Latest news with #vaccinehesitancy
The Independent
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
‘She's sold out': Meghan McCain accused of going ‘full grift' after promoting COVID vaccine ‘detox'
Meghan McCain, who once chastised rap superstar Nikki Minaj for spreading 'vaccine hesitancy' during the COVID-19 pandemic, is now partnering with a fringe 'wellness' company to promote a 'detox' supplement for those who 'regret taking the shot.' The former host of The View hawking $90 bottles of the 'Ultimate Spike Detox' prompted critics to call out the daughter of John McCain for going 'full grift' and accuse her of selling out 'to the crazies' after championing herself as a 'voice of reason on the right' for years. McCain, who now hosts a twice-weekly podcast, took to X on Wednesday to announce that she was 'thrilled to partner' with The Wellness Company, a business run by Canadian entrepreneur Foster Coulson that is 'rooted in conspiracy theories' and employs 'several doctors who have been accused of spreading medical misinformation.' Coulson, who has paid accused rapist and mysogynistic influencer Andrew Tate to sell his products, says he is creating a 'parallel economy' for 'consumers who believe their freedom is under threat by censorious elites and corrupt scientists.' Other ventures he has backed include a dating site for unvaccinated singles and an 'anti-woke' coffee brand. One of the doctors Coulson has employed is Dr. Peter McCullough, who is listed as The Wellness Company's 'chief scientific officer' and developed the 'Ultimate Spike Detox' supplement line. McCullough, who was an early proponent of the debunked hydroxychloroquine COVID-19 treatment, co-authored a retracted paper that claimed 74 percent of autopsies of people who 'suddenly died' showed they were vaccinated, suggesting that was the cause. According to the company's site, the 'extra-strength formula' designed by the 'world's leading pandemic expert' includes 'a key enzyme that may help break down spike protein and disrupt its function.' It also claims it will provide the user's 'body with unparalleled support for cellular defense and detoxification.' Despite McCullough having his board certifications for cardiovascular disease and internal medicine revoked by the American Board of Internal Medicine earlier this year for promoting misinformation about COVID-19 vaccinations, McCain urged her followers to buy the supplements – and even gave her name as a promotional discount code. 'Concerning data continues to emerge regarding mRNA vaccines and their unforeseen health impacts,' she tweeted on Wednesday. 'They did not deliver what was promised by government + health officials. I have friends who suffered – heart and menstruation issues & more. It's time to pull them off the market NOW.' McCain added: 'Thrilled to partner with The Wellness Company! If you regret taking the shot, there's hope. Dr. Peter McCullough's all-natural Ultimate Spike Detox is helping people worldwide. Use code MCCAIN for 10% off + FREE shipping on all orders.' It was just a few short years ago, however, that McCain was criticizing others as being 'deeply irresponsible' for pushing skepticism over the vaccines. Additionally, when the Biden administration was first rolling out vaccinations to the public, she expressed 'vaccine envy' because she wasn't sure when she was personally going to get the shot. Along those lines, she complained during a July 2021 broadcast of The View that the Biden White House turned down her offer to help the president reach out to 'vaccine-hesitant' Republicans and convince them to get the jab. McCain promoting a disgraced doctor's supplements while partnering with a company that is pandering to anti-vax conspiracists prompted several media figures and observers to call her out as a right-wing grifter. 'Meghan Goes Full Grift: Is Meghan McCain that desperate for some extra cash?' Status News founder Oliver Darcy pointed out in his newsletter, adding: 'For someone who spent years portraying herself as the voice of reason on the right, this is quite the grift.' Gizmodo reporter Matt Novak shared a screenshot of McCain's tweet and noted that 'the entire conservative movement must be funded by health grifts at this point,' while author Stephen Elliott claimed that 'they all sell snake oil eventually' because the 'incentives are too great not to.' Cybersecurity expert Rob Graham, meanwhile, said that while McCain 'would speak out against the crazies' and defend actual science five years ago, she has since 'been captured by her audience' now that she is a conservative podcaster. 'Her audience is drifting further to the fringe, so is she,' he stated. 'So she's now become the thing she [fought] against 5 years ago. From being the champion on the Right-wing against the crazies, she's sold out to the crazies.' Ironically, it was just a few months ago that McCain herself appeared to take issue with those she saw as hustling and camming their audience. 'Grifters can only keep up a grift for so long,' she tweeted in December. Representatives for McCain did not respond to a request for comment. This isn't the first time McCain has been accused of hypocrisy. Earlier this year, she announced that she was 'excited' to be joining a media startup run by political journalist Mark Halperin, whom McCain had publicly trashed years prior over allegations that he sexually assaulted and harassed multiple women. 'With age comes wisdom and different perspectives on people. I am now a 40 year old mother of two. I have grown and evolved like everyone else, particularly in the past five years — Mark has also grown and evolved,' she said when asked at the time by The Independent what had changed regarding her views on Halperin. 'Like Mark, at this point in my life I believe in giving people the presumption of grace and forgiveness as I would like it in return.' Just three months after joining Halperin's 2way network, low viewership continued to plague the show, prompting her to merge her existing Citizen McCain podcast with the YouTube program in hopes of sparking interest.
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- General
- Daily Mail
Frightening map reveals US counties where world's most infectious disease is set to surge
Experts are warning of a national decline in the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccination rate among US children as cases continue to spike in the country. A new study found uptake of the vaccine among children declined in eight in 10 US counties last year. Overall, vaccine rates fell three percent across the country. It means that merely 91 percent of children are vaccinated against measles, which is well below the 95 percent need to prevent the disease from spreading and causing death. The Johns Hopkins University researchers warned that if vaccination rates continue to fall, measles is likely to completely return and become a common infection among Americans. As of last week, more than 1,000 confirmed cases and at least three deaths in the US have been reported - the first measles-caused deaths in a decade. A majority of those infected as well as the all of the deceased had not received their MMR vaccine - primarily due to vaccine hesitancy and misinformation, experts say. Without the MMR vaccine, which is 97 percent effective at stopping infections, measles is thought to be the most infectious disease in the world. It causes tiny white spots inside the mouth, flat red spots on the neck, torso, arms, legs, and feet, ear infections and an intense fever. In terms of when to get vaccinated, experts say children need two doses of MMR vaccine: the first dose at age 12-15 months, and the second dose at age 4-6 years. Babies ages 6-11 months should get an early dose if traveling internationally. Adults should also check to see if they are immune to measles. In the study, the researchers collected two-dose MMR vaccination data on kindergarteners (children aged five years old) for each school year starting 2017-2018 to 2023-2024 in 2,066 counties across 38 states. The scientists analyzed the collected data through multiple statistical models to find out how many children were vaccinated. Out of the studied counties, 78 percent or 1,614 counties reported drops in MMR vaccination rates. The average county-level vaccination rate was also seen to fall from 93.92 percent pre-Covid pandemic to 91.26 percent post-pandemic. Only four of the 33 states studied, only California, Connecticut, Maine and New York reported an increase in the vaccine uptake. Lauren Gardner, senior author and director of Johns Hopkins University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering said of the results: 'This open, high resolution dataset provides a critical resource to explore and better understand the country's vaccination landscape and its implications for the risk of measles spread.' They also noted that with the exception of 2019, this year is the highest number of cases reported in the US in a single year in over three decades - with the vast majority of cases occurring in unvaccinated children. The study was published today in the JAMA Network Journal. If one person has measles, up to 90 percent of the people close to that person who are not immune will also become infected. The average measles patient would infect up to 18 others if they were also not vaccinated. People who had the original Covid strain, by comparison, infected on average just two people, though this number rose considerably with new variants. If unvaccinated, about one in five people who are infected are hospitalized while one in 20 children develop pneumonia. The last time measles was this rife in the US was in 2019, when there were 1,274 cases reported for the entire year. Prior to that, the biggest outbreak was in 1990, with numbers spiking to more than 27,000. Currently, the affected states are: Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York City, New York State, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, and West Virginia. IS THIS DEFO UP TO DATE? Of these cases, three-quarters are in children under the age of 19. Measles was officially eradicated in the US in 2000 amid a successful vaccination campaign. At the time, the CDC described achieving measles elimination status in the US as a 'historic public health achievement'.
ABC News
16-05-2025
- Health
- ABC News
Why childhood vaccination is dropping and what we can do about it
An alarming decline in childhood vaccination rates is a "wake-up call" for all levels of Australian government and the health sector, according to the peak body for doctors. President of the Australian Medical Association (AMA), Dr Danielle McMullen, said new figures released this week show we urgently "need to do more" to address the issue. "Perhaps as a country we've become complacent in trusting our really excellent vaccination rates," Dr McMullen said. Tasmanian GP Tim Jones said he was talking to hesitant patients about vaccination every day. "I'm having four to five conversations a day with families about vaccinations particularly as it applies to their children." He said some were skeptical about both the safety of vaccinations and whether the diseases they protect against are, in fact, dangerous, while others felt apathetic and burnt out in the wake of the pandemic. "They're fearful, they're worried about harm, they don't want to hurt the people they love." Dr Jones has been a GP for almost ten years and said vaccine hesitancy was much higher now than it was when he first started working as a doctor. Dr Jones is also the chair of child and young person's health at the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. He said it's really important to listen to people's fear and hesitancy about vaccines, so they feel safe. "As a GP working in 2025, I did not think I would be seeing kids in the developed world die of measles and yet this is the situation we're now facing" Dr Jones said fear and hesitancy were the main issues he's seeing in Hobart, but there are also significant economic and cultural barriers with some people struggling to access affordable, convenient care. New data from the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS) shows a widespread decline in childhood vaccinations for a range of diseases over the past five years. The proportion of children who are up-to-date with their immunisations by the age of 12 months fell from 94.8 per cent in 2020 to 91.6 per cent last year. The percentage of those fully vaccinated by age two was down from 92.1 per cent to 89.4 per cent in the same time frame. For highly contagious diseases like measles, approximately 95 per cent vaccination coverage is needed to maintain herd immunity. Source: Department of Health Dr McMullen from the AMA said a review of Australia's public health vaccination campaigns was needed to "refocus" the messaging and target misinformation. "Most people are getting the message that vaccinations are a really critical part of our health system. "Just blasting them with more and more information may not change the dial. "What we've really got to do is be targeted and work out for people who aren't being vaccinated, what are the barriers they're facing and how do we address those?" There are practical and ideological reasons why some parents aren't vaccinating their children, either fully or partially. In practical terms, cost and access to care can be barriers. Although childhood immunisations are free, sometimes GPs will charge for the appointment, especially in regional or remote areas. And even if the appointment is free, there may be the cost of taking time off work or transport to the doctor. Even getting an appointment can be a battle too. "Childhood vaccinations are due every few weeks so sometimes a GP is really busy and you can't get an appointment every six weeks when it's due," said Jessica Kaufman, a lead researcher on the Vaccine Uptake Group at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute. "Then before you know it you've fallen behind." The other reasons for reluctance are linked to emotions and social influence. Dr Kaufman is part of the National Vaccination Insights Project which surveyed 2,000 parents about childhood vaccination last year. About 50 per cent of parents with unvaccinated children said they didn't believe vaccines were safe and around 40 per cent didn't think vaccines were effective at preventing disease. But the most common barrier for all surveyed parents (including those who did vaccinate their children) was "feeling distressed when thinking about vaccinating their child". "A lot of parents worry about seeing their kids in pain, or worry they are making the right decision or may just have a needle phobia themselves," Dr Kaufman said. This data was collected last April so Dr Kaufman said it does not reflect the rise in vaccine misinformation that we've seen since the Trump administration was re-elected in the US. US Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy is a well-known vaccine skeptic who has revived the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism and promoted treatments for measles that have no grounding in scientific evidence, such as vitamin A. "What's happening in the US means things that used to be fringe beliefs are becoming mainstream and anecdotally I'm hearing from nurses that people are coming into clinic with questions about things like vitamin A supplementation," Dr Kaufman said. Dr Kaufman said employing more practice nurses who can give vaccines at GP clinics, establishing walk-in vaccine clinics and allowing pharmacists to give childhood immunisations could all help reverse the trend. Creating a positive and supportive environment at the clinics where the vaccinations are administered is also crucial to ease distress. "Distraction techniques can help or allowing the mother to breastfeed while the baby gets vaccinated," Dr Kaufman said. "Another idea would be to have a Medicare item that incentivises vaccination conversations so there's time to have good conversations that can be bulk billed." Julie Leask is a social scientist who is involved in the National Vaccination Insights Project, specifically looking at influenza vaccination uptake. She said the simple act of sending reminders needed to be revitalised. "Reminders work but they are quite ad hoc right now and it's up to the GP practice. I'm not aware of any jurisdictions using reminders systematically." Getting through to parents who don't believe vaccines are safe or effective is a lot more challenging but fear campaigns are not effective, Dr Kaufman said. "Research has shown this can overwhelm people as they might already be scared of the vaccine and potential side effects and then they are shown scary images of people with the disease … this can put them into a kind of analysis paralysis so they do nothing." She said the most effective way to get through to people with doubts is through community outreach, which was used a lot at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. This involves people who are already trusted by a community getting trained in how to have conversations about vaccination within their cultural, religious, political or social network. "This is a lot more useful than something like the 'arm yourself' campaign we saw during COVID." Health Minister Mark Butler said the decline in childhood vaccination was "alarming" and the government was currently finalising its National Immunisation Strategy for 2025 to 2030 which will outline how to improve uptake.
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
RFK Jr. Spews Wild Anti-Vax Theories As Measles Cases Surge
As measles cases surge past quadruple digits for the first time in three decades, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been defending religious vaccine refusal and spreading pseudoscience on Fox News. 'The MMR vaccine that we currently use has millions of particles that were created from aborted fetal tissue, millions of DNA fragments,' RFK Jr. told Fox News host Bret Baier in a report aired on Thursday. It's a wildly misleading statement. The rubella component of the MMR vaccine is grown in a lab-cultured cell line originally derived from fetal tissue in the 1960s, but no actual tissue cells are present in the vaccine. Trace DNA fragments are non-functional and regulated to be safe. As of May 8, the CDC confirmed a total of 1,001 measles cases have already been detected in 2025, a sharp increase from the 285 reported in all of 2024. So far, three people have died from the disease. Framing the debate as one of personal freedom and religious persecution, Kennedy said that people refusing the vaccine on moral grounds were being 'treated like lepers' and deserved more 'compassion' in hospital settings. 'Even in 1963, before the introduction of the vaccine, there were 400 deaths a year and there were up to 2 million measles cases,' Kennedy said. 'Only very, very sick kids should die from measles.' Baier clarified that the MMR vaccine doesn't contain fetal cells, to which Kennedy asserted that the presence of DNA fragments justifies the religious objection. 'I might not share those objections, [but] I respect them,' he said. Kennedy admitted that the measles outbreak in Texas, which has now spread to 30 other states, has largely been among the Mennonite community, and that the virus will spread through an unvaccinated population. Measles is one of the most contagious viruses on Earth, with a 90 percent infection rate among unvaccinated people. Herd immunity for the disease requires roughly 95 percent vaccination coverage, something America slipped below in 2021. This makes outbreaks more likely and potentially uncontrollable if they begin to circulate in wider, unvaccinated populations. RFK Jr. has previously come under fire for suggesting it would be better if 'everybody got measles,' arguing that infection provides lifetime coverage in a way the vaccine does not. However, an MMR vaccine, which is 97 percent effective for life, does not come with possible side effects of pneumonia, encephalitis, or death, unlike a measles infection.
News24
07-05-2025
- Health
- News24
Science vs. Misinformation: The safety and efficacy of annual flu vaccination
Winter is approaching, and with it comes the annual peak of flu season, generally starting in April and peaking in June 1. Influenza is a contagious respiratory illness caused by influenza viruses, with the most common symptoms including fever, aches, chills, chest discomfort, cough, and headache. While most people infected with the flu will recover, some will develop complications, especially those in higher risk groups which includes pregnant women, young children, the elderly, and individuals with chronic medical conditions 2. Getting vaccinated is the best way to reduce illness and death from seasonal flu 2. In fact, The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that flu vaccinations globally between 2019 and 2020 may have prevented as many as 7.5 million influenza infections, 3.7 million influenza-related medical appointments, 10 000 influenza-related hospitalisations and 6 300 influenza-related deaths 3. Yet, back in 2019, WHO also referred to vaccine hesitancy as one of the top ten threats to global health, highlighting the risk it posed to the progress made in controlling vaccine-preventable diseases 3. Vaccine hesitancy is the unwillingness or delay in getting vaccinated, with individuals who are hesitant experiencing varying degrees of uncertainty. Some might accept all vaccines but still have concerns, while others may delay or refuse certain or even all vaccines 4. Negative media messages and word of mouth, especially among younger adults, also plays a part in spreading fears and misinformation about vaccine safety 5. Over the past 20 years, extensive research and studies have identified several reasons for vaccine hesitancy, with four key themes emerging, namely cultural factors, a perceived lack of need for vaccination, concerns about vaccine safety, and a general mistrust 3. With the COVID-19 pandemic, concerns about the vaccine development process, including its safety and reliability and the speed of development and testing, contributed to hesitancy 6. Of course, in the case of the COVID-19 vaccine, the mRNA technology behind these new vaccines had been in development for almost two decades, which enabled the vaccine development process to begin early in the pandemic 7. The 1918 influenza pandemic is believed to have infected 500 million people globally, causing between 20 and 50 million deaths. The death toll was so severe that life expectancy worldwide decreased by several years, and it is estimated that more people died from the flu pandemic than during the entire First World War 8. Researchers in the United States and Europe raced to find an effective vaccine against influenza during these pandemic years, and their efforts produced hundreds of thousands of doses, but it was only in 1933 that researchers at London's National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) made a breakthrough when they isolated and identified the influenza virus 8. Since the 1940s, the flu vaccine itself has evolved alongside advancements in medicine 9. As it continues to improve, all vaccine ingredients undergo thorough safety testing before production, ensuring that each vaccine is very safe 9. Each year, the WHO, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and other public health experts work together to gather and analyse global data to identify the flu viruses most likely to cause widespread illness in the upcoming flu season 10. This year, the trivalent vaccine has been recommended to protect against the three strains expected to be most common during the 2025 flu season in the Southern Hemisphere 11. The 2025 quadrivalent influenza vaccine will also be available, including the Influenza B (Yamagata lineage), despite this strain not being detected in South Africa last year 12. Vaccines are one of the most effective health tools, saving millions of lives each year. They protect people from preventable diseases and improve community health. In addition to health benefits, vaccines help boost the economy by lowering healthcare costs, improving productivity, and reducing the societal impact of illness 6. Every flu season is different, yet flu usually affects millions of people, causing hundreds of thousands of hospitalisations and thousands of deaths globally 13. Flu can cause mild illness or lead to serious complications including pneumonia, ear infections, and worsening chronic conditions such as heart failure, asthma, or diabetes 13. Locally, the flu kills between 6 000 to 11 000 South Africans every year, with approximately 50% of those deaths being among the elderly, and about 30% in HIV-infected people 14. Getting an annual flu vaccine is the best way to reduce the risk of flu and its complications 13. In South Africa, flu vaccinations will be available at most healthcare providers, pharmacies and clinics from March. For more information, go to References: 1. National Institute for Communicable Diseases. Influenza Surveillance in South Africa: 2024 (2024) at (website accessed on 2 February 2025) 2. Trombetta, C.M. et al. Vaccines. Influenza Viruses and Vaccines: The Role of Vaccine Effectiveness Studies for Evaluation of the Benefits of Influenza Vaccines (2022) at (website accessed on 2 February 2025) 3. Kumar, S; Shah, Z and Garfield, S. Vaccines. Causes of Vaccine Hesitancy in Adults for the Influenza and COVID-19 Vaccines: A Systematic Literature Review (2022) at (website accessed on 2 February 2025) 4. European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). Let's talk about vaccine hesitancy (2016) at (website accessed on 2 February 2025) 5. Leonardelli, M et al. Vaccines. The Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Vaccination Hesitancy: A Viewpoint (2023) at (website accessed on 2 February 2025) 6. Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine. Meeting the challenge of vaccine hesitancy (2024) at (website accessed on 2 February 2025) 7. John Hopkins Medicine. COVID-19 Vaccines: Myth Versus Fact (2022) at (website accessed on 2 February 2025) 8. World Health Organization. History of the Influenza Vaccination (2024) at (website accessed on 19 February 2024) 9. Families Fighting Flu. The History of the Flu Vaccine (2025) at (website accessed on 2 February 2025) 10. FDA US Food and Drug Administration. It's a Good Time to Get Your Flu Vaccine (2025) at (website accessed on 2 February 2025) 11. World Health Organization. Recommended composition of influenza virus vaccines for use in the 2025 southern hemisphere influenza season. 27 September 2024. As supplied 12. World Health Organization. Recommendations announced for influenza vaccine composition for the 2025 southern hemisphere influenza season (2024) at (website accessed on 13 January 2025) 13. Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC). Key Facts About Seasonal Flu Vaccine (2024) at (website accessed on 13 January 2025) 14. University of Cape Town Lung Institute. Thousands die from flu every year in SA - how does the common flu virus compare to the new coronavirus? (2020) at (website accessed on 2 February 2025)
