RFK Jr. Says Analyst Working to Find Lost Vaccine Safety Data
David Geier, the researcher, is working on recovering Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) data that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said are missing, Kennedy
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CNN
9 hours ago
- CNN
Anti-vaccine group that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. founded files lawsuit against him over vaccine safety task force
Vaccines Children's health Federal agenciesFacebookTweetLink Follow A nonprofit anti-vaccine group founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said it is funding a lawsuit against him, in his capacity as secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services, for failing to establish a task force to promote the development of safer childhood vaccines. 'Our first priority will ALWAYS be children's health. Sec. Kennedy has FAILED 'to establish a task force dedicated to making childhood vaccines safer, as mandated by federal law,' so we WILL be holding him accountable,' Children's Health Defense said Tuesday in a post on X. The tactic is one familiar to both parties. When Kennedy was head of Children's Health Defense, he filed dozens of lawsuits against corporations and government agencies, usually over vaccines. 'It's difficult to know how much of this is performative,' Dr. Peter Hotez, who co-directs the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston, said in an email. 'The steady stream of pseudoscience policies and propaganda pushed out of the Humphrey Building in Washington DC are both straight out of playbook from both RFK jr and CHD. As far as I can tell there is no real daylight between the two.' The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 directs the HHS secretary to establish a task force consisting of the director of the National Institutes of Health, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The NIH director is designated as chair. According to an article posted Monday on Children's Health Defense's news site, in the years since the act was passed, no HHS secretary – including Kennedy – has ever reported to Congress on steps taken to make vaccines safer. 'This is part of the 1986 act itself,' Children's Health Defense CEO Mary Holland said in the article. 'That no secretary has done so since the passage of this law is a blow to the rule of law. I hope and trust that the current secretary will fulfill his obligation to Congress's mandate.' The task force was indeed created, but it was short-lived, issuing its final report in 1998. Since then, Kennedy has used the absence of the panel to mischaracterize the government's efforts to ensure the safety of vaccines. He's floated the idea of reviving the panel – or one like it – on vaccine safety for years. Children's Health Defense says attorney Ray Flores, its senior outside counsel, filed the lawsuit. Kennedy filed a similar suit in 2018 after a Freedom of Information Act request failed to produce any of the reports that are supposed to be filed under the Act, including the 1998 report. HHS has not responded to CNN's request for comment about the new lawsuit. Dorit Reiss, a professor of law at UC Law San Francisco, also said the lawsuit 'looks performative.' 'It may give Kennedy cover for convening this task force that he may already want to convene. It may well be collusion,' she said in an email. 'To me, this looks like a way to give political cover to something the Secretary may want to do anyway (and can do without anything). The government has answers to this lawsuit, but may not want to. 'Even if it does not include the people in the [National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act], there are multiple federal committees that routinely look at vaccine safety and how to make vaccines safer. It's something that gets a lot of attention,' Reiss wrote. Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly described who filed the lawsuit against HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The lawsuit was filed by attorney Ray Flores and Children's Health Defense says it's funding the lawsuit.
Chicago Tribune
17 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Got the sniffles? Here's what to know about summer colds and the COVID-19 variant called stratus
Summer heat, outdoor fun … and cold and flu symptoms? The three may not go together in many people's minds: partly owing to common myths about germs and partly because many viruses really do have lower activity levels in the summer. But it is possible to get the sniffles — or worse — in the summer. Federal data released Friday, for example, shows COVID-19 is trending up in most states, with emergency department visits up among people of all ages. Here's what to know about summer viruses. The number of people seeking medical care for three key illnesses — COVID-19, flu and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV — is currently very low, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Flu is trending down and RSV has been steady. But COVID-19 is trending up in most U.S. states. Wastewater data from around the country estimates 'moderate' COVID-19 activity. CDC wastewater also shows the XFG variant — nicknamed stratus — is most common in the U.S. Stratus can cause a 'razor blade' sore throat and is considered a 'variant under monitoring' by the World Health Organization. The WHO said the variant is only marginally better at evading people's immune systems and vaccines still work against it. The expectation is that COVID-19 will eventually settle into a winter seasonal pattern like other coronaviruses, but the past few years have brought a late summer surge, said Dr. Dean Blumberg, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at University of California Davis Children's Hospital. Other viruses circulating this time of year include the one that causes 'hand, foot and mouth' disease — which has symptoms similar to a cold, plus sores and rashes — and norovirus, sometimes called the stomach flu. Many viruses circulate seasonally, picking up as the weather cools in the fall and winter. So it's true that fewer people get stuffy noses and coughs in the summer — but cold weather itself does not cause colds. It's not just about seasonality. The other factor is our behavior, experts say. Nice weather means people are opening windows and gathering outside where it's harder for germs to spread. But respiratory viruses are still around. When the weather gets too hot and everyone heads inside for the air conditioning, doctors say they start seeing more sickness. In places where it gets really hot for a long time, summer can be cold season in its own right. 'I grew up on the East Coast and everybody gets sick in the winter,' said Dr. Frank LoVecchio, an emergency room doctor and Arizona State University researcher. 'A lot of people get sick in the summer here. Why is that? Because you spend more time indoors.' For people who are otherwise healthy, timing is a key consideration to getting any vaccine. You want to get it a few weeks before that big trip or wedding, if that's the reason for getting boosted, doctors say. But, for most people, it may be worth waiting until the fall in anticipation of winter cases of COVID-19 really tick up. 'You want to be fully protected at the time that it's most important for you,' said Dr. Costi Sifri, of the University of Virginia Health System. People at higher risk of complications should always talk with their doctor about what is best for them, Sifri added. Older adults and those with weak immune systems may need more boosters than others, he said. Last month, the CDC noted emergency room visits among children younger than 4 were rising. That makes sense, Blumberg said, because many young kids are getting it for the first time or are unvaccinated. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in May that the shots would no longer be recommended for healthy kids, a decision that health experts have said lacks scientific basis. The American Academy of Pediatrics still endorses COVID-19 shots for children older than 6 months. The same things that help prevent colds, flu and COVID any other time of the year work in the summer, doctors say. Spend time outside when you can, wash your hands, wear a mask. And if you're sick, stay home.
18 hours ago
Amid criticism from Laura Loomer, RFK Jr. says he won't run for president in 2028
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Friday ruled out running for president in 2028, apparently defending himself against accusations by conservative influencer Laura Loomer that he and top aides are quietly preparing for another White House bid as Kennedy runs America's health apparatus. "The swamp is in full panic mode," Kennedy wrote in a lengthy post on X. "DC lobby shops are laboring fiercely to drive a wedge between President Trump and me, hoping to thwart our team from dismantling the status quo and advancing [Trump's] Make America Healthy Again agenda." "They're pushing the flat-out lie that I'm running for president in 2028. Let me be clear: I am not running for president in 2028." In the post, Kennedy also defended his longtime aide and deputy chief of staff at HHS, Stefanie Spear, whom Loomer accused in a Politico interview this week of trying "to lay the groundwork for a 2028 RFK presidential run." In his X post, Kennedy defended Spear, calling her "a fierce, loyal warrior for MAHA who proudly serves in the Trump Administration and works every day to advance President Trump's vision for a healthier, stronger America." Spear served as press secretary for Kennedy's failed presidential campaign, which ended last August with an endorsement of Trump. Loomer, a staunch pro-Trump figure, has previously boasted of initiating the firings of government officials she deemed insufficiently loyal to the president. She did not immediately respond publicly to Kennedy's post.
