#vaccine-policy

#vaccine-policy

"The sudden withdrawal of these funds will directly impact and potentially harm infants, children, youth, and their families in communities across the United States," said Mark Del Monte, AAP CEO and executive vice president, in a statement to the Washington Post. "This vital work spanned multiple child health priorities, including reducing sudden infant death, rural access to health care, mental health, adolescent health, supporting children with birth defects, early identification of autism, and prevention of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders, among other topics," Del Monte told the Post.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Two former senior officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including one fired by the Trump administration, will join California as public health consultants, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday. Susan Monarez was fired as the CDC's director and Dr. Debra Houry resigned as the agency's chief medical officer and deputy director over disputes about changes at the agency. The two will work with California's public health department to help build trust in "science-driven decision-making," Newsom's office said.

FDA Commissioner Martin Makary said the government must show greater humility and be more transparent if it hopes to rebuild public trust in its health guidance, which he said has been badly eroded since the pandemic. In an interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep, Makary addressed recent controversy over an FDA memo that cited rare reports of child deaths linked to COVID-19 vaccinations.

Children's Health Defense, the organization founded by Kennedy, this week filed a citizen's petition asking FDA commissioner Marty Makary to deem Moderna's and Pfizer's COVID vaccines "misbranded" and revoke their licenses "due to a lack of compliance with FDA regulations." The argument is based on the fine print surrounding the vaccines' conversion from emergency use early in the pandemic to full approval later on.

Trump Cabinet members have also started to draw a skeptical eye from some Republicans. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) called for Defense Sec. Pete Hegseth to testify under oath over the operation that killed alleged drug smugglers, while Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) said that members on the of the House Armed Services Committee were "very concerned" by the strikes. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), who has at times been more skeptical of Hegseth than other Republicans, called his tenure "bumpy" this week.

On Monday, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that the chairperson who has been in place since June-when Kennedy fired all 17 expert advisors on the committee and replaced them with questionably qualified allies-is moving to a senior role in the department. Biostatistician Martin Kulldorff will now be the chief science officer for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), HHS said. As such, he's stepping down from the vaccine committee, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).

The Trump administration's Department of Health and Human Services has reduced some vaccine access. The agency scaled back COVID-19 vaccine recommendations, approved COVID-19 vaccines for fewer people and aimed to remove the preservative thimerosal from U.S. vaccines. Experts told PolitiFact scientific research did not support its removal.

Physicists John Clarke, Michel Devoret and John Martinis have won the Nobel Prize in Physics for demonstrating quantum physics on the macroscopic scale. The trio created an experiment in which quantum tunnelling could be observed in a special circuit made with two superconductors separated by a thin barrier, known as a Josephson junction. "Observing quantum phenomena in a 'dirty' macroscopic circuit still seems surprising to me today," says experimental physicist Nathalie de Leon.

Under a Make America Healthy Again (Maha) agenda, Kennedy has accelerated vaccine policy changes despite opposition from scientists, including narrowing eligibility for Covid-19 vaccine shots and dismissing members of a vaccine advisory panel. He has cut federal funding for mRNA vaccine research for respiratory illnesses and instituted a review of vaccine recommendations. Kennedy also sought the dismissal of Dr Susan Monarez, former head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

President Donald Trump has called out manufacturers of COVID-19 drugs, demanding proof of their success. He took to social media to lambast drug manufacturers for not fully disclosing to the public the "GREAT numbers and results" that they show him of Operation Warp Speed, the program he once hailed as a "miracle." This stunning reversal of stance, amidst controversies surrounding vaccine restrictions and top CDC resignations, underscores a growing divide over vaccine policies and their

Using artificial intelligence (AI), researchers have designed novel viruses capable of killing strains of Escherichia coli. The team used the DNA of a simple bacteriophage called ΦX174 to guide AI models to generate viral genomes with the specific function of infecting antibiotic-resistant strains of E. coli. Researchers used the model's suggested sequences to select 302 viable phages. When put to the test, 16 of these phages could infect E. coli, and combinations of them could kill three strains of the bacterium, a feat the original ΦX174 couldn't pull off.

For several hours on Wednesday, a fired public health official went before Congress and aired Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s dirty laundry. Former Centers for Disease Control director Susan Monarez laid into the Health and Human Services secretary's management of vaccines, his disregarding of career experts, and his plans for remaking public health according to his own bullheaded vision. Monarez, who was fired as CDC director only 29 days after her confirmation to the post, also gave her account of why she was fired.

Kirk Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist who is a senior fellow at the Independent Medical Alliance (formerly Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance), which promotes misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines and touts unproven and dubious COVID-19 treatments. Those include the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, the de-worming drug ivermectin, and various concoctions of vitamins and other drugs. Milhoan has stated that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines should be removed from the market, telling KFF in March: "We should stop it and test it more before we move forward."

"The new ACIP members bring a wealth of real-world public health experience to the job of making immunization recommendations," said Jim O'Neill, Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services and Acting Director of the CDC in a media statement. "We are grateful for their service in helping restore the public confidence in vaccines that was lost during the Biden era."

Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to questions seeking details to a newly posted agenda. But some public health experts are worried that the votes will at a minimum raise unwarranted new questions about vaccines in the minds of parents. Perhaps even more consequential would be a vote that restricts a government program from paying for vaccines for low-income families.