Kennedy's Vaccine Advisers Sow Doubts as Scientists Protest US Pivot on Shots -- KFF Health News
https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/kennedy-rfk-vaccine-panel-acip-cdc-hhs-immunizations/
Arthur Allen and Sam Whitehead
As fired and retired scientists rallied outside in the Atlanta heat, an advisory panel that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. handpicked to replace experts hed fired earlier met inside the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions headquarters to plan a more skeptical vaccine future.
The new members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices began their tenure Wednesday by shifting the posture of the 60-year-old panel from support for vaccine advancement to doubt about the safety and efficacy of well-established and widely administered inoculations.
Their discussions and votes this week paled in significance, however, in comparison with Health and Human Services Secretary Kennedys announcement Tuesday that he would withdraw a $1.2 billion U.S. commitment to global immunization.
That decision will kill children in the worlds poorest countries, critics said.
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The biggest cause is fearmongering and pseudoscience that has overtaken our country, Caroline Brown, a pediatrician outside Winston-Salem, North Carolina, said during the remote public comment session. She noted that her states first measles case of the year was reported this week, panicking many of the families she treats.
Measles was declared eliminated in the United States 25 years ago. It is back now because of declining rates of vaccination fueled by misinformation that is not only allowed but amplified by some of you sitting on this very committee, Brown said.
The American Academy of Pediatrics declined to send official liaisons to the meeting and announced on Thursday that it would continue to publish its own evidence-based recommendations and schedules for vaccines, blasting Kennedys panel.
What we heard in this meeting was really a false narrative that the current vaccine policies are flawed and that they need fixing, Sean OLeary, a physician who chairs the AAP Committee on Infectious Diseases, said in a statement. Thats completely false. These policies have saved millions of lives, trillions of dollars.
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