RFK made another dream come true for MAHA moms. Doctors are pushing back.
RFK Jr. made the announcement on X, but the CDC has not changed its website.
Pregnancy puts people at a higher risk of serious illness or death from COVID-19.
The COVID-19 vaccine will be removed from the list of recommended shots for healthy children and pregnant people, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the US Health Secretary, announced on X Tuesday.
"I couldn't be more pleased to announce that as of today, the COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from the CDC recommended immunization schedule," Kennedy said in a video.
While unusual, it is in line with RFK's general health philosophy. He frequently shouts out "MAHA moms," a group of vocally vaccine-skeptical parents whose backing has played an important role in RFK's political success.
The moms are a driving force behind the health secretary's "Make America Healthy Again" (MAHA) movement, and are fueled by a strong distrust in medical institutions, a rejection of vaccine safety, skepticism about fluoride in the water supply, and concerns about the health impact of seed oils, as well as ultra-processed foods.
The Trump administration previously recommended that everyone six months and older get the COVID-19 vaccine, advice which still stands on the CDC website at the time of publication.
The new policy will mean that the COVID-19 vaccine is only recommended to people older than 65 and those at high risk for severe COVID-19.
That is a group that should — and does — include all pregnant women, according to obstetricians, professional associations, and even Dr. Marty Makary, the newly appointed commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Last week, Makary included pregnancy in a New England Journal of Medicine article listing medical conditions that would put someone at higher risk for the disease, alongside asthma and cancer.
"There is no OB-GYN in this country that I know who is in agreement with this recommendation," Dr. Amanda Williams, a practicing obstetrician-gynecologist in northern California, who is the interim chief medical officer at March of Dimes, told Business Insider. "Pregnancy is a high-risk condition."
Williams says people should ignore the latest government recommendation, and continue to follow the advice of professional associations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which both continue to recommend COVID-19 vaccines to pregnant people.
"ACOG's recommendations have not changed as the science has not changed," the organization told BI in a statement.
Pregnancy suppresses the immune system, making people more vulnerable to infectious diseases like COVID. Pregnancy also prompts widespread changes to a person's vascular system and respiration, which can make it harder for a pregnant body to fight off the virus.
"When patients have COVID, they are more likely to have miscarriage, stillbirth, preeclampsia, and preterm birth," Williams said. "When a patient gets COVID and is pregnant, they're more likely to need to be hospitalized, intubated, and unfortunately die because of COVID."
She remembers the case of a healthy, young mother-to-be who contracted COVID during the height of the pandemic, had to be intubated, and ultimately died, a few days after giving birth.
"The very last thing that she said to the obstetric team was, 'I wish I had gotten the vaccination and not listened to other people,'" Williams said.
There are rumors online that COVID-19 vaccines mess with fertility and can cause miscarriages. Even though the claims have been widely discredited, they persist.
"Any person who's been pregnant before knows it's really hard to get a deep breath and to walk up and down stairs, even in normal pregnancy — imagine what that's like then with COVID on top of it," Williams said.
"I made it my personal mission to be vocal, especially in communities of color — where there is well-earned distrust — to talk about the vaccine, what the safety data has shown us, and to try to be a trusted messenger and bridge builder so that things like that wouldn't happen again."
If given during the second or third trimester of pregnancy, vaccines can also help protect a newborn baby from COVID for roughly their first six months of life, through the transfer of maternal antibodies.
"All the existing data shows that these vaccines can help protect children and they can help protect pregnant women and they can help protect even infants after they're born," Jesse Goodman, a former FDA chief scientist who is now director of Georgetown University's Center on Medical Product Access, Safety and Stewardship told STAT. "I'm pretty taken aback by this."
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Miami Herald
20 minutes ago
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Why Florida is missing out on $200 million a year in Medicaid funding for schools
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Their calls to recoup funding come as schools face multimillion-dollar shortfalls in the budget year that began July 1 — and as kids struggle with the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. They say the problems lie with the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, which oversees Medicaid in the state and reports to Gov. Ron DeSantis. Documents show that for more than a decade, the agency hasn't followed federal reimbursement guidelines for school-based services — one of the few areas of Medicaid the Trump administration and Congress have not targeted for reductions. The federal program provides in-school medical care and instruction for school-age children with physical or developmental disabilities who qualify for Medicaid. About 2 million children in Florida are on Medicaid, which provides free or low-cost health care to people who qualify. Without the money, school districts have struggled to find therapists, nurses and others to treat children. Some kids experienced lower-quality care or had that care delayed during critical periods of their lives, observers say. The state agency strayed from federal guidelines in 2014, when the U.S. government changed its rules regarding the reimbursements. Experts consulted by the Times said Florida is one of the few states, and perhaps the only one, that is using the outdated payment method. The federal Center for Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program Services warned the agency in 2020 that it was 'not in compliance with current financing rules,' but no substantial action followed. Over that time, instead of collecting $2.2 billion from federal coffers to cover school-based expenses, the state received about $250 million. With money tight, school officials want the agency to make the necessary fixes. 'This is a significant agency failure,' said Ken Kniepmann, former state assistant deputy secretary for Medicaid Policy and Quality at the agency. He was hired in part to improve the system but said he was later instructed to stop. 'It's really unconscionable. Nobody should be OK with this.' A spokesperson for the agency said it did not have sufficient funding to update its reimbursement method until this year's legislative session, and it is committed to getting it done next year. Kniepmann said the agency had not asked the Legislature for permission to draw down the federal dollars needed to enact the changes until this year. The Hillsborough County school board held a workshop in April to address the Medicaid funding gap. Hillsborough received about $6 million in Medicaid reimbursements a year ago for the services it provided, specialist Deneen Gorassini told her board, but would have gotten about $10 million more if the state agency followed federal guidelines. It's money that could have expanded medical and mental health services in schools. Other districts experienced similar-sized gaps, according to Kniepmann's calculations. 'If we can get (the agency) to do their job and submit a (state plan amendment), we could start getting reimbursed based on our expenses, which are way more than what we are getting reimbursed now,' Gorassini told the board. Since 1997, the state has been reimbursing school districts for services — such as counseling or speech therapy — based on a flat rate. In 2014, the federal government required states to reimburse school districts based on the actual costs of those services, which is much higher. Five years ago, federal officials wrote Florida telling them it hadn't adopted the change, and the state had 90 days to comply. 'Please note that you may not pay a rate from a fee schedule and use this as a certification of cost,' Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services acting director Todd McMillion wrote Florida officials in March 2020. 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She noted that school-based services are 'a very niche portion' of the state's Medicaid budget — somewhere in the neighborhood of 1% — and that over time agency officials have paid less attention to them, decreasing communication with school districts and reducing staff dedicated to the service. The issue shouldn't be a side note, as it affects the lives of some of Florida's neediest children, she said. And the pandemic made kids' mental health a national crisis. 'Kids used to miss school because of asthma,' Thomas said. 'Now they're missing school because of anxiety and depression.' After the 2018 Parkland attack, state lawmakers wanted to make sure students were getting proper mental health assistance in schools. In 2020, they passed legislation allowing schools to use Medicaid dollars for other types of care. DeSantis signed it into law. But his Agency for Health Care Administration never rewrote the agency's rules to allow school districts to use the new law. 'The law was very clear,' said retired Sen. Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee, who sponsored the 2020 bill. 'Why they didn't do it I don't know.' Rep. Christine Hunchofsky, a Democrat who represents Parkland in the House, repeatedly has asked agency officials if the state is doing all it can to leverage federal money for student services. The issue comes up frequently on the Commission on Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder, to which Hunchofsky was appointed by the Republican House speaker. She said the agency has provided few clear answers. Meanwhile, she's heard plenty from the school districts, and said she plans to pursue the questions further. Montford, also executive director of the state's superintendents association, said agency officials have told his group that they are preparing a rule revision to go into effect in mid-2026. That's when states are supposed to comply with an updated 2023 federal guidance on school-based services. But Kniepmann, who worked as associate director for health at the Florida Conference for Catholic Bishops before moving to the health agency, argued the state is stalling for reasons that remain unclear to him. He said the 2023 guidance was not intended to be a way for Florida to further delay implementing rules put in place more than a decade ago. Every holdup, he and others said, means less money available to pay for medical and related services. 'Eleven years and $2.2 billion is not a little thing,' he said. Hillsborough district officials, also leery of the state's ability to pull off a new rule by mid-2026, said they are looking into a different approach to bring in more Medicaid money. Gorassini told the board that her department would conduct a rate study for each service it provides and submit the updated amounts to the state for inclusion on the existing reimbursement schedule. Kniepmann said it's a long-shot effort that requires a lot of work at the district level, adding that the agency has discouraged such an approach. It's worth a shot, though, Gorassini told the Hillsborough school board. 'We'll never get what we spend,' she said. 'But in the meantime we're going to try to maximize our reimbursement.' What's really at stake is student health, said Thomas, the Leon County Medicaid specialist who also serves on the National Alliance for Medicaid in Education leadership team. Her district stands to reap about $2 million more per year if the change is made. 'That is the difference between being able to hire actual medical professionals who have the ability to recognize actual medical issues, and purchase medical equipment, actual things that could help the children that are most medically needy in this county,' she said. 'When I can't afford to pay for a nurse, all kids suffer.'
Yahoo
an hour ago
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A MAGA Voter's Reddit Post Breaking Down 5 Reasons They'll Be Voting "All Blue" In The Midterms Is Going Viral
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Yahoo
an hour ago
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A MAGA Voter's Reddit Post Breaking Down 5 Reasons They'll Be Voting "All Blue" In The Midterms Is Going Viral
As of late, Donald Trump's MAGA base has NOT been happy with him. From his mishandling of the Epstein files to bombing Iran, Trump seems to be backtracking on many of his campaign promises, and his support, even from high-profile names, is slipping. A Reddit post by a MAGA voter has recently gone viral for breaking down five reasons why they are abandoning Trump and planning to vote blue in the 2026 midterms. Related: At the start of the post, the MAGA voter explained their last-minute decision to vote for Trump on Election Day... They described feeling that Trump "got his ass beat" by Kamala Harris in the presidential debate, but did not like that the DNC was "open to big corporations and corporate donors." Their decision to vote for Trump also was inspired by Trump joining forces with RFK Jr., which they felt could improve nutrition policies. "Nutrition is a huge thing for me..." Related: The MAGA voter also assumed that Trump could end the Ukraine/Russia war due to his close relationship with Vladimir Putin. "I felt Trump would calm down the Ukraine/Russia basically say 'stop this shit' and create a calmer world for us." But, according to the MAGA voter, everything went south with the Trump administration's handling of the Epstein files. "Guy thinks we're stupid. He campaigns on the Epstein files, realizes he's on there and now is telling us to stop worrying about it." The White House has called the Wall Street Journal's claim that Trump was notified by the Attorney General that his name was in the Epstein files a "fake news story." Related: The MAGA voter also called out Trump's attempts to get rid of the Department of Education. "I know he brought this up during his campaign, but I thought he'd be sensible enough to work across the aisle with Democrats on this matter, but this is insane." They also called out Trump's "Big, Beautiful, Bill" that they described as "abhorrently terrible." As well as Trump's tariffs increasing costs for young people. "Wtf is this guy thinking other countries will pay more. We're the ones having to foot the cost." They took issue with Trump's immigration and deportation policies call them "messed up," because Trump has given ICE "free will to do whatever." Related: And finally, the post ended with a promise to abandon Trump in the midterms. "I will absolutely be voting all blue come the midterms and will be voting for a sensible democrat next election." After reading the post, most people in the comments were not exactly applauding the MAGA voter for their switch-up. "Wow, this is someone who even seems to have paid more attention than most, but also somehow discounted 99% of things Trump said he'd do. I just can't with that level of cognitive dissonance," one user said. "'She didn't have any ideas that I considered fresh and new, so I figured I may as well vote for the guy who babbled utter nonsense instead,'" another user wrote sarcastically, referencing the voter's comments on the presidential debate. "This sounds like a lot of people in my family's rationale for voting Trump, who should have had enough common sense to think things through. They'll never admit they're wrong and vote democrat though. At least this person realized they were wrong, albeit way too late," this user wrote. "They really give him too much credit thinking these pie in the sky thoughts that'd he abolish everything he said he would, and replace it all with something way better, which he never had a plan to do." What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below. Also in Internet Finds: Also in Internet Finds: Also in Internet Finds:
