Kennedy's latest vaccine-related move

Politico

2 days ago

Driving the Day
IT'S BACK — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Thursday that HHS is reinstating the Task Force on Safer Childhood Vaccines, which disbanded in 1998. The decision comes months after a group he once led sued to bring back the panel.
The Children's Health Defense, which Kennedy founded, filed a lawsuit in May against Kennedy over his failure to reconstitute the task force. Kennedy founded CHD years before he launched his presidential campaign in 2023, before dropping out and endorsing President Donald Trump's campaign.
The move is the latest in a string of decisions by Kennedy and his department, seemingly aligned with some of the goals of the anti-vaccine movement.
Here are others:
ACIP overhaul: In June, Kennedy fired the panel that votes on changes to the childhood and adult vaccine schedules, replacing them with new members more closely aligned with his more vaccine-skeptical views.
The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has long drawn the ire of anti-vaccine activists and groups, many of which have argued that the panel's members had conflicts of interest. ACIP members were already required to follow transparency rules and disclose potential conflicts.
At the reconstituted panel's first meeting the same month, the new members voted to stop recommending that anyone get a flu vaccine containing thimerosal. The CDC website says that there is 'no evidence of harm caused by the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines, except for minor reactions like redness and swelling at the injection site.'
But the anti-vaccine movement and Kennedy himself have long theorized that thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative, causes neurological issues. The decision came after a presentation from Lyn Redwood, a former president of the CHD, who identified herself only as a 'private citizen.'
Covid vaccine changes: Kennedy bucked the normal ACIP process in May, when he announced changes to the CDC's Covid-19 vaccine recommendations without first waiting for a vote from the panel, as customary.
Those changes included removing the recommendation that healthy pregnant women get vaccinated and narrowing the recommendation for healthy children.
Many anti-vaccine groups have argued that the Covid vaccine is unsafe for children. In 2022, CHD sued the FDA over its emergency use authorization of the shots, arguing 'defendants used this precarious emergency power to push dangerous drugs on minors.'
mRNA cancellations: Kennedy announced plans last week to cancel $500 million in messenger RNA vaccine development projects — the technology used during Trump's first term amid the 'Project Warp Speed' effort to swiftly develop a Covid vaccine. Anti-vaccine groups have repeatedly argued that the technology is unsafe — arguments echoed by Kennedy in his explanation of the decision.
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Public Health
PSYCH BED SHORTAGE — The number of psychiatric inpatient beds in the U.S. has dropped 97 percent since 1955 after adjusting for population change, according to a report released Thursday — and the authors say a little-known Medicaid policy is behind the trend.
The report, from the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, also notes that Medicaid enrollees are more likely to need access to psychiatric beds than people with private insurance since Medicaid enrollees are 90 percent more likely to have a serious mental illness.
But the report argues that access to those services has been complicated by Medicaid's so-called institutions for mental diseases exclusion. The policy prevents federal Medicaid funding to states for most services that IMDs provide, impacting Medicaid recipients seeking care in larger psychiatric hospitals.
'The amount of public disorder and violence that comes from untreated mental illness is a policy choice,' the report argues. 'There are psychiatric hospitals currently operating that could serve individuals with serious mental illnesses if doing so were financially feasible.'
What's next: While the federal government has taken a variety of steps in recent years to limit the IMD exclusion, the report highlights growing momentum among lawmakers, advocacy organizations — and even the White House — for repealing the policy. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. voiced support for lifting the exclusion nationwide during a congressional hearing for his confirmation earlier this year.
IN THE STATES
GUARDING KIDS' HEALTH ONLINE? Mississippi can enforce a law that requires online platforms with substantial pornographic content to put age-verification methods into place to restrict who accesses the material, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
The justices, POLITICO's Gabby Miller reports, blocked an emergency appeal while NetChoice's challenge to Mississippi's ID law plays out in a federal trial court. The trade group, which represents Meta, YouTube and X, claims the law violates its members' free speech rights. Proponents of the law argue it's a necessary step to safeguard children's mental health.
'We are grateful for the Court's decision to leave Mississippi's law in effect while the case proceeds in a way that permits thoughtful consideration of these important issues,' MaryAsa Lee, communications director at the Mississippi attorney general's office, told POLITICO in a statement.
Key context: The decision comes in the wake of a June Supreme Court ruling upholding a different age-verification law in Texas mounted by the adult entertainment industry, also on First Amendment grounds, which argued the law would restrict adult users' access to forms of online expression.
NetChoice characterized Thursday's Mississippi decision as an 'unfortunate procedural delay.'
Industry Intel
ICYMI — Pharma giant Eli Lilly is working to raise prices on products sold in Europe as a way to bring down costs for U.S. consumers. The move by the Indiana-based drugmaker is an apparent response to President Donald Trump's request that drugmakers tie lower drug prices enjoyed by allies to those set domestically. And it comes two weeks after Trump wrote to drugmakers and demanded they embrace so-called most-favored-nation pricing or face unknown consequences.
The scheme, which the president tried to implement during his first term in a regulation that courts rejected, would tie the price of a drug sold in the U.S. to its lowest price in other wealthy nations.
Read Lauren's full story here.
Names in the News
Pharmaceutical giant Merck has promoted John Cummins to executive director, leading global media relations, policy, crisis and issue communications and enterprise social media. Cummins has been Merck's longtime director of policy communications and previously served as comms director for Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.).
Telehealth company Ro has added Carrianna Suiter Kuruvilla as its new senior director of government and external affairs. She was previously head of federal government relations at DoorDash.
WHAT WE'RE READING
STAT's Elizabeth Cooney reports on new data that shows lowering blood pressure reduces the risk of dementia.
The New York Times' Pam Belluck reports on an experimental approach to treating chronic pain.