THe CDC’s immunization advisory committee-Whoe Whoe membership Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Purified in June and replaced by people who are more in line with his anti-vaccine stores planned to meet this week, from Thursday. On the agendaA subject that is crucial for the health of the country and the pharmaceutical industry: vaccinations in children, in particular those who protect against hepatitis B, measles and chickenpox, as well as COVID-19.
Usually meetings of this committee, known in its acronym ACIP, are simple and outside the radar of the public, but since 1964 they have served a crucial role in drawing up immunization recommendations and schedules to serve public health. States generally follow these guidelines when setting vaccine mandates for schools, while insurers usually follow when determining which photos they will cover. Global immunization -efforts at least 154 million lives saved Between 1974 and 2024, more than 100 million of them children, according to a study published in The Lancet.
“ACIP is no longer ACIP. It is essentially an arm of our HHS secretary, who is an anti-vaccine knowledge and has been the past 20 years.”
Since his appointment, Kennedy has pushed anti-vaccine policy at the federal level and this meeting can be crucial for the American immunization policy in the future. He has already announced plans grant a contract without a prayer to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to ‘investigate’ long-term connections between vaccines and autism and appointed committee members such as Retsef Levi and Robert Malone, who have been outspoken opponents of Covid vaccines, an estimated 14.4 million lives saved The first year after they were made available, and Catherine Stein, who argued against vaccine mandates. Sources with knowledge told Forbes That ACIP can limit its COVID-19 ACCINE recommendations to people who are older than 75 and who are younger with a scary series of already existing circumstances. The Washington Post reported this option Rather.
“We have to worry very much because ACIP no longer has ACIP no longer ACIP” Forbes. “It is essentially an arm of our secretary of HHS, who is an anti-vaccine knowledge and has been the past 20 years.”
This brings pharmaceutical companies to unknown territory. Vaccines are a large company: Grand View Research estimates that the global vaccine market has been reached $ 88 billion last year, With the US for the most part of it. They are also a safe company: many vaccines have been around for decades and regulations around them are both relatively certain or as evidence. That may no longer be the case.
“There is a lot at stake, even though it is not a lot of it [the pharmaceutical companies’] The annual turnover is linked to it, “said Rajiv Leventhal, a health care analyst for emarketer.” They could look at falls that are simply not expected. “
On Friday, shares of the largest COVID-19makers fell dramatically when Trump’s health officials indicated that they investigated non-substantiated reports of child deaths by the vaccine. Moderha, which was worth $ 200 billion at the height of the Pandemie, but has since seen its shares, the greatest risk is seen because it only has MRNA vaccines for COVID-19 and RSV on the market; The shares fell by 7%that day. Pfizer has a broader company: the $ 5.4 billion that made it of the COVID-19 vaccine that developed with BionTech, last year represents less than 10% of its total $ 64 billion cases. The shares fell by 4%. Smaller Novavax, who makes COVID-19-Schoten in collaboration with Sanofi who are dependent on proteins instead of mrna to generate an immune response, has been less the target of conspiracy theories, but still saw the shares fall 4% on Friday.
At least 14 states, including New York and New Mexico, have established their own pro-vaccination policy for COVID-19Schoten.
Conspiracy theories and wrong information about mrna unbridled Online, including the genetic code of a human being, that vaccinated people can transfer spike proteins to other people and that the vaccines contain microchips to follow people.
The reaction of investors is not surprisingly given the constant thrum of anti-vaccine wrong information since the COVID-19 Pandemie, as well as Kennedy’s own role via the Children’s Defense Fund in May 2021 with the request to withdraw the federal government to withdraw the authorization of COVID-19 vaccines.
As HH -Secretary, Kennedy has canceled a contract with Moderna to develop an MRNA vaccine against a potentially pandemic flu virus worth a maximum of $ 760 million in June, and then reduced almost $ 500 million in research financing for MRNA vaccines in August. In August, the FDA has placed extra restrictions to those who are eligible to get COVID-19-Schoten, to generate confusion and fear among those who want to be vaccinated prior to an autumn prevention of the disease. With new restrictions on the eligible for COVID-19 vaccination, the vaccine policy for those shots is fragmenting: At least 14 states, including New York and New Mexico, have determined their own pro-vaccination policy for COVID-19Schoten, while Florida recently announced that it would eliminate The vaccine mandates of the state – without studying the possible consequences.
An even greater risk is the long -standing vaccines in children against diseases, including measles, chickenpox, whooping cough and hepatitis B. The immunization program of American childhood is generally recognized as one of the greatest performance of public health. It rowed measles in the US by the year 2000, reduced the infection rate of hepatitis B by 99%and turned a whooping cough into rarity. Although the vast majority of Americans -79% of all adults, According to a recent poll by Harvard Th Chan School of Public Health and the Beaumont Foundation -Support -Requirements for vaccinating children to prevent diseases to go to school, the vaccination rates in children continue to fall, According to the CDC.
Any weakening of recommendations for childhood immunisations can lead to fewer shots, and even a decrease of 10% in vaccinations in children can lead to millions of hospital admissions and tens of thousands of deaths among the children of the nation, According to a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Lower vaccination percentages already have historical outbreaks of measles And noise This year.
The confusing mishmash of the state policy that we are already seeing with COVID-19 vaccines will probably spread to other vaccines, said Analyst Leventhal. Acip can decide to take a step back and explicitly leave the policy of policy to the states, he said. Or more likely, it can make recommendations, so at odds with the scientific consensus that many states choose to follow those of their own public health authorities or those of medical organizations. “It will just be a scatter shot, fragmented regulatory landscape of the vaccine throughout the country,” he said.
“I think they can say that other countries do not use the vaccine with chickenpox, so why should we?”
Adding the confusion will be a matter of insurance coverage. Once acting CDC director Jim O’Neill is based on the recommendations of ACIP, Medicare, Part D and Medicaid must offer vaccines without costs to patients who fall under those guidelines; Commercial plans must adhere to them within the next benefit year. But if those recommendations are narrower than the medical consensus, insurers, in particular the government, can limit their coverage to fit, and the 37 million children covered by Medicaid and Chip can find that the preventive recordings are no longer free.
“If you are a health insurer and perform these figures, I think you are probably encouraged to find a way to get it for people who need it,” said Bill Maughn, an analyst in health care at Clear Street. But he added that this may not be in line with what local politicians want. “I saw that insurers have a narrower recommendation than would make a state.”
Since the leadership at HHS, Kennedy has dedicated the advisory committee of the CDC to revise the Hepatitis B recommendations of the agency and has repeatedly scientifically disproved claims that vaccines cause autism. Like the CDCs own website Comments, such a link does not exist. During the previous ACIP meeting in June, committee member Martin Kuldorff presented a generally criticized report that the MMRV vaccine claims-that protects against, measles, mumps, rubella and varicella (chicken pox)-was linked to childhood backlogs, a subject that is on the agenda again this week. Earlier this year, HHS no longer stopped inviting experts from medical associations to weigh on vaccine sciences. It no longer invites you to present vaccine makers to present updated COVID data, so that they are allocated only a few minutes to respond to other presentations.
While we are going up the vaccine advisory committee of the CDC this week this week, all bets were switched off, said Offit. “Everything can happen literally,” he said. “I think they couldn’t encourage hepatitis. They can say that the RSV vaccine does not work as it should … I think they can say that other countries cannot use the vaccine with chickenpox, so why should we?”
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