Outrage has erupted among health experts over news that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is still eager to fund a widely condemned vaccine trial that would expose newborns in Guinea-Bissau to hepatitis B, putting them at high risk of a lifelong infection, which can lead to liver cirrhosis, liver cancer, and premature death.

The trial was suspended in January after its unethical design came to light and drew international outcry. Although the trial is still halted, staff of the CDC director's office told the agency's budget office in late September to set aside $1.6 million to fund the trial, according to a report by Rolling Stone. The money was to be pulled from funding for the CDC's global health security programs, which might otherwise go toward efforts like combating the Ebola outbreak currently raging in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, did not respond to a request for comment from Ars Technica.

Read full article

Comments

Under anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the federal health department is undertaking an agency-wide effort to focus on injuries claimed to be related to vaccines.

In a press announcement Thursday, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) laid out four aspects of the large-scale initiative. The first is a new clinic at the National Institutes of Health that is "dedicated to studying and caring for patients experiencing health problems following vaccination." Despite only being announced today, the clinic actually opened October 5, and Kennedy secretly attended its ribbon-cutting ceremony alongside other high-level Trump administration officials. It's unclear why his visit and the clinic's opening were not disclosed by the Trump administration, but they were reported by Bloomberg Law at the time.

Another aspect of the initiative is a proposal to reimburse doctors for reporting possible injuries from vaccines to a federal system called VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System). VAERS, which is run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is a common focus of anti-vaccine advocates, who incessantly misuse it. The system is meant to be an indiscriminate dragnet of any potential safety concerns linked to vaccines, providing a sensitive early warning monitoring system. Anyone, including members of the public, can submit an unvetted report.

Read full article

Comments

A fifth, unvaccinated person has died of measles in Pennsylvania, the state's health department announced Wednesday.

The department identified the deceased as a resident of Lancaster County, which is the epicenter of a raging outbreak that began in late April. The updated case count as of Wednesday is 943 across 39 counties, including 119 cases reported in just the last seven days. At least 176 people have been hospitalized.

Lancaster County has reported 381 cases and three of the five deaths in the outbreak. The previous two deaths were both in infants too young to be vaccinated. That includes a newborn boy and a 6-week-old baby girl. So far, no other information has been released about the county's third death announced today.

Read full article

Comments

At a Make America Healthy Again event Tuesday, anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy opened a "fireside chat" with Vice President JD Vance on the topic of artificial intelligence. While MAHA generally coalesces around things like healthy lifestyles and mistrust of drugmakers, Kennedy quickly turned to extolling the potential of artificial intelligence, surprising Vance, who said he was expecting to discuss "weight loss and acid, not AI."

Kennedy boasted that the Trump administration is "making it easy for every American to use AI," which he claimed would free us from the "medical tyranny" of doctors and health experts. He suggested Americans should start using AI to get second opinions about medical recommendations, saying AI is "better informed than any doctor in the country." He also suggested that the technology would confirm his misinformation about vaccines and contrarian views on public health guidance.

"We're never, ever again going to be able to be dominated by public officials who tell us trust the experts, because every American will be able to check their own medical advice," Kennedy said.

Read full article

Comments