Latest news with #USCentersforDiseaseControlandPrevention
AFP
10 hours ago
- Health
- AFP
Experts say HHS document misrepresents studies on Covid-19 vaccine
Kennedy, who has a long history of promoting vaccine misinformation, is using his role as health secretary to shake up the country's approach to immunization. He has deflected questions from lawmakers about measles vaccination, despite an outbreak that has killed three children, and misrepresented the position of European health agencies regarding vaccines against chickenpox during Congressional testimony. In late May, he circumvented the usual channels for updating vaccine recommendations and announced that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which operates under his department, would stop recommending routine Covid-19 shots for pregnant and "healthy children." Image US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during a news conference to discuss health insurance at the Department of Health and Human Services Headquarters in Washington, DC, on June 23, 2025 (AFP / SAUL LOEB) Maria Velez, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Canada's (archived here), told AFP the findings of her paper, "Miscarriage after SARS-CoV-2 vaccination: A population-based cohort study," were misinterpreted in the text (archived here). "Our study shows that SARS-CoV-2 vaccine is not associated with an increased risk of miscarriage, either for remotely vaccinated or recently vaccinated women," she said in an email on June 23. AFP reached out to HHS for comment and did not receive a response, but the department previously told other publications it included Velez's research because it showed a higher occurrence of miscarriage among vaccinated individuals. Velez said the raw data included in her study showed a slightly higher incidence of miscarriage among pregnant people who received the shot, but pointed out when the results were adjusted for other variables which could result in loss of pregnancy, her findings did not show an increased risk associated with vaccination. Additionally, a reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist based in New York City (archived here), told AFP her study looking at Covid-19 vaccination in people undergoing in-vitro fertilization cited in the document did not find an association between the shots and adverse stimulation or early pregnancy outcomes (archived here). "Our study provides evidence to support safety of Covid-19 vaccination in women who are trying to conceive," she said in a June 26 email. said the document misused data and incorrectly quoted findings, sowing doubt about the safety of vaccines. "The latest correspondence from HHS regarding the decision to rescind the Covid-19 vaccine recommendation for pregnant women further confirms that the decision was not made based on any new research or latest scientific evidence, Research has demonstrated that the Covid-19 vaccine is generally safe during pregnancy and a meta-analysis of 66 studies found vaccination reduced the odds of infection and hospitalization, while the most common adverse side effect was pain at the injection site (archived here and here). Children and Covid-19 vaccines The Covid-19 vaccines are estimated to have saved millions of lives (archived here). Physicians and immunology experts have continually told AFP the risks of being infected with the virus far outweigh potential, infrequent side effects from the shots (archived here). Age raises the risk of serious illness and the World Health Organization only recommends vaccination beyond an initial series for children and adolescents with comorbidities (archived here and here). According to the CDC website, the agency still recommends boosters for children who are sed and The HHS memo sent to lawmakers put a particular emphasis on myocarditis and pericarditis, inflammations of the tissue around the heart. While these are noted as possible side effects of Covid-19 vaccination, with a slightly higher prevalence of the reaction observed among younger male recipients of mRNA shots, the papers cited in the memo included a study previously featured in misleading claims debunked by AFP (archived here). The research only found the inflammatory conditions among vaccinated youth, but one of the paper's authors noted to AFP at the time that the observational study may have missed cases in unvaccinated patients which would have been picked up in a randomized trial. The study also found the cases of myocarditis and pericarditis were mild and fast resolving, while vaccination reduced hospitalization from Covid-19. Another study looking at data from the HHS run Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System claimed a strong association between vaccination and myocarditis and death (archived here), but one of the authors has a history of spreading false information about the shots. Additionally, the journal Therapeutic Advances in Drug Safety, where the study appeared, issued an expression of concern about potential issues with the methodology and conflicts of interest (archived here). Dubious evidence The misrepresentation of studies' findings in the document fits into a larger pattern of HHS overhauling health policy while citing dubious evidence. The highly anticipated "Make America Healthy Again" report released on May 22 investigating children's health was initially published citing several sources that did not exist. It was updated, but experts said it still contained errors, including the misrepresentation of research findings. Kennedy also dismissed all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), of being compromised by financial ties to pharmaceutical companies. He replaced them with several individuals known to spread vaccine misinformation, including controversial researcher Robert Malone, who has promoted the antiparastic drug ivermectin to treat Covid-19. The former ACIP members published an editorial in the JAMA medical journal, saying their removal and the reduction Image Robert Malone speaks during a first meeting of the CDC's Advisory Committee On Immunization Practices on June 25, 2025 in Atlanta, Georgia (GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Elijah Nouvelage) The committee said it plans to revisit the childhood vaccine schedule and voted to bar thimerosal, a rarely used ingredient that can prevent bacterial contamination in multidose vials of influenza vaccines. ging from the anti-vaccine movement, which regularly questions shot ingredients despite no evidence of harm. Read more of AFP's reporting on health misinformation here.
CNN
2 days ago
- Health
- CNN
RFK Jr.'s new CDC advisers to study childhood vaccination schedule, guidelines for hepatitis B, measles shots
Vaccines Children's health Federal agenciesFacebookTweetLink Follow At the first meeting of a controversial new group of vaccine advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the committee announced new plans to study established vaccine guidelines. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will create new work groups to study the cumulative effects of the childhood and adolescent vaccine schedules, the hepatitis B vaccine dose given at birth and the combination measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox vaccine, new chair Dr. Martin Kulldorff announced at Wednesday's meeting in Atlanta. It was the first time the new group of seven outside CDC vaccine advisers has convened since US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dismissed the previous panel of 17 experts this month, claiming that they had conflicts of interest. He appointed a new group of eight members two days later; one withdrew during the financial holdings review, leaving seven to review the nation's vaccine recommendations. Public health experts were concerned about both the unprecedented dismissal of the previous committee and the background and positions of some of the new advisers; two have served as expert witnesses against vaccines in trials, and another has suggested, against evidence, that Covid-19 vaccines contributed to the deaths of young people and should be removed from the market. Kennedy, who helmed the anti-vaccine group Children's Health Defense before becoming HHS secretary, has suggested that childhood vaccines have been inadequately studied, something pediatricians and infectious disease experts say is not the case. Kulldorff said the new work group on the childhood and adolescent vaccine schedules will review 'interaction effects between different vaccines, cumulative amounts of vaccine ingredients and the relative timing of different vaccines.' Each time a vaccine is added to the schedule, its interaction with other vaccines is reviewed, said Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine scientist at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of an outside vaccine advisory panel to the US Food and Drug Administration. 'You have to prove that your vaccine doesn't interfere with the safety or immunogenicity profile of existing vaccines and vice versa,' he told CNN on Wednesday. Offit said the plans from the new committee are 'just a purely anti-vaccine agenda springing to life in public policy.' A second new work group will look at vaccines that haven't been reviewed in more than seven years, Kulldorff said, including whether the hepatitis B vaccine should be universally recommended for newborns. 'Unless the mother is hepatitis B-positive, an argument could be made to delay the vaccine for this infection, which is primarily spread by sexual activity and intravenous drug use,' Kulldorff said. The CDC says that 'universal HepB vaccination of all infants beginning at birth provides a critical safeguard and prevents infection among infants born to [hepatitis B]-positive mothers not identified prenatally.' 'Scientific evidence overwhelmingly supports the safety of hepatitis B vaccines,' the agency says. The American Academy of Pediatrics said on social media on Wednesday that 'Hepatitis B can be passed from parent to baby at birth - and when that happens, the consequences can be deadly. It is unscientific and dangerous to ignore the success of US vaccination programs or argue that the US should not vaccinate babies for hepatitis B at birth.' When the universal birth dose recommendation was temporarily suspended in 1999, some confusion ensued, and about 10% of hospitals suspended all birth doses regardless of infants' degree of risk, Offit wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007. 'One 3-month-old child born to a Michigan mother infected with hepatitis B virus died of overwhelming infection,' he said. A third new work group will look at vaccines for measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox, or varicella, Kulldorff said, noting that 'vaccines are important for combating measles for the first dose at age 12 to 15 months.' The vaccine is available as a combination of all four, or as two shots with the one protecting against varicella given separately. There is a well-understood higher risk of febrile seizures when the four-vaccine combination is given to children between ages 1 and 2; giving the varicella vaccine separately from the MMR vaccine avoids this increased risk, which the CDC points out is 'very low for both options.' Kulldorff said that the committee may reevaluate the combination vaccine recommendation for 1-year-olds and that the working group may look at the optimal timing of the vaccine and potential alternatives, such as one used in Japan. Measles vaccination rates have been declining in the US, and more than 1,200 cases have been reported this year, among the most since the disease was declared eliminated in the US in the year 2000. Two school-age children have died in an outbreak centered in West Texas, and one adult died in New Mexico. All were unvaccinated. The ACIP's recommendations historically have held significant sway; they influence both insurance coverage and state policies around vaccination.
CNN
2 days ago
- Health
- CNN
RFK Jr.'s new CDC advisers to study childhood vaccination schedule, guidelines for hepatitis B, measles shots
At the first meeting of a controversial new group of vaccine advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the committee announced new plans to study established vaccine guidelines. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will create new work groups to study the cumulative effects of the childhood and adolescent vaccine schedules, the hepatitis B vaccine dose given at birth and the combination measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox vaccine, new chair Dr. Martin Kulldorff announced at Wednesday's meeting in Atlanta. It was the first time the new group of seven outside CDC vaccine advisers has convened since US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dismissed the previous panel of 17 experts this month, claiming that they had conflicts of interest. He appointed a new group of eight members two days later; one withdrew during the financial holdings review, leaving seven to review the nation's vaccine recommendations. Public health experts were concerned about both the unprecedented dismissal of the previous committee and the background and positions of some of the new advisers; two have served as expert witnesses against vaccines in trials, and another has suggested, against evidence, that Covid-19 vaccines contributed to the deaths of young people and should be removed from the market. Kennedy, who helmed the anti-vaccine group Children's Health Defense before becoming HHS secretary, has suggested that childhood vaccines have been inadequately studied, something pediatricians and infectious disease experts say is not the case. Kulldorff said the new work group on the childhood and adolescent vaccine schedules will review 'interaction effects between different vaccines, cumulative amounts of vaccine ingredients and the relative timing of different vaccines.' Each time a vaccine is added to the schedule, its interaction with other vaccines is reviewed, said Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine scientist at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of an outside vaccine advisory panel to the US Food and Drug Administration. 'You have to prove that your vaccine doesn't interfere with the safety or immunogenicity profile of existing vaccines and vice versa,' he told CNN on Wednesday. Offit said the plans from the new committee are 'just a purely anti-vaccine agenda springing to life in public policy.' A second new work group will look at vaccines that haven't been reviewed in more than seven years, Kulldorff said, including whether the hepatitis B vaccine should be universally recommended for newborns. 'Unless the mother is hepatitis B-positive, an argument could be made to delay the vaccine for this infection, which is primarily spread by sexual activity and intravenous drug use,' Kulldorff said. The CDC says that 'universal HepB vaccination of all infants beginning at birth provides a critical safeguard and prevents infection among infants born to [hepatitis B]-positive mothers not identified prenatally.' 'Scientific evidence overwhelmingly supports the safety of hepatitis B vaccines,' the agency says. The American Academy of Pediatrics said on social media on Wednesday that 'Hepatitis B can be passed from parent to baby at birth - and when that happens, the consequences can be deadly. It is unscientific and dangerous to ignore the success of US vaccination programs or argue that the US should not vaccinate babies for hepatitis B at birth.' When the universal birth dose recommendation was temporarily suspended in 1999, some confusion ensued, and about 10% of hospitals suspended all birth doses regardless of infants' degree of risk, Offit wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007. 'One 3-month-old child born to a Michigan mother infected with hepatitis B virus died of overwhelming infection,' he said. A third new work group will look at vaccines for measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox, or varicella, Kulldorff said, noting that 'vaccines are important for combating measles for the first dose at age 12 to 15 months.' The vaccine is available as a combination of all four, or as two shots with the one protecting against varicella given separately. There is a well-understood higher risk of febrile seizures when the four-vaccine combination is given to children between ages 1 and 2; giving the varicella vaccine separately from the MMR vaccine avoids this increased risk, which the CDC points out is 'very low for both options.' Kulldorff said that the committee may reevaluate the combination vaccine recommendation for 1-year-olds and that the working group may look at the optimal timing of the vaccine and potential alternatives, such as one used in Japan. Measles vaccination rates have been declining in the US, and more than 1,200 cases have been reported this year, among the most since the disease was declared eliminated in the US in the year 2000. Two school-age children have died in an outbreak centered in West Texas, and one adult died in New Mexico. All were unvaccinated. The ACIP's recommendations historically have held significant sway; they influence both insurance coverage and state policies around vaccination.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
New study investigates autism spectrum disorder prevalence
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that includes a variety of differences or challenges with social communication and interaction, restricted interests, repetitive behaviour, and sensory processing differences. A new report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 16 sites across the US has found that rates of ASD in children aged between four and eight years were higher in 2022 than in previous years. This study adds data to support the trend of an increasing prevalence of ASD across the US, but the study found the situation was more complex than simply rising prevalence rates. This study found that in 2022, the observed prevalence of ASD was 32.2 per 1,000 children, meaning that approximately 1 in 31 children had ASD, a notably higher estimate than that of 2020 (26.1 per 1,000 children). The prevalence varied widely across sites in this study, with the highest prevalence observed in the California study site. Race and sex were also investigated, and a higher prevalence of ASD was seen in Asian/Pacific Islander (A/PI), Black, and Hispanic children than in White children. Additionally, the prevalence was higher, as observed in previous studies, in boys than in girls across all study sites. The study also investigated why the prevalence of ASD in young children appears to have increased between 2020 and 2022. Since the last study period, the screening rate for ASD in young children has increased, in large part due to campaigns toeducate medical professionals who work with previously underserved communities. Increased screening, especially in low-income, A/PI, Black, and Hispanic communities, has resulted in improved case detection and higher prevalence rates. In the US, GlobalData epidemiologists have noted an increase in diagnosed prevalent cases, with a forecasted increase from approximately 3,207,000 cases in 2025 to 3,267,000 cases in 2031. This increase is observed across all ethnic groups. Total prevalent cases of ASD, which include cases that are both diagnosed and currently not diagnosed, are expected to increase from approximately five million in 2025 to 5.1 million by 2031. This study is released against a backdrop of concern for increasing ASD rates across the US. It is important to note that while the study only comments on changes between 2020 and 2022 in ASD prevalence, there is a longer trend of increasingprevalence of ASD lasting nearly two decades. This is in part due to changes in the definition of ASD, which was formerly called 'autism,' to include a broader variety of disorders under the umbrella term ASD. Changes in definition, combined with increased screening and awareness, contribute chiefly to the increase in prevalence of ASD in this age group. This supposition is further supported by studies investigating the subgroup of children who have high support needs, including 24-hour-a-day support and care, limited verbal communication, and intellectual disability co-occurring with autism. The rates of this subtype of ASD have increased only very slightly, if at all, over the last ten years. So, while ASD diagnosis and prevalence are on the rise, it is important to keep in mind that the primary use of this information must be meeting the needs of these children and ensuring that all children are given the support they need to reach their full potential. "New study investigates autism spectrum disorder prevalence" was originally created and published by Clinical Trials Arena, a GlobalData owned brand. The information on this site has been included in good faith for general informational purposes only. It is not intended to amount to advice on which you should rely, and we give no representation, warranty or guarantee, whether express or implied as to its accuracy or completeness. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from, any action on the basis of the content on our site.
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Business Standard
18-06-2025
- Health
- Business Standard
Trump admin blocked from cutting health funding for four municipalities
A federal court has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from clawing back millions in public health funding from four Democrat-led municipalities in GOP-governed states. It's the second such federal ruling to reinstate public health funding for several states. US District Judge Christopher Cooper in Washington, D.C., issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday sought by district attorneys in Harris County, Texas, home to Houston, and three cities: Columbus, Ohio, Nashville, Tennessee, and Kansas City, Missouri. The decision means the federal government must reinstate funding to the four municipalities until the case is fully litigated. Their lawsuit, filed in late April, alleged $11 billion in cuts to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention programs had already been approved by Congress and are being unconstitutionally withheld. They also argued that the administration's actions violate Department of Health and Human Services regulations. The cities and counties argued the cuts were a massive blow to US public health at a time where state and local public health departments need to address burgeoning infectious diseases and chronic illnesses, like the measles, bird flu, and mpox. The cuts would lead to thousands of state and local public health employees being fired, the lawsuit argued. The local governments, alongside the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, wanted the court to reinstate the grants nationwide. But Cooper said in his preliminary injunction that the funds can only be blocked to the four municipalities and in a May 21 hearing expressed skepticism about whether it could apply more widely. The funding in question was granted during the COVID-19 pandemic but aimed at building up public health infrastructure overall, Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee said in a statement in April. The four local governments were owed about $32.7 million in future grant payments, Cooper's opinion notes. The federal government's lawyers said the grants were legally cut because, "Now that the pandemic is over, the grants and cooperative agreements are no longer necessary as their limited purpose has run out. They used the same argument in the case brought by 23 states and the District of Columbia over the HHS funding clawback. Menefee said the cuts defunded programs in Harris County for wastewater disease surveillance, community health workers and clinics and call centers that helped people get vaccinated. Columbus City Attorney Zach Klein said the cuts forced the city to fire 11 of its 22 infectious disease staffers. Nashville used some of its grant money to support programs, including a strike team that after the pandemic addressed gaps in health services that kept kids from being able to enroll in school, according to the lawsuit. Kansas City used one of its grants to build out capabilities to test locally for COVID-19, influenza and measles rather than waiting for results from the county lab. The suit details that after four years of work to certify facilities and train staff, the city was at the final step" of buying lab equipment when the grant was canceled. Representatives for HHS, the CDC, the cities and Harris County did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.
