Thailand goes back on decriminalized marijuana
Thailand, which decriminalized marijuana in 2022 — a first for the region — has reimposed a slate of renewed restrictions on the drug.
Public Health Minister Somsak Thepsuthin signed an order this week to bar sales of cannabis without a medical prescription. 'Cannabis will be classified as a narcotic in the future,' Thepsuthin said of the measure, which has since come into effect, in a statement cited in local outlets.
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Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
RFK Jr will be ‘personally responsible' for children's deaths by halting vaccine alliance funding, experts say
Robert F Kennedy Jr will be 'personally responsible' for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children after he refused to renew US funding for a global vaccines body, public health experts said. The US health secretary said Wednesday that the United States would halt funding for Gavi, the vaccine alliance that has immunised more than one billion children since 2000, in a statement that has also been criticised for spreading disinformation on vaccine safety. Gavi is a partnership between public bodies and the private sector that works to provide vaccines in many of the world's poorest countries. It has prevented an estimated 18.8 million deaths, and hosts global emergency stockpiles against Ebola, yellow fever, meningitis and cholera. The US has long been one of its major funders, and provided around 13% of its budget. Related: First meeting of new CDC vaccine panel reveals policy chaos sown by RFK Jr Gavi announced after a pledging event on Wednesday that it had secured more than $9bn in donations for the next five years, and would continue to chase the $11.9bn total it required. But in a video played at the event, Kennedy said the US would no longer contribute to the organisation until it had worked to 're-earn the public trust'. He criticised Gavi's actions during the Covid-19 pandemic, suggested it should not recommend Covid-19 vaccines for pregnant women, and said it had 'neglected the key issue of vaccine safety'. Gavi set out a detailed rebuttal to Kennedy's claims, stressing that its 'utmost concern is the health and safety of children'. Atul Gawande, a former senior official at USAID, wrote online: 'This pull out will cost 100s of thousands of children's lives a year – and RFK Jr will be personally responsible.' Gavi's own estimates, reported by the New York Times, suggest the loss of US support may mean 75 million children miss out on routine vaccinations over the next five years and 1.2 million die as a result. The UK government has also been criticised for lowering its funding for Gavi, although its £1.25bn ($1.7bn) pledge still made it Gavi's top donor country. Other major donors include the Gates Foundation, which committed $1.6bn, and the European Union a combined €2 billion ($2.3bn). In his video, Kennedy particularly criticised 'whole cell' DTP vaccines provided by Gavi, which protect against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough). The US and many richer countries, including the UK, have switched to a newer version that causes fewer short-term reactions but does not remain effective for as long, requiring more boosters. The World Health Organization says both types have 'excellent safety records'. Dr Tom Frieden, president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives and a former CDC director, said: 'Many countries choose to continue the whole cell vaccine. They may have decided this because their populations have a greater risk of serious illness, they have healthcare systems less able to deal with serious pertussis infections, or may simply have made the opposite decision – more short-term adverse reactions, better protection against pertussis. 'Calling this choice not 'taking vaccine safety seriously' is misinformation, plain and simple.' Seth Berkley, former chief executive of Gavi, said in a post on LinkedIn that Kennedy's claims were 'a mix of misinformation and some disinformation' and 'disingenuous', adding: 'It is irresponsible to provide disinformation from a position of political power.' A major study partly funded by Gavi and published in the Lancet this week found vaccine coverage had stalled or reversed globally, driven by persistent health inequalities and rising levels of misinformation and hesitancy.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
US pediatricians criticize RFK Jr's new vaccine panel: ‘Truly an embarrassment'
Robert F Kennedy Jr's newly appointed vaccine advisory panel is facing criticism from pediatricians after its announcement of plans to reassess the current vaccination schedules for children and adolescents. Experts warn that the move appears designed to undermine public trust in immunization. The chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Committee on Infectious Diseases, Dr Sean O'Leary, said during a Wednesday press briefing that the rest of the world is looking at the US and its new Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) 'in horror'. 'It is truly an embarrassment at this point, what's happening with ACIP,' said O'Leary. Related: RFK Jr's vaccine panel recommends new RSV treatment for infants While the new ACIP has instigated chaos among vaccine policy infrastructure during their Wednesday meeting, the AAP emphasized a need to continue a commitment to publishing independent, science-based vaccine guidelines. Wednesday marked the first ACIP meeting since health secretary Kennedy dismissed all 17 existing voting members and installed eight new ones, a group that reportedly lost one member before the meeting convened. Some of these new appointees have been associated with the spread of vaccine misinformation. The AAP representatives abstained from participating because they view the new ACIP as 'illegitimate'. The AAP's own meeting was scheduled to immediately follow the ACIP session, giving pediatric experts an opportunity to respond to the new committee's statements and direction. 'What we heard in this meeting was really a false narrative that the current vaccine policies are flawed and that they need fixing. That's completely false,' said O'Leary. 'Vaccine policies have saved millions of lives, trillions of dollars, and our immunization system is a model for the rest of the world.' Among the ACIP's early initiatives is a separate working group that plans to examine vaccines that have not undergone a recent review, specifically those not studied in over seven years. One vaccine that drew immediate attention is the hepatitis B birth dose. O'Leary criticized the focus on reviewing vaccine schedules, which he says 'has been an anti-vaccine trope for many, many years'. A schedule review 'sounds good at first glance, but the fact is, these vaccines are essentially always being reviewed in real time through a number of different mechanisms, safety surveillance mechanisms, as well as disease surveillance mechanisms', O'Leary said. 'The hepatitis B birth dose is one of the cornerstones of our hepatitis B prevention policy here in the US, and it has been highly successful in reducing the rate of perinatally acquired hepatitis B,' he added. An AAP article says that infants infected with hepatitis B at birth face a 90% likelihood of developing chronic infection. Without medical intervention, roughly 25% of those children will die from the disease. Kennedy's decision to overhaul the ACIP has sparked concern among medical professionals. The new panel's review includes vaccines like the MMR shot, which protects against measles, mumps, rubella and varicella (chickenpox), as well as the hepatitis B vaccine given at birth. 'We do still need to maintain higher coverage in the US of MMR, you're seeing the measles outbreaks in real time,' O'Leary said. 'We need to maintain very high measles vaccination coverage. And this ACIP discussion, to me, is designed to sow distrust in measles vaccination.' The US is now enduring the largest measles outbreak in decades. Centered in west Texas, the measles outbreak has killed two unvaccinated children and one adult and spread to neighboring states. Measles had been declared eliminated from the US in 2000, but it has been spreading in undervaccinated communities.
Washington Post
3 hours ago
- Washington Post
Takeaways from interviews with families forever changed by diseases that vaccines can prevent
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — In the time before widespread vaccination , devastating infectious diseases ran rampant in America, killing millions of children and leaving others with lifelong health problems. Over the next century, vaccines virtually wiped out long-feared scourges like polio and measles and drastically reduced the toll of many others. Today, however, some preventable, contagious diseases are making a comeback as vaccine hesitancy pushes immunization rates down. And well-established vaccines are facing suspicion even from public officials, with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist , running the federal health department.
