New CDC advisers will skip some expected topics and explore a target of antivaccine activists
U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s new vaccine advisers meet next week, but their agenda suggests they'll skip some expected topics — including a vote on COVID-19 shots — while taking up a longtime target of anti-vaccine groups.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices makes recommendations on how to use the nation's vaccines, setting a schedule for children's vaccines as well as advice for adult shots. Last week, Kennedy abruptly dismissed the existing 17-member expert panel and handpicked eight replacements, including several anti-vaccine voices.
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Toronto Star
10 hours ago
- Toronto Star
New CDC advisers will skip some expected topics and explore a target of antivaccine activists
U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s new vaccine advisers meet next week, but their agenda suggests they'll skip some expected topics — including a vote on COVID-19 shots — while taking up a longtime target of anti-vaccine groups. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices makes recommendations on how to use the nation's vaccines, setting a schedule for children's vaccines as well as advice for adult shots. Last week, Kennedy abruptly dismissed the existing 17-member expert panel and handpicked eight replacements, including several anti-vaccine voices.
Winnipeg Free Press
10 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Province confirms more than 100 measles cases this year
More than 100 people have contracted measles in Manitoba this year. There have been 14 confirmed and four probable cases in June, according to data accurate as of Saturday and released by the province Wednesday. There have now been 105 confirmed measles cases and eight probable since February, with the majority of confirmed cases in May. Four new locations in southern Manitoba were pinpointed as possible exposure sites to measles Tuesday: Triangle Oasis Restaurant in Winkler, from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. on June 11, VB's Entertainment Center in Winkler, from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. on June 9, The Manitou Motor Inn's bar, from 3 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. on June 9 and Steinbach Church of God in Steinbach from 9:45 a.m. to 2 p.m. on June 1. Public health officials asked anyone who was in these locations during those times to check their immunization records and ensure they are up to date with measles vaccines. At Triangle Oasis Restaurant, co-owner Jonny Neufeld said he'd heard their family restaurant was an exposure site through a news article Tuesday. He said they're taking extra precautions, in part because many of his staff are related, meaning if one person gets infected, it could trigger widespread absences. 'The waitresses that we had for that evening, we're paying attention to them, making sure that nothing is happening, nobody's getting sick or nothing,' he said Wednesday. He's watched as the number of exposure sites in Winkler have risen. While he is immune through childhood immunization, he's concerned for others in the community. 'I feel like there's a vaccine for it, and people that aren't taking it are crazy,' he said. 'People been taking that vaccine for years, and more and more people here aren't taking it for their kids, and it's just like, what are they thinking? (Measles) kills.' Wednesdays A weekly dispatch from the head of the Free Press newsroom. He believes negative views around vaccines that came out of the COVID-19 pandemic remain prevalent in the community. 'Because of the COVID vaccine, I guess, people don't want to take any kind of vaccine — well, this measles vaccine has been going on for a while, people have been using for years, and they're still fine,' he said. Manitoba expanded its eligibility criteria for measles vaccines on May 30 to include some children between the ages of six months and a year. An additional dose can be given to children that age living in Southern Health-Santé Sud or the Interlake Eastern health regions, those who travel regularly or have close contact with people from those regions, or people who have been evacuated from their home communities due to wildfires. While most people recover from measles within three weeks, the virus is highly contagious and can be particularly deadly for kids. Complications can include ear infections, pneumonia, seizures, brain damage or death. Measles during pregnancy can cause premature births, babies born with low birth weights or miscarriage. The only way to prevent measles is to be immunized. Malak AbasReporter Malak Abas is a city reporter at the Free Press. Born and raised in Winnipeg's North End, she led the campus paper at the University of Manitoba before joining the Free Press in 2020. Read more about Malak. Every piece of reporting Malak produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press's tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press's history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates. Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Winnipeg Free Press
10 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
New CDC advisers will skip some expected topics and explore a target of antivaccine activists
U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s new vaccine advisers meet next week, but their agenda suggests they'll skip some expected topics — including a vote on COVID-19 shots — while taking up a longtime target of anti-vaccine groups. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices makes recommendations on how to use the nation's vaccines, setting a schedule for children's vaccines as well as advice for adult shots. Last week, Kennedy abruptly dismissed the existing 17-member expert panel and handpicked eight replacements, including several anti-vaccine voices. The agenda for the new committee's first meeting, posted Wednesday, shows it will be shorter than expected. Discussion of COVID-19 shots will open the session, but the agenda lists no vote on that. Instead, the committee will vote on fall flu vaccinations, on RSV vaccinations for pregnant women and children and on the use of a preservative named thimerosal that's in a subset of flu shots. It's not clear who wrote the agenda. No committee chairperson has been named and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not comment. Committee won't take up HPV or meningococcal vaccines Missing from the agenda are some heavily researched vaccine policy proposals the advisers were supposed to consider this month, including shots against HPV and meningococcal bacteria, said Dr. Susan Kressly, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Instead, the committee is talking about subjects 'which are settled science,' she said. 'Every American should be asking themselves how and why did we get here, where leaders are promoting their own agenda instead of protecting our people and our communities,' she said. She worried it's 'part of a purposeful agenda to insert dangerous and harmful and unnecessary fear regarding vaccines into the process.' The committee makes recommendations on how vaccines that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration should be used. The recommendations traditionally go to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director. Historically, nearly all are accepted and then used by insurance companies in deciding what vaccines to cover. But the CDC has no director and the committee's recommendations have been going to Kennedy. Thimerosal is a longtime target of antivaccine activists Thimerosal was added to certain vaccines in the early 20th century to make them safer and more accessible by preventing bacterial contamination in multi-dose vials. It's a tiny amount, but because it's a form of mercury, it began raising questions in the 1990s. Kennedy — a leading voice in an antivaccine movement before he became President Donald Trump's health secretary — has long held there was a tie between thimerosal and autism, and also accused the government of hiding the danger. Study after study has found no evidence that thimerosal causes autism. But since 2001, all vaccines manufactured for the U.S. market and routinely recommended for children 6 years or younger have contained no thimerosal or only trace amounts, with the exception of inactivated influenza vaccine. Thimerosal now only appears in multidose flu shot vials, not the single-shot packaging of most of today's flu shots. Targeting thimerosal would likely force manufacturers to switch to single-dose vials, which would make the shots 'more expensive, less available and more feared,' said Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Doctors' groups have opposed Kennedy's vaccine moves Last week, 30 organizations called on insurers to continue paying for COVID-19 vaccines for pregnant women after Kennedy said the shots would no longer be routinely recommended for that group. Wednesdays Columnist Jen Zoratti looks at what's next in arts, life and pop culture. Doctors' groups also opposed Kennedy's changes to the vaccine committee. The new members he picked include a scientist who researched mRNA vaccine technology and became a conservative darling for his criticisms of COVID-19 vaccines, a top critic of pandemic-era lockdowns and a leader of a group that has been widely considered to be a source of vaccine misinformation. The American Academy of Pediatrics has long put out its own immunization recommendations. In recent decades it has matched what the government recommended. But asked if they might soon diverge, depending on potential changes in the government's vaccination recommendations, Kressly said; 'Nothing's off the table.' 'We will do whatever is necessary to make sure that every child in every community gets the vaccines that they deserve to stay healthy and safe,' she said. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
