Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was building up a following with his anti-vaccine nonprofit group, Children’s Health Defense, and becoming one of the world’s most influential spreaders of fear and distrust around vaccines.
Now, President-elect Donald Trump says he will nominate Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, which regulates vaccines.
Comments closedComments closedDuring his last time in office, Trump botched the pandemic response, he spread misinformation everywhere, he contributed to restricting access to reproductive health care, he tried to repeal [the Affordable Care Act] and he set the world back on climate action. For me, it’s extremely worrying to have someone in charge with such a poor track record on health and science.
Just over 52,000 New Brunswickers have received the latest COVID-19 vaccine, and more than 91,000 have received this year’s flu shot since they became available on Oct. 3, according to the government.
Comments closedA Kingston, Ont., doctor celebrated for organizing drive-thru vaccination clinics that helped thousands get shots at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic is now being ordered to pay back more than $600,000 in fees for those same services.
Dr. Elaine Ma said she organized 45 mass vaccination clinics that administered roughly 35,000 doses between April 2021 and the following February.
Her work was recognized by the Ontario College of Family Physicians, which granted her its Award of Excellence in 2021, in part pointing to Ma’s role in boosting local vaccination rates.
Comments closedVaccine production is nearly three years behind schedule at a federally owned plant in Montreal and the future of a deal between Ottawa and an American company to make COVID-19 vaccines here is now under review.
Comments closedDonald Trump has suggested vaccines could be banned if he becomes president, in the clearest sign yet of a radical shake-up in public health policy should he put his ally Robert F Kennedy Jr in charge of it.
Trump on Sunday told NBC that Kennedy, the anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist and former independent candidate who dropped out and endorsed Trump, would have a “big role in the administration” if wins Tuesday’s presidential election. Trump said he would talk to Kennedy about vaccinations.
Comments closedA regional public health department in Idaho is no longer providing COVID-19 vaccines to residents in six counties after a narrow decision by its board.
Southwest District Health appears to be the first in the nation to be restricted from giving COVID-19 vaccines. Vaccinations are an essential function of a public health department.
Comments closedA co-chair of Donald Trump’s transition team said Trump supporter Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants access to federal health data so he can show vaccines are unsafe and lead to them being pulled from the market in a second Trump administration.
Howard Lutnick echoed a number of Kennedy’s debunked anti-vaccine talking points in a CNN interview Wednesday, including falsehoods about the vaccine schedule and the disproven theory that vaccines cause autism. Trump has talked often about how Kennedy, who suspended his own presidential bid and endorsed him in August, will have a big role to play if the former president returns to the White House.
Comments closedThe co-chair of the Trump-Vance transition team on Wednesday night endorsed vaccine conspiracy theories pushed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and suggested the activist and Trump ally would be given federal data in order to check vaccines’ safety if former President Donald Trump is elected.
Comments closedDates for flu and Covid vaccination clinics in the Northwest Territories have been made public on the territorial health authority’s website.
The website now shows dates in November for Yellowknife, late October for Fort Smith and Hay River, and mid-October in Inuvik.
Not all communities have specific dates. Some residents are told to contact their local health centre instead.
Comments closedQuebec public health authorities on Monday launched the annual influenza and COVID-19 vaccination campaign, administering the shots first to people in long-term care before making the vaccines available for free to the general population as of Oct. 16.
And for the first time this year, medical staff will be immunizing infants up the age of 18 months against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a seasonal pathogen that often leads to overcrowded pediatric emergency rooms during the winter. Health Canada has approved a monoclonal antibody therapy, Nirsevimab, which is now being injected into premature infants in Quebec before they leave the hospital.
Comments closedAt the height of the pandemic in February of 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced he had found a partner to make millions of doses…
Comments closedBC Conservative leader John Rustad assured anti-vaccine activists British Columbia would be open to joining other jurisdictions in legal proceedings inspired by the Nuremberg Trials that would be aimed at prosecuting those deemed responsible for COVID-19 public health measures and vaccines.
“Nuremberg 2.0,” an idea popular among COVID-19 conspiracy theorists and the online far-right, is simultaneously inspired by the Nuremberg Code, a set of ethical principles on human experimentation, as well as the Nuremberg Trials that prosecuted Nazi leaders after the Second World War.
Nuremberg 2.0 advocates typically call for those who created, justified or enforced public health measures — including politicians, doctors, academics, journalists and police — to be jailed and even executed for “crimes against humanity.”
Comments closedShipments of updated COVID-19 and flu vaccines have arrived in the London region, according to the Middlesex-London Health Unit (MLHU), with more rolling in as respiratory virus season inches closer.
A spokesperson for the MLHU said high risk populations are eligible for the shots for now, and the general population will have to wait until the end of the month to update their immunization.
Comments closedFamily doctors and nurse practitioners have been told they will not be receiving deliveries of flu or COVID-19 vaccines in time for the fall immunization program launch later this month. And it is unclear if they will get any at all.
In addition to AHS public health clinics and pharmacies, community medical clinics can administer publicly funded vaccines, including those that protect against COVID and influenza.
But shipments of vaccines — to these clinics — have stopped, jeopardizing their participation in the fall immunization campaign.
Comments closedUpdated COVID-19 vaccines are starting to roll out to some high-risk Canadians, but others will have to wait a little while longer before these new shots are offered to them.
Last month, Health Canada approved Pfizer and Moderna’s latest COVID-19 vaccines targeting the most recent variants of the virus.
Both shots are approved for everyone aged six months and older.
The new mRNA vaccines from both pharmaceutical companies target the KP.2 subvariant of Omicron that was dominating COVID-19 spread earlier this year.
Comments closedThe federal government’s decision to not provide Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine this respiratory virus season raises health equity concerns, experts and advocates say, as some Canadians look to the U.S. to get the shot.
The Public Health Agency of Canada said it won’t provide the protein-based vaccine called Nuvaxovid because the manufacturer required a minimum order that far exceeds last year’s uptake of the vaccine.
The health agency said 125,000 Nuvaxovid doses were ordered in 2023, but only 5,529 were administered. This fall, it will only supply provinces and territories with the reformulated Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.
But some Canadians who say they are immunocompromised and have had adverse reactions to the mRNA vaccines are calling the decision unfair.
Comments closedTORONTO – The Public Health Agency of Canada says it is not providing Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine this respiratory virus season, citing low demand.
It says the manufacturer requires a minimum order of its updated protein-based vaccine, called Nuvaxovid, which far exceeds the uptake by Canadians last year.
The agency says a very small portion of the doses ordered in 2023 were used and that its decision reflects efforts to limit vaccine wastage.
It is distributing two mRNA vaccines — made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna — that are approved for adults and children six months and older.
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