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Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Health
- Yahoo
RFK Jr. Admits He Knows Nothing About Actually Treating Measles
Despite issuing guidance that measles can be treated with simple vitamins, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. admitted Tuesday that he's never actually had to help someone recover from the disease before. Kennedy was excoriated by Washington Representative Kim Schrier before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health Tuesday. She torched Kennedy for continuing to spread vaccine misinformation and refusing to listen to medical experts while he leads the nation's public health policy. 'Have you ever treated measles?' asked Schrier, a former physician. 'No,' Kennedy said with a short laugh. 'Well I have,' Schrier said. 'Let me tell you how miserable it is: These kids have high fevers, struggling to breathe, and they are crying. They suffer. The great thing is that there's a vaccine to prevent it.' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials have described the current measles outbreak in Texas as the worst uptick the agency has seen in measles cases in the last 25 years. But the lackadaisical public response to the contagion has only been made worse by Kennedy's politics, which include unfounded claims that the disease-eradicating vaccine was contributing to higher autism rates in kids. Schrier also accused Kennedy of lying to Republican Senator Bill Cassidy during his February confirmation hearings when he promised not to alter the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Cassidy was a critical vote for Kennedy clinching the Cabinet role. 'But then two weeks ago you fired all 17 experts on that very committee. Mr. Secretary, question for you, did you lie to Senator Cassidy when you told him you would not change this panel of experts?' Schrier asked. Kennedy denied having made that commitment altogether, calling it 'inaccurate.' 'I made an agreement with him, and he and I talked many times about that agreement,' he said of Cassidy. Kennedy claimed that all 17 members had potential conflicts of interest before instating eight new members who were reputed vaccine and Covid-19 skeptics. In May, Kennedy justified a religious Texas community's decision not to receive the vaccine by claiming that the measles vaccine contains 'aborted fetus debris' as well as 'DNA particles.' It should go without saying, but the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine does not contain pieces of aborted fetuses. The vaccine contains live or weakened measles, mumps, and rubella viruses and ingredients to stabilize the solution. The return of historically eradicated diseases is thanks to a growing movement of anti-vax parents who refuse to provide their children with the same public health advantages that they received in their youth, mostly in fear of thoroughly debunked conspiracy theories. The researcher who sparked that myth with a fraudulent paper lost his medical license and eventually rescinded his opinion. Since then, dozens of studies have proven there's no correlation between autism and vaccines, including one study that surveyed more than 660,000 children over the course of 11 years. But America's is not the first measles response that Kennedy has bungled. Under Kennedy's stewardship, the anti-vax nonprofit Children's Health Defense had its own questionable history with the disease. Preceding a deadly measles outbreak on Samoa in 2019, the organization spread rampant misinformation about the efficacy of vaccines throughout the nation, sending the island's vaccination rate plummeting from the 60–70 percent range to just 31 percent, according to Mother Jones. That year, the country reported 5,707 cases of measles as well as 83 measles-related deaths, the majority of which were children under the age of 5.
The Hill
26-02-2025
- Business
- The Hill
Time is enemy for lawmakers pushing PBM changes
Time is slipping away from lawmakers who hope to resurrect a slate of changes to the pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) industry. PBMs dodged a bullet when those changes — which included transparency requirements, a ban on 'spread pricing' and a provision delinking PBM payments from a drug's list price — were stripped from December's short-term government funding bill. Lawmakers tried and failed twice last year to legislate changes to PBM business practices. They came the closest in December, and there's bipartisan interest in bringing those same provisions back. But Democrats blame Republicans for killing the package last year and do not want bipartisan issues included in a partisan reconciliation bill, which will be a vehicle to cut spending to pay for an extension of President Trump's 2017 tax cuts. 'We were on the brink of passing historic reforms. But then at the behest of Elon Musk, Republicans balked,' said Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), the top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health. House lawmakers held a hearing Wednesday on 'reining in' PBM business practices, a sign that Republicans remain interested in the issue. But with much of the attention in Congress focused on reconciliation, it isn't clear whether there will be enough political will among GOP leadership to do anything but a 'clean' funding bill, without PBM changes or other health extenders. At the same time, Democrats are also highly suspicious of the Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE) efforts to reshape the federal government and are unlikely to support any funding legislation that doesn't contain language restricting DOGE and Trump from undercutting any spending deal — even if the funding bill were to include bipartisan health measures. 'Anytime you're in a one-party rule, and you're dealing with reconciliation, bipartisanship nearly always freezes for an extended period of time,' said Chris Meekins, an analyst at Raymond James and a former senior member of the Department of Health and Human Services during the first Trump administration. 'When … the ground thaws after the reconciliation fight, I think we could revisit PBM reforms and others, but until then, I think it's an incredibly heavy lift to get it through both chambers,' Meekins added. During Wednesday's hearing, Democrats repeatedly brought up the potential Medicaid cuts that will be needed to find the savings included in the budget resolution Republicans approved Tuesday evening. Democrats say they would overwhelmingly approve a stand-alone bill with the same PBM changes and extension of other expiring health programs, if Republicans were willing to bring it up. The language is already written and could be inserted ready-made into a new bill or passed as a stand-alone under a suspension of the rules. 'What is the plan of the majority to get that bipartisan plan, including PBM reform [and] all these important health care extenders that we agreed on last year, to the floor?' DeGette asked. Even if Republicans wanted to include last year's PBM provisions in the reconciliation bill, the complicated Senate rules around reconciliation could mean some, or all, may not qualify. Health subcommittee Chair Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) said Republicans weren't clear on the next steps, but 'it will be cleared up soon.' The PBM changes represented significant guardrails on the business practices of the industry, which has become a focus of bipartisan efforts to curb drug costs. The industry has faced intense scrutiny on Capitol Hill, and essentially every committee in both chambers with jurisdiction over health care drafted PBM reform legislation last year. The three biggest PBMs are UnitedHealth Group's Optum Rx, CVS Health's Caremark and Cigna's Express Scripts. Those companies represent about 80 percent of all U.S. prescriptions. JC Scott, president and CEO of the PBM lobbying group Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, said he anticipates Congress will try again. 'The fact that they are focused this amount of time and energy on PBMs and not focused on fundamentals like drug company list prices is pretty astounding to me,' Scott said. 'I suspect this is all connected to additional legislation here coming down the road.' But if Congress wants to act, the clock is ticking. Temporary health extenders included in the December bill funding community health centers, delaying Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital payment cuts to safety net hospitals and extending Medicare telehealth flexibilities are all due to expire by the end of March. Democrats do not want to renegotiate any of the provisions. But Meekins said despite an outcry from industry, the legislation wouldn't have significantly 'whacked' them. 'I think that the legislative action being proposed, even in the December package, was not going to be a material impact to the big three PBM players,' Meekins said.
