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Kennedy questions vaccine safety at Children’s Health Defense event
News briefToday at 4:53 p.m.
Chris Dall, MA
Topics
Childhood Vaccines
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. yesterday addressed a conference organized by the antivaccine group Children’s Health Defense, playing up the safety risks of vaccines and telling the audience they have a “strong and steadfast friend in the White House.”
Kennedy, who once served as chairman of the group but has kept a distance since becoming HHS secretary, repeatedly questioned the safety of vaccines during his speech and suggested the childhood vaccine schedule might have connections to what he called the “chronic disease epidemic” in US children. He said President Donald Trump has asked to him to “vigorously investigate” the potential contribution of childhood vaccines.
Kennedy said that while vaccine injuries are likely rare, “there’s no way for us to know this,” because the system for reporting vaccine injuries “is broken.”
“We have no idea what the risk profile is for these products,” Kennedy said, repeating a false claim he has made in the past. Vaccines are among the most heavily scrutinized medical products, licensed on the basis of multiple clinical trials and monitored in post-approval marketing studies and by federal surveillance systems.
No mention of measles outbreak
Kennedy spoke to the group amid a nationwide measles outbreak that has reached 3,471 confirmed cases, with four measles-associated deaths reported in Pennsylvania. His only mention of the outbreak was in reference to vaccine injuries.“We care about every child who dies from measles. They get headlines,” Kennedy said. “Shouldn’t we, I ask you, care about the children who are dying or suffering or being injured by vaccine injuries?”
In a post on X, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro criticized Kennedy for “spending his time addressing the premiere vaccine denial conference in America” in the midst of the outbreak.
“He needed to say one sentence: I urge all Americans to get the measles vaccine now to protect themselves and their families during this deadly outbreak,” Shapiro said. “Instead, he pushed a narrative that continues to stoke fear and mistrust.”
Kennedy names 8 new members to preventive services task force
News briefToday at 2:01 p.m.
Chris Dall, MA
Topics
Public Health
The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) yesterday announced the addition of eight new members to the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF).
The new appointees to the panel, which assesses the appropriateness and effectiveness of preventive medical services to determine the services health insurers should be required to cover, will join the eight current members of the group. The new members include specialists in pediatrics, family medicine, oncology, cardiology, radiology, and health insurance.
The newly appointed members are:
- Seth Corey, MD, MPH, a pediatric hematologist-oncologist at Cleveland Clinic and the Case Comprehensive Cancer Center
- Patrick Hunter, MD, MSc, a pediatrician at Pensacola Pediatrics
- Ronald Karlsberg, MD, a clinical professor of medicine at the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California Los Angeles
- Venkatesh Murthy, MD, PhD, professor of preventive cardiology at the University of Michigan
- Stephen Parente, PhD, a professor at the Carlson School of Management and dean of the Carlson Global Institute at the University of Minnesota
- Goldie Stands-Over-Bull, MD, a family physician at Texas Native Health
- Louis Wilson, MD, an internist specializing in gastroenterology, hepatology, and nutrition in Texas
- Dennis Wulfeck, MD, MBA, a diagnostic radiologist in Florida
A ‘significant departure’ from traditional membership
The USPSTF hasn’t met in more than a year, with several scheduled meetings canceled by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has criticized the group in the past and has been seeking to remake it. The volunteer panel is responsible for reviewing evidence and making recommendations for preventive services like cancer screenings and pre-exposure prophylaxis against HIV.“The Preventive Services Task Force’s recommendations influence preventive care across America, and Americans deserve recommendations grounded in rigorous, objective science,” Kennedy said in a news release.
But the American Medical Association (AMA) said the new members, many of whom are specialists rather than primary care clinicians, “represent a significant departure from the Task Force’s traditional membership.”
“We believe maintaining a strong primary care voice must remain central to its work,” AMA President Willie Underwood III, MD, MPH, said in a statement.
Quick takes: DR Congo Ebola emergency, malaria deaths in Germany, 7 new polio cases
News briefToday at 1:39 p.m.
Mary Van Beusekom, MS
Topics
Ebola
Malaria
Polio
- An independent review by an African advisory group has concluded that although declines in Ebola cases and deaths in some hot spots in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are encouraging, the data do not yet confirm that the outbreak has peaked. The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention Emergency Consultative Group recommended that the Public Health Emergency of Continental Security continue and called for intensification of the response to address persistent community deaths and gaps in contact tracing, among other actions. Four months into the Bundibugyo virus outbreak, cases now total 7,475, including 3,605 deaths.
- Public health officials in Frankfurt, Germany, have reported a third malaria death tied to the city’s airport. In total, eight people—six of them airport workers—have been diagnosed as having the mosquito-borne illness since early July, and three have died. The third death was in one of two people who recently became ill; neither had traveled and didn’t work at the airport but lived nearby, the Frankfurt am Main Institute for Infectious Diseases announced yesterday. Airport malaria typically results from the arrival of an airplane carrying Anopheles mosquitoes from an endemic area, officials said.
- Today, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative reported two cases of wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) in Afghanistan, one WPV1 infection in Pakistan, two cases of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) in the DRC, and one cVDPV2 infection each in Mali and Nigeria.