mr. Kennedy said that the vaccines that were created similarly did not work against respiratory viruses.
Some scientists said they saw a pattern: an attempt to wear support for routine vaccination, and for the scientists who have long detained it as a goal of public health.
“This is a simultaneous process to increase the possibility of his voice to hear and reduce the possibility of hearing other voices,” said Kathleen Hall, Director of the General Policy Center, Annberg, on Mr. Kennedy.
She said “amend the voices of other power.”
HHS opposed that Mr. Kennedy was working against vaccines.
“Minister Kennedy is not hostile to writing, he is a supporter of safety,” the department spokesman said in a statement. “His focus has always been on ensuring vaccine testing for effectiveness and safety.”
“We are taking measures so that the Americans get the transparency they deserve and can make enlightened decisions on their health.”
After attending the funeral of an uncomplicated child who died due to measles in West Texas on Sunday, Mr. Kennedy Hands of measles vaccine On X “The most effective way to prevent measles spread”.
But he also described vaccination Personal choice with Bad risk incomprehensible He suggested that miracle treatments were easily available. On Sunday, two local doctors praised the social media who promoted questionable treatments, and perhaps harmful, for the group.
Although measles in the United States have risen to 600 states in 22 and for a judicial killing, Mr. Kennedy claimed In a recent interview The measles vaccine causes deaths every year (incorrect); It causes encephalitis and blindness and “all diseases caused by the measles themselves” (incorrect); And that the effect of the vaccine fades significantly that the elderly “are mainly not correct” (incorrect).
According to an email obtained by the New York Times, HHS plans to review its web pages to include data such as “the vaccination decision is a personal one” and “people must also be informed of possible negative events related to vaccines.” (Vaccines are already given only after patients submit an informed approval, as required by law.)
Tensions with experts prevailing became a sharp focus last week, when Dr. Peter Marx was the best vaccine organizer, Under pressure From the Food and Drug Administration
Dr. Marx said: “It has become clear that the truth and transparency are not desirable by the Secretary. Rather, he wishes a subject of wrong information and lies.” In his resignation speech.
Mr. Kennedy’s position on decades stimulating vaccines. But it has become particularly inconsistent, against the background of High doubt From vaccines Experts said that the exacerbation of measles and bird flu.
The MMR-vaccine has always been a mixture of measles, mumps and measles, which has been available since 1971-a goal for the anti-action campaigns due to the theory that was refuted and that could cause autism. Mr. Kennedy said he wanted to reconsider the case, partly to alleviate parents’ concerns that vaccines are unsafe.
But he has David Gier rented To check data. Senator Bill Cassidy, the Republic of Louisiana, a doctor and head of the Senate Health Committee, criticized the decision to spend dollars in a severe test of a strict hypothesis even with the administration to reduce billions against other research.
“If we get rid of the money here,” He said last month“This is less than the money that we must actually follow the real reason.”
Stephen Jameson, head of the American Association of Immunology, said that the refusal to accept the scientific consensus is “annoying, because we are entering into a very strange area where this is someone happens or does not happen, or does not work or does not work.”
In interviews, Mr. Kennedy reduced the risk of measles and emphasized what he sees as the benefits of infection.
He said in an interview with Fox News: “Everyone got measles, and measles gave you a lifelong protected protection against measles infection – the vaccine does not do it.”
Two doses of MMR vaccine provide decades. Dr. Jameson said that although immunity from infection may last for life, “people also suffer from the consequences of this natural infection,” Dr. Jameson said.
One of the results was discovered just a few years ago: Measles infection can destroy the memory of the immune system for other invasive diseases, leaving the body vulnerable to them again.
Measles kill about 1 in every 1,000 infected people, and 11 percent of the injured This year was transferred to the hospital, and many children under the age of 5, according to the Disease Control Center Two girls, between the ages of 6 and 8, died in West Texas.
On the contrary, the side effects after vaccination are not common. But Mr. Kennedy suggested that people should inform themselves of the dangers before choosing a shot.
“If you are more fully informed, you may make a different decision,” said Dr. Jameson, from the Annberg Center.
Doctors have long expected the Minister of Health and CDC to urge the vaccination on a large scale in an unambiguous manner, in the past, and in the past they have.
But Mr. Kennedy spoke enthusiastically about cod liver oil, and a steroid and antibiotics are not standard treatments. Some of these treatments may be Make children more ill.
“The correspondence I see focuses on the potential treatments for the group.”
Closed doors
In the confirmation session, Mr. Kennedy promised that he would not change the center of disease control Childhood vaccination schedule. After about two weeks, it is A new committee announced It would examine it.
The table relies on recommendations from the Consultative Committee for Evidence Practices, a committee of medical experts who review safety and effectiveness data, potential interactions with other medicines and the ideal time to increase protection.
In his confirmation session, Mr. Kennedy claimed that 97 percent of ACIP members had financial conflicts. It has long been held, without evidence, that federal organizers are at risk and hide information about the risk of vaccines.
“It is frankly wrong,” said Dr. Olary, who works as a connection episode of the Children’s Academy.
The census of Mr. Kennedy came 2009 report That found that 97 percent of Disclosure models were errorsLike missing dates or information in the wrong section.
In fact, ACIP members are carefully examined for the main conflict in interests, and they cannot keep stocks or work in consulting councils or speakers ’offices of vaccine manufacturers.
On this rare occasion in which members suffer from indirect conflict of interests – for example, if the institution in which they work is receiving money from the drug factory – they reveal the conflict and get rid of the relevant sounds.
The votes of the committee were in general and are often discussed.
Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, who led the agency from 2009 to 2017: “When I was the director of the Disease Control Center, people flew from Korea and all over the world to monitor the ACIP meetings, because they were a model of transparency.”
Mr. Kennedy has repeatedly promised transparency and accountability, but he has End the proposed general comment On health policies.
His ministry canceled an ACIP meeting in February, the members were appointed to discuss meningitis and influenza vaccines, and to reschedule this in April.
The administration also canceled a meeting to discuss seasonal influenza vaccine. The officials later met without the agency’s scientific advisers.
“After all this conversation about how they wanted to be transparent, one of the first things he is doing is to take things behind closed doors and reduce the amount of public inputs that we get,” said Dr. George Benjamin, Executive Director of the American General Health Assembly.
In his confirmation session, Mr. Kennedy repeated a marginal theory that black Americans should not receive the same vaccines as they “have a much stronger reaction.”
Senator Angela Supox, Democrat Maryland, who is black, warned him because of his “dangerous” opinion: “Your voice will be a voice that parents listen to.”
Two weeks later, in a teenage mothers clinic in Denver, a 19-year-old woman rejected all the vaccines for herself and her one-year-old son-in that measles and the waterproof sector that was supposed to be obtained on that day.
The pediatrician, Dr. Hana Smith, who described the accident, told her online that the vaccines were bad for people who had more melanin in their skin.
There are groups of evidence on the contrary. However, it soon became clear to Dr. Smith that nothing will change the opinion of her patient.
“Regardless of the amount of information I can provide, on the contrary, the damage has already happened,” said Dr. Smith.
“When someone has a leadership position, especially in the healthcare system,” said Dr. Smith.
