DON’T expect to get a dispassionate update anywhere in our mainstream media on US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s vaccine revolution since he took office. He changed recommendations and policies for multiple vaccines, including shots against covid, measles and in fact the whole gamut of vaccines which have come under his scrutiny. For that we have to rely on the Epoch Times which detailed them last week. Here they are in summary:
First, covid vaccines:
This month the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has called on individuals to talk to a health care provider about risks and benefits before receiving a covid vaccine. This amounts to the informed consent that we so singularly fail to receive here.
In May, under orders from Kennedy, recommending covid vaccines for healthy children and pregnant women was stopped. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDQ) has also revoked emergency authorisations for the vaccines, though approving four shots for narrower populations: those younger than 65 who have an underlying condition and all those aged 65 and older.
The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices (ACIP) has also told the CDC to update its guidance on covid vaccines to reclassify them as ‘shared clinical decision-making vaccinations’, as non-routine or risk-based: the decision to receive them should be ‘individually based and informed by a decision process between the health care provider and the patient or parent/guardian’, according to ACIP.
Second, on measles, mumps, rubella vaccine (MMR):
President Trump recently encouraged people to take separate vaccines against measles, mumps and rubella. Stand-alone options, though, are not available in the US. Jim O’Neill, CDC acting director and Health and Human Services deputy secretary, has backed Trump and called on manufacturers to produce monovalent vaccines against the diseases.
Kennedy told a Senate panel on September 4 that he did not expect a change to the combined MMR vaccine. This year the US has recorded the most cases of measles since 1992.
The Epoch Times special report goes on to list updates and changes to varicella (chickenpox) vaccine and MMRV (MMR plus varicella) and the debate about the appropriateness of the hepatitis B vaccine for children. Trump, it reports, said he thinks that children should not receive the hepatitis B vaccine until they are adolescents, as an Independent Women’s Forum report has recommended.
On flu vaccines the ACIP has recommended the government keep in place its recommendation that from at least six months of age everyone should receive an influenza vaccine each year. But advisers also said officials should stop backing flu vaccines containing thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative, because of concerns over cumulative mercury exposure.
On RSV vaccines and antibodies the recommendation that infants receive an antibody for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) during their first respiratory virus season has been approved. The season starts in the autumn.
There are further updates on the HPV vaccine, the chikungunya vaccine, polio and DPT (diphtheria, pertussis/whooping cough, and tetanus) vaccines, discussion on the childhood immunisation schedule and on vaccines in pregnancy. Finally Kennedy is considering updating the list of vaccine injuries eligible for government compensation to include symptoms of autism.
You can read this important review of the changes in full here.
