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    RFK Jr’s vaccine advisers remove prescription need for Covid vaccine, emphasizing personal choice

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    A powerful committee that advises the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on vaccine policy voted on Friday against recommending that people obtain a prescription for a Covid-19 vaccine. However, the panel also voted to recommend that people speak with a clinician before obtaining the shot and that coronavirus vaccinations should be based on “individual-based decision making”.The votes on the recommendations came after hours of impassioned debate that, at times, devolved into confusion and apparent animosity over the committee’s procedures and the safety of vaccines. Healthcare professionals and experts following the committee’s meeting were also left deeply confused about the significance of the committee’s votes and recommendations, and whether they would make it more difficult for people to obtain Covid vaccines.The recommendation over Covid vaccine prescriptions left the panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), sharply divided, as six members voted to adopt it while six voted to reject it. The chair, Martin Kulldorff, broke the tie by voting against the recommendation.Among other votes, the committee also voted to recommend the CDC “engages in an effort to promote more consistent and comprehensive informed consent processes”, including potentially highlighting six “risks and uncertainties” around Covid vaccines. But it offered little guidance on what this wording may look like in practice. It was also not entirely clear what “individual-based decision making” – which the committee also called “shared clinical decision making” – would entail, although the committee wanted the process to be different for patients under 65 and those over 65.The committee’s recommendations can determine which vaccines are provided free of charge through the US government, shape state and local laws around vaccine requirements, and influence which vaccines health insurers tend to cover.Now, the committee’s moves are sure to further complicate the already fragmented landscape of vaccine availability.The vaccine landscape has changed rapidly since Robert F Kennedy, who has long questioned the safety of vaccines, took control of the US Department of Health and Human Services.In August, the Food and Drug Administration approved updated versions of the Covid-19 vaccine only for people who are 65 or older or for people who have a medical condition that renders them high risk. That move unleashed widespread bewilderment over whether young, healthy people can still get vaccinated against Covid.Some pharmacy chains, like CVS and Walgreens, said they would require prescriptions for the vaccine or cease offering them entirely in some states. Other states, including New York, moved to protect access to the vaccine for people who don’t have prescriptions.Kennedy fired the previous iteration of the advisory committee and instead appointed several advisers who have little to no documented expertise with vaccines, or have criticized them heavily. That lack of experience came into focus repeatedly during the committee’s two-day meeting.On Thursday, during the first day of the meeting, the committee voted to recommend that children receive multiple shots to protect against mumps, measles, rubella and varicella – or chicken pox – rather than a single vaccine. But afterward, when asked to vote on whether they would recommend that Vaccines for Children, a US government program that provides free vaccines to low-income children, continue covering the combined MMRV vaccine, many of the members seemed unsure of what Vaccines for Children was.However, they initially voted to maintain Vaccines for Children’s coverage of the combined MMRV vaccine. Then, on Friday morning, the committee voted to reverse that vote and instead eliminate coverage for the combined vaccine.The Friday meeting was punctuated by highly tense outbursts. A microphone caught one member calling another “an idiot”, although it wasn’t clear who was speaking. During one barbed exchange, one member demanded of another: “Show me that study!”At one point, a member took the floor to announce that the discussions at the meeting had demonstrated that “we are not, as a committee, anti-vaxxers”.A planned vote on the hepatitis B vaccine was also tabled after members pointed out inconsistencies in the wording of the vote and suggested that they would prefer to recommend delaying the hepatitis B vaccine until even later in a child’s life. Although voting had begun, the members ultimately decided to postpone the vote until at least their next meeting.Experts who spoke to the committee at the meeting highlighted the members’ tendency to raise hypothetical situations, opinions and anecdotal experiences, rather than focusing on data that demonstrates the safety of Covid vaccines.“Relying on case reports, anecdotes and selected basic science data – is that enough to justify a change in policy or a recommendation that limits an effective vaccine?” said Grant Paulsen, who spoke on behalf of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society.“I would encourage the committee to make decisions based on the data rather than theoretical concerns that are raised. Those are certainly valid concerns – I’m not here to dismiss them. Continued monitoring, continuing research is vital, but really should not be a barrier to families looking to access this tool to protect their children.” More

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      FBI director Kash Patel fails to recognize name of Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof in Senate questioning – live

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      In a remarkable moment during his appearance before the House judiciary committee on Wednesday, the FBI director, Kash Patel, appeared not to recognize the name of the white supremacist murderer, Dylann Roof, who killed nine Black congregants at Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.At the start of a series of questions on violent extremism coming from both sides of the partisan divide, Sydney Kamlager-Dove, a Democratic congresswoman from Los Angeles, asked Patel to tell her if he disagreed with the characterization that several violent extremists were motivated by rightwing views.“So Dylann Roof, who followed white supremacist propaganda, murdered nine Black parishioners in Charleston in 2015. Do you deny this?” Kamlager-Dove asked Patel.“I’m sorry, Dylan Ruth?” Patel asked, puzzled.“Roof,” Kamlager-Dove corrected him.“Roof. Can you give me some more information?” Patel asked.“You’re head of the FBI, you probably know this,” Kamlager-Dove said. “If you don’t know, that’s fine.”“If you can give me a reminder, I’ve got a lot in front of me,” Patel said.“It was national news,” Kamlager-Dove said. She then moved on to ask if Patel disagreed with the statement that “Robert Bowers murdered 11 Jewish worshippers in Pittsburgh in 2018–”“I do remember that,” Patel interjected.“And it was the deadliest antisemitic attack. So do you admit that that happened?” Kamlager-Dove asked.“I’m not saying the other thing didn’t happen, I’m just asking for a little information,” Patel replied.After the hearing, the congresswoman shared video of the exchange on social media with the comment: “The Director of the FBI doesn’t know who Dylann Roof is? It’s incredibly shameful and concerning that Kash Patel doesn’t know about one of the most heinous hate crimes against Black Americans in the last decade.”Outside DC, and on the campaign trail, Kyle Sweetser, who is running as a Democratic candidate for US Senate in Alabama, delivered a speech this week where he accused Donald Trump of “tearing” down the economy.Sweetser, who voted for Trump in both the 2016 and 2020 elections, noted that he once “believed” the president’s promises to “shake up Washington”.But now, the president’s widespread tariffs, Sweetser says, have pushed him across the aisle and into electoral politics.“His [Trump’s] favorite thing to do is raise OUR prices with HIS tariffs. Those tariffs have hurt businesses like mine and driven up prices on just about everything,” he said.Sweetser, who owns a construction company, spoke at last year’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and has said the January 6 attack led him to become a “Republican voter against Trump.”At an event for rank-and-file Alabama Democrats in downtown Mobile, Sweetser said that instead of strengthening our economy, Trump has “made it harder for families and small businesses to get by.”“I’ve come to understand that Trump isn’t the answer – he never was. His policies are cruel, reckless, and defy logic,” he said. “ He sees himself above the law, and with the Republican Party groveling at his feet, bending over backwards to praise their so-called King, he can get away with anything – no matter the cost to the American people.”But Sweetser also called out a wing of the Democratic party rallying around progressive policies and candidates – like Zohran Mamdani, the NYC mayoral candidate surging ahead in the polls.“I’m a common sense, Southern Democrat – not a New York City socialist. I’m a hardworking American who owns more guns than shoes,” Sweetser said.Despite calling for Americans to treat the trans community with respect, Sweetser did note today that he doesn’t “think it’s fair for men to participate in women’s sports” and urged the party at large to “reevaluate” its “image and policies.”“We need to start talking about the most important issues. Not focusing on everyone’s pronouns,” he added.Sweetser is running to fill the Alabama Senate seat in 2026 — left open by Tommy Tuberville, the incumbent Republican running for governor. He faces a stiff challenge from the state’s attorney general and GOP front runner, Steve Marshall.In a remarkable moment during his appearance before the House judiciary committee on Wednesday, the FBI director, Kash Patel, appeared not to recognize the name of the white supremacist murderer, Dylann Roof, who killed nine Black congregants at Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.At the start of a series of questions on violent extremism coming from both sides of the partisan divide, Sydney Kamlager-Dove, a Democratic congresswoman from Los Angeles, asked Patel to tell her if he disagreed with the characterization that several violent extremists were motivated by rightwing views.“So Dylann Roof, who followed white supremacist propaganda, murdered nine Black parishioners in Charleston in 2015. Do you deny this?” Kamlager-Dove asked Patel.“I’m sorry, Dylan Ruth?” Patel asked, puzzled.“Roof,” Kamlager-Dove corrected him.“Roof. Can you give me some more information?” Patel asked.“You’re head of the FBI, you probably know this,” Kamlager-Dove said. “If you don’t know, that’s fine.”“If you can give me a reminder, I’ve got a lot in front of me,” Patel said.“It was national news,” Kamlager-Dove said. She then moved on to ask if Patel disagreed with the statement that “Robert Bowers murdered 11 Jewish worshippers in Pittsburgh in 2018–”“I do remember that,” Patel interjected.“And it was the deadliest antisemitic attack. So do you admit that that happened?” Kamlager-Dove asked.“I’m not saying the other thing didn’t happen, I’m just asking for a little information,” Patel replied.After the hearing, the congresswoman shared video of the exchange on social media with the comment: “The Director of the FBI doesn’t know who Dylann Roof is? It’s incredibly shameful and concerning that Kash Patel doesn’t know about one of the most heinous hate crimes against Black Americans in the last decade.”As our colleague Lucy Campbell reports on the UK live blog, Donald Trump has just completed his toast to King Charles at the state banquet in the UK.Trump’s remarks were laced with a heavy dollop of praise for his own leadership.“We are, as a country, as you know, doing unbelievably well,” Trump said, reading from printed remarks. “We had a very sick country, one year ago, and today I believe we are the hottest country anywhere in the world. In fact, nobody’s even questioning it.”This is a slight departure for Trump from a claim that he has made dozens of times this year, in a variety of settings. More usually, Trump claims that, during the presidency of Joe Biden, the United States was “a dead country”. What prompted his revised diagnosis of the state of the US under Biden is unclear.Trump also did not, as he usually does, attribute the appraisal that the US is now “the hottest country” in the world to the king of Saudi Arabia, as he has done since visiting Riyadh in May. (Trump did not actually meet the Saudi king, who is elderly and in poor health, on that trip, but that has not stopped him from repeatedly claiming since then that it was the king who told him the US was “dead” a year ago, and is now “the hottest”.)Trump also overlooked centuries of imperialism and unprovoked military aggression of the part of the UK and the US to claim: “Together, we’ve done more good for humanity than any two countries in all of history.”Also today, FBI director Kash Patel appeared before the House judiciary committee today. He answered questions from lawmakers about the department’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files.In several exchanges Patel sparred with Democratic representatives. When congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland – who also serves as the committee’s ranking member – asked why Patel had not released the full tranche of Epstein records, the FBI director said he was hamstrung by recent court orders preventing him from doing so. “I’m not going to break the law to satisfy your curiosity,” Patel said.Raskin also played clips of Patel on a podcast where he urged the Biden administration to “put on your big boy pants” and release Epstein’s so called “client list”. Patel had previously claimed that the FBI was in possession of the list.More broadly, Raskin denigrated Patel’s management of the FBI, including the firing of senior officials for, what they claim, are politically motivated reasons. “You share [J Edgar] Hoover’s dangerous obsession with blind loyalty over professionalism,” Raskin said. “For you, it’s blind loyalty to Donald Trump and keeping his secrets.”Later, California congressman Eric Swalwell, also a Democrat, went back and forth with Patel over whether he spoke to attorney general Pam Bondi about the president’s name appearing in the Epstein files. When Swalwell pushed Patel for answer, the FBI director snapped back with an unrelated diatribe: “Why don’t you try serving your constituency by focusing on reducing violent crime in this country, and the number of pedophiles that are illegally harbored in your sancturary cities in California.”After Swalwell attempted to discuss Patel’s history of listing several “political enemies” for investigation, the FBI director said: “I’m going to borrow your terminology and call bullshit on your entire career in Congress. It has been a disgrace to the American people.”A group of 95 members of Congress have written a letter to Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, condemning the arrest of protected immigrants known as Dreamers and demanding to know how many have been detained and deported in recent months.In a letter shared with the Guardian and submitted to Noem on Wednesday morning, Democratic representatives denounced the recent rise in the wrongful detention and deportation of immigrants residing in the US under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program.The representatives’ letter is also addressed to Todd Lyons, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice), the federal agency tasked with carrying out the Trump administration’s mass deportation program.In the letter, co-written by House members Delia Ramirez of Illinois and Sylvia Garcia of Texas and backed up by the dozens of other signatories, the representatives condemned the “blatant disregard” of the protections afforded to people under Daca.The members of Congress also included various examples of the detention and even deportation in the second Trump administration of Daca recipients, who are known as Dreamers after the Dream Act, legislation first introduced in 2001 to protect a large group of undocumented people who had been brought to the US as children.As Donald Trump’s second state visit to the UK continues, guests are due to start arriving for the state banquet shortly, with the dinner expected about 3.30pm EST/8.30pm BST, to top off a day off pomp, pageantry and parades in Windsor.Prime minister Keir Starmer will want to make the most of the face time with Trump, with the aim of this unprecedented visit to keep relations sweet with the administration, as opposed to securing any immediate big-ticket deals or international agreements.Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch is expected to meet the president for the first time. And a number of American business leaders, who accompanied Trump on Air Force One yesterday, will also attend the dinner, as the UK government tries to court investment and boost growth. Among those expected are Apple’s Tim Cook, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang and Open AI’s Sam Altman.Both King Charles and Donald Trump are expected to deliver short speeches at today’s banquet.You can follow the latest developments at our dedicated live blog below:Per my last post, classes at Utah Valley University have resumed today – one week after Charlie Kirk’s murder on campus.Following the shooting on 10 September, the university closed and students and faculty were sent home. There will be a vigil on campus in Kirk’s honor, scheduled for Friday 19 September.Republican congressman James Comer, who also serves as chair of the House oversight committee, has called the CEOs of the leading online forum and messaging companies – Discord, Twitch, Steam and Reddit – to a hearing on 8 October.“The hearing will examine the radicalization of online forum users, including instances of open incitement to commit politically motivated acts,” Comer said. This comes after the news that Tyler Robinson, the man charged with killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk, used Discord to communicate that he had killed Kirk.Comer added that the leaders of these platforms must appear before lawmakers to explain “what actions they will take to ensure their platforms are not exploited for nefarious purpose”.At a Senate committee hearing on Tuesday, FBI director Kash Patel said that the department was investigating other members of the Discord group chat in which Robinson was providing updates.The Federal Reserve has cut interest rates by a quarter point – the first time in nearly a year. Rates now stand between 4% and 4.25%, the lowest since November 2022. Fed chair Jerome Powell is due to host a press conference at around 2:30pm ET where our business blog will be bringing you all the details:Barack Obama addressed the recent killing of Charlie Kirk and told a crowd in Pennsylvania on Tuesday the country was “at an inflection point”, but that political violence “is not new” and “has happened at certain periods” in US history.Obama added that despite history, political violence was “anathema to what it means to be a democratic country”.The former president made the remarks at the Jefferson Educational Society, a non-profit in Erie, Pennsylvania. He explicitly denounced political violence, addressing the fatal attacks this year of Kirk and the Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman. He called both incidents “a tragedy” and said that Donald Trump has further divided the country rather than work to bring people together.“There are no ifs, ands or buts about it, the central premise of our democratic system is that we have to be able to disagree and have sometimes really contentious debates without resorting to violence,” he said.For the full story, click here:With the hearing of fired CDC director Susan Monarez and fomer public health official Debra Houry now over, here’s a look at today’s key developments so far – both on Capitol Hill and beyond:

      Susan Monarez said that there had been “several explanations” about her removal from the top role at the CDC. “I had refused to commit to approving vaccine recommendations without evidence, fire career officials without cause or resign,” she said, adding: I told the secretary that if he believed he could not trust me, he could fire me … I was fired for holding the line on scientific integrity.”

      Asked by Senator Bernie Sanders why she refused to rubber-stamp vaccine recommendations without seeing them or the evidence behind them, the former CDC director explained that it wasn’t negotiable. “I refused to do it because I have built a career on scientific integrity, and my worst fear was that I would then be in a position of approving something that would reduce access of life-saving vaccines to children and others who need them,” she said.

      Both Monarez and Houry expressed their concerns about the decisions that the vaccine advisory committee meeting tomorrow will make. “I know that the medical community has raised concerns about whether or not, again, they have the commensurate backgrounds to be able to understand the data and the evidence and to evaluate it appropriately.” Meanwhile Houry said she had “significant concerns” as the public had not been able to weigh in.

      Health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr did not express condolences for the police officer killed at the CDC shooting, Monarez said. David Rose was the police officer who was killed during the recent shooting at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. The perpetrator had blamed the Covid-19 vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal.

      Houry also called for Kennedy’s resignation. Speaking at the hearing, she said: “After seeing his Senate finance testimony, and the number of misstatements, seeing what he has asked our scientists to do, and to compromise our integrity, and the children that have died under his watch, I think he should resign.”

      The Trump administration is using civil rights laws to wage a campaign against the University of California in an attempt to curtail academic freedom and undermine free speech, according to a lawsuit filed on Tuesday by faculty, staff, student organizations and every labor union representing UC workers. The lawsuit comes weeks after the Trump administration fined the University of California, Los Angeles $1.2bn and froze research funding after accusing the school of allowing antisemitism on campus and other civil rights violations.

      The Trump administration has aggressively rolled back efforts across the federal government to combat human trafficking, a Guardian investigation has found. The sweeping retreat threatens to negate decades of progress in the drive to prevent sexual slavery, forced labor and child sexual exploitation, according to legal experts, former government officials and anti-trafficking advocates.
      As he brought the hearing with fired CDC director Susan Monarez, and former public health official Debra Houry to a close, Republican chair Bill Cassidy spoke about his years as a practising physician, specializing in liver issues.He noted that in Thursday’s vaccine advisory panel meeting, ending the recommendation for the birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine is reportedly set for discussion.“Why should a child be vaccinated for a sexually transmitted disease when they’re at birth? The child passes through the birth canal and is exposed to the same secretions of one would otherwise, and that passage through the birth canal makes that child vulnerable to the virus being transmitted,” Cassidy said. “If that child is infected at birth, more than 90% of them develop chronic, lifelong infection.”Cassidy summarized the impact of the vaccine on infection rates in the decades following the approval of a birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine. “Now, fewer than 20 babies per year get hepatitis B from their mother,” he added. “That is an accomplishment to make America healthy again, and we should stand up and salute the people that made that decision, because there’s people who would otherwise be dead if those mothers were not given that option to have their child vaccinated.”Dr Debra Houry just said that Robert F Kennedy Jr should resign.
      After seeing his Senate finance testimony, and the number of misstatements, seeing what he has asked our scientists to do, and to compromise our integrity, and the children that have died under his watch, I think he should resign.
      And another update on that front. Senator Cassidy has just said that Senator Mullin told reporters that “he was mistaken” in saying that the meeting between secretary Kennedy and Dr Monarez on 25 August was recorded.“But in case he’s mistaken, that he was mistaken,” Cassidy said, invoking laughter from those in the hearing room. “If there is a recording, it should be released, and would beg the question of what other conversations were recorded.”Per my earlier post, where senator Mullin made claims that Monarez was lying about her meeting with Kennedy – where she told him that if he felt she was untrustworthy he could fire her.Republican senator Bill Cassidy – the committee chair – has called out Mullin’s “implication” that he has a recording of that meeting.“I will note that if materials have been provided to Senator Mullin, and invoked in official committee business, they’re committee records and all other senators on the committee have the right to see those records,” he said. “This is allegiance to President Trump’s values, and so I ask that that recording be released.”He added:
      I’ll also note that we put in a request for any documents or communications that would bring transparency to the situation. We have not yet received those documents. If a recording does not exist, I asked Senator Mullin to retract his line of questions.
      When asked by Democratic senator Ed Markey, of Massachusetts, whether Dr Monarez and Dr Houry feel that politics is driving the change to vaccine recommendations, including hepatitis B vaccines, instead of science in children’s health, both former officials agree.“I’m thankful to Senator Cassidy for really raising hepatitis B via social media,” Houry said of the series of posts by the Republican chair of the committee, which sought to debunk misinformation around testing and the vaccine. “I think there’s a lot of moms that don’t know they have hepatitis that can then transmit it to their baby, and even the mom is hepatitis B negative, we don’t know what the home situation is.”Republican senator Markywane Mullin, of Oklahoma, is saying that Monarez is “not being honest” about her recollection of the conversation with secretary Kennedy.“I tell my kids all the time, you know one thing I want from you. I can deal with any situation we walk into, as long as I know you’re being 100% honest with me,” he said.Mullin has provided no evidence about how why he feels she is not telling the truth.“Your personality and your answers aren’t correct,” Mullin said in an exchange with the fired CDC director. More

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      ‘Americans should be alarmed’: Experts say loss of expertise at CDC will harm US health

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      After high-profile departures and sweeping layoffs, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) faces an unprecedented loss of expertise and a simultaneous erosion of trust as top health leaders undermine vaccines and other vital health tools.“Americans should be alarmed,” said Nirav Shah, former principal deputy director at CDC and now a visiting professor at Colby College. “All of these moves leave us less safe, and it comes at a time of rising public health threats.”Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for the second Trump administration, vowed to strip the CDC of its ability to issue guidance on vaccines and to end required testing for new pathogens.The changes to US health will be felt for decades, and the cutbacks and changes will erode the public’s already wavering trust in health officials, experts say.“Losing top, experienced experts managing crucial units in the CDC is going to put all of us at risk,” said Dorit Reiss, professor of law at UC Hastings College of Law.The departure of four senior officials – Debra Houry, Demetre Daskalakis, Daniel Jernigan and Jennifer Layden – dealt “a big blow to our nation’s health preparedness”, Shah said.They joined thousands of health agency employees who have been laid off or resigned, with entire departments gutted, since Donald Trump was re-elected.“Next time there’s a problem, we will not have qualified leadership for our response,” Reiss said.The loss of “experienced, world-class” experts at the CDC is “directly related to the failed leadership of extremists” in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.The losses may continue under budget cuts, with proposed reductions of $5bn – a 42% decrease from 2024.Two of the recently ousted officials will testify before Congress on Wednesday. Susan Monarez, the most recent CDC director, who was fired after 28 days, criticized the administration’s “reckless” approach to science, including a request to “rubber-stamp” recommendations from the CDC’s independent advisers.The advisory committee on immunization practices (ACIP) plans to meet on Thursday and Friday. Advisers have indicated the committee will re-examine recommendations on routine childhood vaccinations such as those against hepatitis B and HPV (human papillomavirus).The Make Our Children Healthy Again Strategy released on Tuesday “reaffirms that Kennedy is gunning for childhood vaccines”, Reiss said.Emily Hilliard, an HHS spokesperson, said: “Secretary Kennedy has been clear: the CDC has been broken for a long time. Restoring it as the world’s most trusted guardian of public health will take sustained reform and more personnel changes.”When asked about Kennedy’s stance on childhood vaccines, Hilliard said that HHS is “reaffirming the importance of the doctor-patient relationship so people can make informed decisions about their health”, emphasizing the roles of “clear, honest information and personal choice”.Kennedy has also limited access to the Covid vaccines, restricting them only to people “at higher risk”, while also saying “anyone can get the booster”.“Kennedy’s claim that anyone can get them is deeply insincere,” Reiss said. He already removed, for example, the recommendation for pregnant people, making it harder for them to access the vaccine.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“While it’s legal to give vaccines off-label, not all doctors and pharmacists will, and depending what ACIP does, not all insurers will cover them”, including Medicaid, which is bound by ACIP recommendations, she said.Kennedy has repeatedly undermined the CDC and vaccines, calling the agency a “cesspool of corruption” and the Covid vaccine, for instance, the “deadliest vaccine ever made”. During the worst measles outbreak in decades, Kennedy framed vaccination as a personal choice. He has also cut millions of dollars for research on mRNA vaccines.Earlier this month, Trump defended the Covid and polio vaccines. But the president has given Kennedy sweeping control over the nation’s health and nutrition agenda.“In an era of rising threats to public health – whether it’s measles, whether it’s an Ebola outbreak, or whether it’s the continuing concern and threat from H5 [bird flu] – none of these things makes America healthy again,” Shah said.The acting director of the CDC, Jim O’Neill, has a background in biotechnology investing but he does not appear to have training in medicine or public health.“Based on what I understand, he does not have the requisite background to even be serving as acting director,” said Shah, who was acting director of the CDC while the Trump administration entered office.“Americans need to ask themselves: ‘Are we safe right now?’” Shah said. “‘Is there somebody who knows at the higher levels what should be done in the face of an emerging Ebola outbreak? Are they doing it? How do we know that?’”The news that top experts at the CDC haven’t briefed Kennedy is “alarming”, Shah said. ”If America’s top generals were planning a war and sketching out battlefield plans but had not talked to any of their lieutenants and colonels in the field, we would say that’s not leadership.”So far, many Americans have not yet felt the shock waves of Kennedy’s changes to public health, Shah said.For most people, “you don’t actually see the consequences of it until there’s an emergency”, Shah said. “And it’s way too late at that point.” More

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      Guided by angels, pursued by chemtrails: the weird world of Florida health chief’s influential wife

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      The wife of Florida surgeon general Dr Joseph Ladapo, a leading vaccine skeptic, believes that angels have spoken to her and that “dark forces” are targeting her family with chemtrails, and has claimed her husband won’t work with anyone she hasn’t vetted.In published works and interviews reviewed by the Guardian, Brianna Ladapo – who edited her husband’s USA Today op-ed from March 2020 against Covid-19 shutdowns and appears alongside him at conferences – claims to have regularly received visions that come true and believes her life has been saved “multiple times” by angels.Joseph Ladapo, a longtime vaccine skeptic who was handpicked by Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, has faced accusations by public health advocates of peddling “scientific nonsense”. Ladapo has defended his stances on vaccines and Covid guidance, stating in 2023 in response to allegations he falsified a Covid report: “Between my scientific experience and training, and the fact that I am only comfortable saying the truth and speaking the truth, I felt completely fine with that announcement.”He recently ended vaccine mandates for children in Florida against preventable diseases, including measles, mumps, chickenpox, polio and hepatitis, comparing mandates to “slavery” and claimed the move would receive the blessing “of God”. Florida is the first state in the US to do so.The Guardian made several attempts to reach Brianna Ladapo and Joseph Ladapo by email. They did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The Florida department of health and DeSantis also did not respond to multiple requests for comment.In a Substack post on 5 September, Brianna Ladapo defended her husband’s decision to end vaccine mandates and claimed there are “dubious origins, nonexistent safety profiles, and dirty money trails surrounding vaccines”.She wrote in the post: “You believe in vaccines because you’ve been told to by a corrupt medical establishment that has a vested interest in keeping you subservient and stupid.”In a July 2025 podcast, Brianna Ladapo stated: “I often think if I hadn’t had to learn to trust my own gut and learn how to think and stand on my own two feet at such a young age, when Covid had come through, apparently swept away everyone’s brains, I might have been swept away right along with it if I didn’t already know how to listen to that truth that I believe is inside every single one of us.”She added in the podcast that “even to the lead-up, I was having visions, I was having dreams”, about the pandemic, before it began in early 2020. “Immediately, ridiculous inconsistencies started to show themselves.”She also appeared in an interview with the prominent anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense in January 2025, in which she said: “If we all listen to our intuition, we listen to that voice, we would not fall for propaganda. Like, what’s happened with Covid. People did truly insane things to keep from catching a virus that over, well over 99% of people survived without intervention, right? That’s textbook insanity.”Joseph Ladapo has appeared with his wife on stage at conferences on health and parenting.In Dr Ladapo’s 2022 memoir, Transcend Fear, he wrote that his wife has “a history of extraordinary experiences that were hard to explain with natural laws”. In March 2020, he wrote an op-ed for USA Today against shutdowns in response to Covid-19, the first of several he wrote about the virus, and noted that it was edited by his wife.Joseph Ladapo wrote in Transcend Fear that when he was recruited for the job of Florida surgeon general by DeSantis, his wife claimed it was the message she was waiting for.In Brianna Ladapo’s 2023 memoir, she claimed “as long as I can remember, I have received communications from beings beyond this realm. Even as a young child, angels regularly spoke to me.”She added that “since I was born, I have also received constant communications in the form of visions” and that “eventually, every single one of them came to pass”.In the book, Brianna Ladapo claims she went on a “pilgrimage” trip to Egypt in graduate school during which she saw the rest of a “recurring vision” from a past life.In a video podcast on Rumble earlier this year, she reiterated these claims about her “gifts”.“I was born a very sensitive child, the kind of kid who would see angels and talk to beings that no one else could necessarily perceive,” she said, claiming her family “perceived what was happening to me as satanic and demonic and evil”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I saw a lot of angels, but my angels would talk to me and they saved my life multiple times,” she claimed.Brianna Ladapo also claimed their children together “have all been having experiences like this since they were born” and have “innate divine intelligence”.She claimed one of her children as a baby had “a gift” that was temporarily shared with her.“I started to hear conversations that sounded like they were right next to me. There were no people anywhere near us. And they were clearly from different eras, sometimes different countries, different languages and dialects,” Ladapo said.She said initially in their relationship, her husband was skeptical, but came to believe in her “gifts”.“After a number of years, he came to deeply trust my gift and now he won’t work with anybody I haven’t vetted,” she said. The couple did not respond to requests for comment about Brianna Ladapo’s vetting.Later in the podcast, Ladapo claimed she floated an inch above the ground during a session with a former Navy Seal and self-proclaimed traditional healing guru, whom she said her husband had also seen and had similar experiences with. The healer declined to comment, citing client confidentiality.Ladapo is also a proponent of the chemtrails conspiracy theory about planes mass-dumping chemicals. She claims in the podcast interview that she and her children got sick because of chemtrails, and she used a patch that has been characterized as pseudoscience by medical experts.“As we try to chase down where this is coming from, who is funding the companies who are flying the planes, who are piloting these planes, where are they taking off? We don’t even know where they are, because none of this is on the books.” Ladapo said about chemtrails.She added in the podcast interview about a photo of a Florida sky outside of her home: “This is how the chemtrails have been looking outside our window for the past few weeks. They are, I hate to say it, but that looks like a pentagram and they’ve been plastering it in the sky right outside our house for the last few weeks.”She characterized the perceived chemtrailers as “dark forces” out to get her and her husband.“They’ve been trying to stop us for years,” she claimed. “We are operating at a level of light that puts us essentially out of the grasp of those with a very low vibration, very evil intention.” More

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      Rinse and repeat: US vaccine hearing on unpublished study debates same myths

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      A congressional hearing on Tuesday titled “How the Corruption of Science Has Impacted Public Perception and Policies Regarding Vaccines” largely consisted of a debate over an unpublished study comparing chronic illnesses in children who received vaccines with those who didn’t.The study was lead-authored by Marcus Zervos of Henry Ford Health, completed in 2020, and never submitted for publication, according to testimony during the hearing. Senator Ron Johnson, the chair of the subcommittee for the hearing, and the witness Aaron Siri, a lawyer who has represented RFK Jr and the anti-vaccination non-profit Informed Consent Action Network, both claimed the study was not submitted because the authors would lose their jobs were it to be published.Zervos and the other authors of the study were not present at the hearing. The study, which has never been peer-reviewed, is not currently available to the public as a pre-print or in any other form.Henry Ford Health’s communication office did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.The only information that is currently publicly available about the study comes from the hearing itself, including witness testimony and a brief trailer for a documentary from the Informed Consent Action Network. The trailer says the study found that “amongst the unvaccinated group, there was zero brain dysfunction, zero diabetes, zero behavioral problems, zero learning disabilities, zero intellectual disabilities, zero tics and zero other psychological disabilities”.The trailer also includes a clip of Donald Trump saying: “A few decades ago, one in 10,000 children had autism. Today, it’s one in 31.”Witnesses on both sides of the debate during the hearing agreed that the study in question found no link between vaccines and autism.Jake Scott, a clinical associate professor of infectious diseases at Stanford – and the only physician who served as a witness during the hearing – had a different explanation as to why the study was not published.In his testimony, Scott said that the study is “fundamentally flawed”, adding that its core problem was that “vaccinated children had twice the follow up time and substantially more healthcare visits than unvaccinated children”. More healthcare visits mean more opportunities to be diagnosed with conditions like ADHD.Scott went on to explain that “the study reports zero ADHD cases among 1,000s of unvaccinated children. How is that possible with a national prevalence at 11%? That’s highly unlikely, unless conditions went undiagnosed.” Scott noted that the study also claimed a six to eightfold increase in ear infections among vaccinated children, but there is no plausible scientific explanation as to why vaccines would increase ear infections.This finding is consistent with past research showing that parents who do not vaccinate their children are also less likely to have their children treated for health conditions in the medical system. Conditions that were not diagnosed or treated would not have shown up in the study, which relied on medical records, according to hearing testimony.Siri claimed the authors of the study ran sensitivity analyses to account for the differences in medical care. These are not available to the public.As a point of comparison, Scott referenced a Danish study published this July in Annals of Internal Medicine which investigated whether childhood vaccines were linked to 50 different conditions, including many of the same conditions from the unpublished study, like ADHD, autism, asthma, food allergies and eczema. The Danish study looked at outcomes in over a million vaccinated children and 15,000 unvaccinated children, while the unpublished study looked at 18,500 vaccinated children and 2,000 unvaccinated children, according to hearing testimony.The Danish study found no statistically significant increase in risk for any of the conditions investigated, and that vaccinated children experienced lower rates of certain conditions, like ulcerative colitis.Johnson and Siri expressed skepticism over the Danish study, noting that the authors have not released the de-identified raw data they used for their conclusions. No data is available about the unpublished study.Later in the hearing, the conversation turned towards skepticism about vaccines in general and the Covid-19 vaccine specifically.Some graphics that Johnson shared left out critical information. For example, a line chart he introduced accurately showed that measles death rates had already begun to decline significantly before vaccines were introduced in the 1960s, due to other factors like improved sanitation, healthcare access and nutrition, but the chart stops in 1960. After vaccines were introduced and widely adopted, both measles cases and death rates declined to nearly zero.Measles was effectively eliminated in the US in 2000, but cases reemerged when vaccine adoption decreased. There have been 35 measles outbreaks in 2025, according to the CDC. At least two US children and one adult have died of measles this year.Scott, the Stanford witness, had trouble answering some questions based on spurious facts. He was silent for a moment when Johnson asked him “Did you believe when Fauci told us that the [Covid] mRNA shot would stay in the arm?” There is no credible evidence that Fauci ever said this.Toby Rogers, a fellow at the Brownstone institute whose study linking vaccines and autism was retracted said: “I believe we are in the midst of one of the greatest crimes in human history,” referring to vaccines. In now-deleted tweets, Rogers has called for hearings similar to the Nuremberg trials for public health officials who promote vaccines.When Senator Richard Blumenthal, the ranking member of the hearing subcommittee, asked if Rogers believes the Covid-19 vaccine is comparable to the Holocaust, several audience members applauded. More

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      Trump’s former surgeon general urges president to fire RFK Jr

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      The surgeon general from the first Trump administration on Saturday said that the US president should “absolutely” fire health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr over his “dangerous” policies on vaccines and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).Jerome Adams, who has become a pointed critic of the public health decisions being swiftly rolled out in the second Trump administration, made his most fierce attack yet on what has been unfolding.“He’s putting us at risk,” Adams said of RFK Jr, adding that Kennedy is “endangering America at large” with moves to limit access to vaccines, such as shots to protect against the deadly Covid-19 virus.In an interview with CNN on Saturday morning, anchor Victor Blackwell asked Adams, who served as Donald Trump’s surgeon general from 2017 to 2021, including through the height of the coronavirus pandemic, whether Kennedy should resign.“Well, he’s not going to resign,” Adams said.Asked whether, therefore, Trump should fire his health secretary, Adams said: “I absolutely believe that he should, for the sake of the nation.”Kennedy was praised by the president after a stormy committee hearing in the US Senate on Thursday where Democrats called for his resignation or firing and accused him of ignorance and “reckless disregard for science and the truth”.Although more muted, a select few Republicans were critical, including Republican senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who had been a crucial vote to confirm Kennedy to his post, who said the secretary was “effectively denying people the vaccine” with his policy positions. Kennedy snapped back: “You’re wrong.”Adams said he was “flabbergasted” by new restrictions from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last month on who is eligible to receive the latest version of the Covid-19 vaccination and hoped that Trump “will begin to see the danger … to America” of Kennedy’s leanings and will not be “in thrall” of his health secretary.On Friday, Adams was a co-author of a bipartisan opinion piece published in USA Today from three former surgeons general that said that Kennedy’s actions to shake up the CDC were actions that “jeopardize not only the institution’s integrity but also the health and well-being of millions of Americans”.The other authors were Jocelyn Elders, surgeon general in Democrat Bill Clinton’s administration, and Richard Carmona, surgeon general under Republican George W Bush’s presidency.The CDC erupted in chaos in late August when the Trump administration fired the center’s director Susan Monarez, who had been in the post for mere weeks, in an apparent divide over vaccine policy – although she is refusing to leave. Several senior CDC leaders quit in protest at Kennedy’s move to oust her. This followed his June firing of all 17 members of the CDC’s advisory committee on immunization practices (ACIP) and his replacing them with some who publicly hold anti-vaccine views.The three former surgeons general wrote that they were “gravely concerned” for the CDC as a “cornerstone of public health in America and across the world” that had saved countless lives through its science-driven approach, earning public trust.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The recent turbulence at the CDC threatens to undermine this legacy, and we feel this is not just a bureaucratic or political issue. It’s truly a matter of life and death,” the article said.Adams said in the CNN interview that organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Medical Association have lost trust in the CDC under Kennedy’s leadership.He warned that Kennedy could effectively destroy the CDC and was “putting lives at risk by doing so”.Adams at times clashed with Trump when he was his surgeon general, including over policies over public masking during the pandemic.On Saturday, he warned that Kennedy’s policies threatened public health in general but that Covid vaccine restrictions were “specifically endangering Black, Hispanic and Native American communities, who experienced death rates during the pandemic that were twice as high as white Americans”.The day after the Senate hearing, former Massachusetts Democratic representative Joe Kennedy III, RFK Jr’s nephew, posted a statement on X calling the health secretary “a threat to the health and wellbeing of every American” and urging him to resign.Echoing that call to resign was one of the secretary’s siblings, Kerry Kennedy, who also posted on X and decried what she called “the decimation of critical institutions, like the [National Institutes of Health] and the CDC”. More

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      RFK Jr accused of ‘reckless disregard for science and the truth’ in Senate hearing

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      The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, faced the Senate finance committee in a tense and combative hearing on Thursday, during which lawmakers questioned his remarks expressing vaccine skepticism, claims that the scientific community is deeply politicized and the ongoing turmoil plaguing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).In a hearing lasting more than three hours and ostensibly about the Trump administration’s healthcare agenda, Kennedy defended his leadership at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), claiming that his time at the agency will be focused on “unbiased, politics-free, transparent, evidence-based science in the public interest”.Senate Democrats on the committee began the hearing calling for Kennedy’s resignation. “Robert Kennedy’s primary interest is taking vaccines away from Americans,” ranking member Ron Wyden, a Democratic senator from Oregon, said in his opening remarks. “People are hurt by his reckless disregard for science and the truth in this effort. I hope the very least, Robert Kennedy has the decency to tell the truth this morning.”Raphael Warnock, also a Democrat, called Kennedy a “hazard to the health of the American people”, repeating calls for him to step down or for Donald Trump to fire him.Last week, Kennedy fired the CDC director, Susan Monarez, less than a month after she was confirmed to her position. She is now mounting a legal case challenging her removal.Shortly after Monarez’s termination, several leading public health officials at the CDC resigned from their positions, citing frustration with Kennedy’s approach to vaccines and his management style.Kennedy said Monarez was “lying” about her claims that she was fired for refusing to sign off on the secretary’s new vaccine policies. Instead, Kennedy said that she was removed after admitting to being untrustworthy.The Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren, of Massachusetts, was unconvinced – citing Kennedy’s prior characterization of the former CDC director as “unimpeachable”.“You had full confidence in her and you had full confidence in her scientific credentials, and in a month she became a liar?” she asked. Thom Tillis, the outgoing Republican senator of North Carolina, asked about the same contradiction in his questioning.Monarez’s lawyers responded in a statement to Kennedy’s comments, calling them “false” and “at times, patently ridiculous”. They added that Monarez would repeat her published claims “under oath”.Kennedy also justified wider firings at the CDC , calling them “absolutely necessary”.“We are the sickest country in the world,” he said. “That’s why we need to fire people at CDC. They did not do their job. This was their job to keep us healthy.”In June, Kennedy fired all 17 members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee – a move that defied a promise he made during his confirmation hearing to Republican senator Bill Cassidy, a physician who chairs the Senate health committee. Many of Kennedy’s replacements for the advisory panel have a history of vaccine skepticism.When asked about the changes to the advisory committee, and how that will change vaccine recommendations and scheduling, Kennedy said he didn’t anticipate changes to the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine.In an exchange with Kennedy, Cassidy noted the possible conflict of interest with some of the panel’s new members who are involved in ongoing litigation with vaccine manufacturers.Cassidy cast a critical vote to confirm Kennedy earlier this year. He had previously expressed a number of concerns about the health secretary’s historic comments that undermined vaccine efficacy. The senator has since been critical of a number of Kennedy’s policies, including his decision to cut half a billion dollars worth of mRNA vaccine funding – calling the move “unfortunate”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLast month, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the new batch of Covid-19 vaccines, but placed restrictions on who would be able to access them. The agency has authorized shots for people 65 and older, who are known to be more at risk from serious illnesses from Covid infections. Younger people will only be eligible if they have an underlying medical condition that makes them vulnerable. Infectious disease experts say that this policy could prove extremely dangerous, particularly for young children.On Tuesday, Kennedy defended HHS’s handling of the measles outbreak that affected several states in an opinion piece. While the secretary branded his agency’s response as effective, public health experts said Kennedy’s own messaging around vaccines was muddied and confusing.Cassidy concluded his remarks at the hearing by telling Kennedy that his policies were “effectively denying people the vaccine”, sharing an email from a doctor friend who expressed confusion about Covid inoculation eligibility given the FDA’s new recommendation policies.Kennedy snapped back: “You’re wrong.”The Republican senator John Barrasso, of Wyoming, also a doctor, expressed similar concerns about Kennedy’s policies. “In your confirmation hearing you promised to uphold the highest standard for vaccines,” Barrasso said. “Since then, I’ve grown deeply concerned.”During a back and forth with the Virginia senator Mark Warner, a Democrat, Kennedy falsely claimed that there are “no cuts to Medicaid” under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act – Trump’s hallmark domestic policy legislation that was signed into law in July.The congressional budget office estimates that around 7.8 million people stand to lose their health insurance over a decade, due to Medicaid changes under the law.Multiple Democrats on the committee had heated exchanges with the health secretary. Many of them pointed out the inconsistency between Kennedy’s recent support for the president’s “Operation Warp Speed” and his disparagement of the Covid-19 shot. He has previously called it the “deadliest” vaccine ever manufactured.At the hearing, Kennedy refused to acknowledge the wealth of data that shows that the Covid-19 vaccine has saved lives.“Trump has said the vaccine works, and has saved millions of lives. Your own process, on the other hand, has not been transparent,” said the Democratic senator Maggie Hassan, of New Hampshire. “You repeatedly choose to ignore data because it doesn’t match your preconceived notions and lies.” More