RFK Jr. ousts entire CDC vaccine advisory committee
WASHINGTON — Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday removed every member of a scientific committee that advises the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how to use vaccines and pledged to replace them with his own picks.
The 17-member Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices had been in a state of flux since Kennedy took over. Its first meeting this year had been delayed when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services abruptly postponed its February meeting.
Kennedy, who was one of the nation's leading anti-vaccine activists before becoming the nation's top health official, recently took the unusual step of changing COVID-19 recommendations without first consulting the panel.
In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Kennedy said the committee members had too many conflicts of interest. Committee members routinely disclose any possible conflicts at the start of public meetings.
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Miami Herald
an hour ago
- Miami Herald
As health grants shrink, memory cafes help dementia patients and caregivers
Rob Kennedy mingled with about a dozen other people in a community space in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania. The room, decorated with an under-the-sea theme, had a balloon arch decked out with streamers meant to look like jellyfish and a cloud of clear balloons mimicking ocean bubbles. Kennedy comes to this memory cafe twice a month since being diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's disease in his late 50s. Everyone here has a degree of memory loss or is a caregiver for someone with memory loss. Attendees colored on worksheets with an underwater theme. They drank coffee and returned to the breakfast bar for seconds on pastries. A quick round of trivia got everyone's minds working. 'We start out with just little trivia — many of us cannot answer any of the questions,' Kennedy said with a laugh. 'We all have a good time going around,' he added. 'You know, we all try to make it fun.' The northeastern Pennsylvania memory cafe Kennedy attends is one of more than 600 around the country, according to Dementia Friendly America. The gatherings for people with cognitive impairment and their caregivers are relatively cheap and easy to run — often the only expense is a small rental fee for the space. As state and local health departments nationwide try to make sense of what the potential loss of $11 billion of federal health funding will mean for the services they can offer their communities, memory cafe organizers believe their work may become even more important. Losing memory, and other things, too Kennedy's diagnosis led him to retire, ending a decades-long career as a software engineer at the University of Scranton. He recommends memory cafes to other people with dementia and their families. 'If they're not coming to a place like this, they're doing themselves a disservice. You got to get out there and see people that are laughing.' The memory cafes he attends happen twice a month. They have given him purpose, Kennedy said, and help him cope with negative emotions around his diagnosis. 'I came in and I was miserable,' Kennedy said. 'I come in now and it's like, it's family, it's a big, extended family. I get to meet them. I get to meet their partners. I get to meet their children. So, it's really nice.' More than 6 million people in the U.S. have been diagnosed with some form of dementia. The diagnosis can be burdensome on relationships, particularly with family members who are the primary caregivers. A new report from the Alzheimer's Association found that 70% of caregivers reported that coordinating care is stressful. Socializing can also become more difficult after diagnosis. 'One thing I have heard again and again from people who come to our memory cafe is 'all of our friends disappeared,'' said Beth Soltzberg, a social worker at Jewish Family and Children's Service of Greater Boston, where she directs the Alzheimer's and related dementia family support program. The inclusion of caregivers is what distinguishes memory cafes from other programs that serve people with cognitive impairment, like adult day care. Memory cafes don't offer formal therapies. At a memory cafe, having fun together and being social supports the well-being of participants. And that support is for the patient and their caregiver — because both can experience social isolation and distress after a diagnosis. A 2021 study published in Frontiers in Public Health indicated that even online memory cafes during the pandemic provided social support for both patients and their family members. 'A memory cafe is a cafe which recognizes that some of the clients here may have cognitive impairment, some may not,' said Jason Karlawish, a geriatrics professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine and the co-director of the Penn Memory Center. Karlawish regularly recommends memory cafes to his patients, in part because they benefit caregivers as well. 'The caregiver-patient dyad, I find often, has achieved some degree of connection and enjoyment in doing things together,' Karlawish said. 'For many, that's a very gratifying experience, because dementia does reshape relationships.' 'That socialization really does help ease the stress that they feel from being a caregiver,' said Kyra O'Brien, a neurologist who also teaches at Penn's Perelman School of Medicine. 'We know that patients have better quality of life when their caregivers are under less stress.' An affordable way to address a growing problem As the population grows older, the number of available family caregivers is decreasing, according to the AARP Public Policy Institute. The report found that the number of potential caregivers for an individual 80 or older will decrease significantly by 2050. In 2024, the Alzheimer's Association issued a report projecting a jump in dementia cases in the U.S. from an estimated 6.9 million people age 65 or older currently living with Alzheimer's disease to 13.8 million people by 2060. It attributed this increase primarily to the aging of the baby boom generation, or those born between 1946 and 1964. As cases of memory loss are projected to rise, the Trump administration is attempting to cut billions in health spending. Since memory cafes don't rely on federal dollars, they may become an even more important part of the continuum of care for people with memory loss and their loved ones. 'We're fighting off some pretty significant Medicaid cuts at the congressional level,' said Georgia Goodman, director of Medicaid policy for LeadingAge, a national nonprofit network of services for people as they age. 'Medicaid is a program that doesn't necessarily pay for memory cafes, but thinking about ensuring that the long-term care continuum and the funding mechanisms that support it are robust and remain available for folks is going to be key.' The nonprofit MemoryLane Care Services operates two memory cafes in Toledo, Ohio. They're virtually free to operate, because they take place in venues that don't require payment, according to Salli Bollin, the executive director. 'That really helps from a cost standpoint, from a funding standpoint,' Bollin said. One of the memory cafes takes place once a month at a local coffee shop. The other meets at the Toledo Museum of Art. MemoryLane Care Services provides the museum employees with training in dementia sensitivity so they can lead tours for the memory cafe participants. The memory cafe that Rob Kennedy attends in Pennsylvania costs about $150 a month to run, according to the host organization, The Gathering Place. 'This is a labor of love,' said board member Paula Baillie, referring to the volunteers who run the memory cafe. 'The fact that they're giving up time — they recognize that this is important.' The monthly budget goes toward crafts, books, coffee, snacks, and some utilities for the two-hour meetings. Local foundations provide grants that help cover those costs. Even though memory cafes are inexpensive and not dependent on federal funding, they could face indirect obstacles because of the Trump administration's recent funding cuts. Organizers worry the loss of federal funds could negatively affect the host institutions, such as libraries and other community spaces. Memory cafe hot spot At least 39 states have hosted memory cafes recently, according to Dementia Friendly America. Wisconsin has the most — more than 100. The state has a strong infrastructure focused on memory care, which should keep its memory cafes running regardless of what is happening at the federal level, according to Susan McFadden, a professor emerita of psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. She co-founded the Fox Valley Memory Project, which oversees 14 memory cafes. 'They've operated on the grassroots, they've operated on pretty small budgets and a lot of goodwill,' she said. Since 2013, Wisconsin has also had a unique network for dementia care, with state-funded dementia care specialists for each county and federally recognized tribe in Wisconsin. The specialists help connect individuals with cognitive impairment to community resources, bolstering memory cafe attendance. McFadden first heard about memory cafes in 2011, before they were popular in the United States. She was conducting research on memory and teaching courses on aging. McFadden reached out to memory cafes in the United Kingdom, where the model was already popular and well connected. Memory cafe organizers invited her to visit and observe them in person, so she planned a trip overseas with her husband. Their tour skipped over the typical tourist hot spots, taking them to more humble settings. 'We saw church basements and senior center dining rooms and assisted living dining rooms,' she said. 'That, to me, is really the core of memory cafes. It's hospitality. It's reaching out to people you don't know and welcoming them, and that's what they did for us.' After her trip, McFadden started applying for grants and scouting locations that could host memory cafes in Wisconsin. She opened her first one in Appleton, Wisconsin, in 2012, just over a year after her transformative trip to the U.K. These days, she points interested people to a national directory of memory cafes hosted by Dementia Friendly America. The organization's Memory Cafe Alliance also offers training modules — developed by McFadden and her colleague Anne Basting — to help people establish cafes in their own communities, wherever they are. 'They're not so hard to set up; they're not expensive,' McFadden said. 'It doesn't require an act of the legislature to do a memory cafe. It takes community engagement.' This article is part of a partnership with NPR and WVIA. KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
USA Today
an hour ago
- USA Today
How long does a cold last? And how long are you contagious?
Many people think of December and January as the two months of the year you're likely to catch the common cold, but 'cold season' actually stretches from late August through April. That means only about three months of the year, typically May through July, fall outside it. But even during these 'off' months, nearly one in 10 people still catch a cold, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In other words, in any given month, tens of millions of people are walking around with telltale cold symptoms like a stuffy nose, headache, fatigue, sneezing, sore throat and sometimes a cough or low-grade fever. Here's what causes colds to spread so easily, how long they are usually contagious and how they're most commonly treated. What are the main causes of a cold? The common cold is most often caused by a viral infection. Rhinoviruses are the leading culprit, but other viruses such as adenoviruses, certain coronaviruses, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and parainfluenza viruses can also trigger cold symptoms by infecting the upper respiratory tract. Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle. These and more than 200 other viruses spread through saliva or mucus particles expelled from a sick person. 'To catch a cold, you must introduce a cold virus from someone else into your airway,' says Dr. David Hill, a North Carolina-based pediatrician and spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics. This typically happens when infected respiratory droplets are released into the air when a sick person talks, sings, sneezes or coughs. In addition to being inhaled directly, viruses can also land on surfaces and spread when someone touches a contaminated surface and then brushes their nose, eyes or mouth. 'Being in shared spaces often increases the likelihood of transmission,' says Dr. Alison Mitzner, a New York City-based board-certified pediatrician and author of "Calm and Confident Parenting." Other risk factors include a weakened immune system, preexisting health conditions, exposure to cigarette smoke, colder months with lower humidity (which dry out nasal passages) and aging. "Sleep deprivation and fatigue can also make people more susceptible to catching a cold," adds Hill. How long are colds contagious? One of the reasons colds spread so frequently is that they are contagious even before symptoms begin, often one or two days beforehand. After that, "you're usually contagious for as long as you have symptoms, which typically last seven to ten days," says Mitzner. While germs can spread anytime throughout this period, the most viral shedding tends to happen around days four to six. "Know that you can remain contagious for up to two weeks though," she adds. Hill says it's also important to note that "different cold viruses have different levels of contagion." RSV, for example, "is extraordinarily easy to transmit at it can survive on surfaces for hours," he explains. Yes, pneumonia can be contagious. But here's why it depends on the form. How are colds treated? While symptoms can almost always be managed, 'there are no treatments that shorten the duration of a cold,' says Hill. Instead, "every cold just needs to run its course," says Mitzner. To relieve symptoms in the meantime, Hill recommends saltwater nasal rinses for congestion or using nasal decongestants like oxymetazoline if symptoms are especially bad. But he cautions against using them for more than two to three days due to the risk of rebound congestion which, he says, "may be worse than the cold itself." Medications such as acetaminophen or ibuprofen can also reduce fever and alleviate sore throat or headaches but should not be given to very young children without medical advice. For younger kids, Hill recommends honey as a natural cough and sore throat remedy, though he emphasizes that infants and kids under 1 year should never be given honey due to the risk of botulism. 'When you catch a cold, it's important to let your body heal,' says Mitzner. That means rest, hydration and the use of 'a cool-mist humidifier at night to breathe easier.'
Business Insider
an hour ago
- Business Insider
Novavax Stock (NVAX) Gets a Boost from ‘Robust Immune Responses'
Novavax (NVAX) stock jumped on Wednesday after the vaccine maker released results from a Phase 3 clinical trial of its COVID-19-Influenza Combination (CIC) and stand-alone flu vaccine. The initial cohort results from this study included 'robust immune responses' for the CIC and flu vaccine that were comparable to licensed rivals Nuvaxovid and Fluzone HD. Confident Investing Starts Here: Additionally, Novavax noted that the two vaccines were well tolerated. Almost all of the adverse events, greater than 98%, that were experienced by patients were mild or moderate in severity. The trial includes roughly 2,000 patients aged 65 or older. Novavax stated that it will continue to seek partners to further the development of its CIC and stand-alone flu vaccines. The results from this study provide it with the data it needs for discussions with potential partners. NVAX Stock Movement Today While NVAX stock had soared more than 2% in pre-market trading, the company couldn't maintain those gains. As a result, the stock is only up 0.56% as of Wednesday morning. Investors will also note that shares are down 8.83% year-to-date and 54.6% over the past 12 months. The Phase 3 clinical trial data also failed to attract investor interest today. Trading volume was muted at 1.38 million shares, compared to a three-month daily average of roughly 11.29 million units. Is Novavax Stock a Buy, Sell, or Hold? Turning to Wall Street, the analysts' consensus rating for Novavax is Hold, based on one Buy, two Hold, and a single Sell rating over the past three months. With that comes an average NVAX stock price target of $11.25, representing a potential 55.39% upside for the shares. Spark, TipRanks' AI analyst, highlighted 'strong revenue growth and profitability improvements' but warned of 'negative equity and cash flow challenges.'
