Tag: vaccines

Published by: STAT
Published on: June 26, 2025
By Jen Brull, Susan J. Kressly, Jason Goldman, Steven J. Fleischman, Tina Q. Tan

The authors are the presidents of American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Physicians, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

Let us introduce ourselves. We are the doctors you trust with your health and the health of your family across every stage of life, from the first checkups in infancy and childhood, to health care during pregnancy and adulthood, through management of chronic illness and aging. We are family physicians, pediatricians, internal medicine physicians, OB-GYNs, and infectious disease experts. Our commitment is not to politics, but to the absolute well-being of our patients and populations, and to providing them with best evidence-based health care.

We have an urgent, united message: Immunizations work, they are very effective and safe, and they save lives. Vaccines are among the most rigorously studied and effective tools in public health. Through widespread immunization, we have eradicated debilitating and fatal diseases that once caused serious illness, hospitalization, and death for millions of people.

But today, that legacy is at serious risk.

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British Columbia

B.C.’s premier says measles spikes across Canada a result [of] anti-vax ‘recklessness’

Published June 25, 2025

Published by: The Canadian Press
Published on: June 25, 2025
By Chuck Chiang

VANCOUVER – British Columbia Premier David Eby says the growing spread of measles across Canada is “the sadly predictable outcome” of the “recklessness” of anti-vaccination politicians.

Eby says the disease is “no joke,” given the potentially serious impact on those infected, and it’s preventable with two vaccine shots.

He told a Vancouver news conference that the focus for provincial public health authorities now is to make sure that people who are not protected receive full vaccination.

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vaccines

Childhood vaccines were a global success story. Misinformation and other obstacles are slowing that progress, a study shows

Published June 25, 2025

Published by: CNN
Published on: June 25, 2025
By Jen Christensen

Routine vaccines have prevented the deaths of about 154 million children around the world over the past 50 years, a new study shows, but efforts have been slowing recently, allowing for the growth of some vaccine-preventable diseases. This backslide could lead to many more unnecessary illnesses and deaths without an increased effort to vaccinate children and counter misinformation.

The report, published Tuesday in the medical journal The Lancet, says that over the past five decades, the World Health Organization’s Expanded Programme on Immunization has vaccinated more than 4 billion children. This doubling of global coverage of vaccines has prevented countless cases of tuberculosis, measles, polio, diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis.

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pro-virus policies

Viewpoint: CDC’s upcoming vaccine advisory meeting set up to sow distrust in vaccines

Published June 23, 2025

Published by: CIDRAP
Published on: June 23, 2025
By Vaccine Integrity Project Staff and Advisers

This week’s meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is likely to mark its end—for now—as a vaccine advisory body.

Regardless of which party controlled the White House and who served as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), ACIP—a federal advisory committee of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)—held meetings that included presentations of vetted, evidence-based data and used a structured framework for moving from scientific evidence to vaccine recommendations.

Based on what we have learned about the new committee members appointed by the secretary, the meeting agenda and presenters, however, the purpose of the meeting appears to be an opportunity to deemphasize vaccine benefits—many of which are largely invisible to the public and taken for granted—and emphasize the potential risks of vaccines.

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Alberta

Measles ‘out of control,’ experts warn, as Alberta case counts surpass 1,000

Published June 21, 2025

Published by: CBC News
Published on: June 21, 2025
By Jennifer Lee

Alberta’s measles outbreaks have now eclipsed the 1,000-case mark and infectious disease specialists are warning the virus is “impossible to contain,” given the current level of transmission.

The province reported another 24 cases on Friday, including 14 in the north zone, nine in the south and one in the Edmonton zone.

This brings the total confirmed cases since the outbreaks began in March to 1,020.

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kakistocracy

‘I Think He Is About to Destroy Vaccines in This Country’

Published June 18, 2025

Published by: The New York Times
Published on: June 18, 2025
By David Wallace-Wells

I think we are on the verge of losing vaccines for this country, from this country. And the reason is that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will hold up a paper, in the next four or five months, that says it’s aluminum in vaccines that are causing a whole swath of problems, including autism. I think he is about to destroy vaccines in this country. I do.

— Paul Offit

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Alberta

Alberta government faces mounting pushback to new COVID-19 vaccine policy

Published June 17, 2025

Published by: CBC News
Published on: June 17, 2025
By Jennifer Lee

The Alberta government is facing fierce and mounting opposition to plans that will reduce access to publicly funded COVID-19 vaccines in the province

The province announced late on Friday that it will limit funding of the COVID-19 shots to very specific high risk groups, including Albertans living in care homes and group settings, those receiving home care, people on social programs such as AISH, and immunocompromised individuals.

Seniors living in the community, pregnant Albertans and health-care workers will have to pay out of pocket for the vaccine, along with the rest of the population.

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Alberta

UCP’s COVID vaccine cuts put children at serious risk

Published June 16, 2025

Published by: Edmonton Journal
Published on: June 16, 2025
By Blake Murdoch

On May 27, the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics published a patient information page about Long COVID in children. It states “Long COVID is common, affecting up to 10 per cent to 20 per cent of children with a history of COVID-19. With almost six million U.S. children potentially affected, this is higher than the number of children with asthma, the most common chronic health problem in children.”

Two weeks later on June 13, Danielle Smith’s UCP, famously fans of the anti-science Trump government, highlighted horrifically unscientific new FDA guidance suggesting healthy children and pregnant women are not recommended for COVID vaccination, while announcing a new policy where most Albertans have to pay for immunization.

Beyond the obvious inequities and loss of access that payment for prophylaxis presents, the UCP introduced a new four-phase rollout plan whereby those under age 65 without qualifying conditions cannot be vaccinated until the final phase. This means kids will likely head back to schools months before they are eligible for vaccination, ensuring they are exposed to the latest COVID strains before becoming eligible for updated vaccination. It also leaves the UCP an opening to not buy pediatric vaccines at all and claim “low demand.”

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vaccines

How Kennedy’s Purge of Advisers Could Disrupt U.S. Vaccinations

Published June 13, 2025

Published by: The New York Times
Published on: June 13, 2025
By Apoorva Mandavilli

With two extraordinary moves, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has upended the certainty that American children will always have cost-free access to lifesaving vaccines.

For decades, a little-known scientific panel at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended which shots Americans should get and when. The group’s endorsement means insurance companies must cover the costs and helps states decide which vaccines to mandate for school-age children.

The panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, also determines which shots are provided for free through the Vaccines for Children program, which serves about half of the children in the United States.

On Monday, Mr. Kennedy, long a vaccine skeptic, fired all 17 members of A.C.I.P., claiming that the group was rife with conflicts of interest and that a clean sweep was needed to restore public trust. Mr. Kennedy also reassigned C.D.C. staff scientists who oversee the panel’s work and vet its members.

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Alberta

Alberta’s measles outbreaks are now the worst in nearly half a century

Published June 12, 2025

Published by: CBC News
Published on: June 12, 2025
By Jennifer Lee

Alberta’s measles surge is so dramatic, the last time case counts were higher Calgary did not have an NHL team, O Canada was not yet the official national anthem and gasoline would set you back 24 cents a litre.

The province reported 29 more cases on Thursday, bringing the total since the outbreaks began in March to 868. That pushes the province past the levels seen during a surge in 1986, when 854 cases were reported.

A higher case count hasn’t been recorded since 1979.

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vaccines

RFK Jr. names new members of CDC’s vaccine advisory panel

Published June 11, 2025

Published by: STAT
Published on: June 11, 2025
By Chelsea Cirruzzo, Isabella Cueto, Andrew Joseph, Helen Branswell

WASHINGTON — Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday unveiled the names of the eight new members who will sit on the panel of experts that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccine policy, and said they would review the current vaccine schedule, as well as evaluate new shots.

The new members include several well-known critics of vaccines.

“The slate includes highly credentialed scientists, leading public-health experts, and some of America’s most accomplished physicians,” Kennedy wrote in a post on X.

The appointment comes just days after Kennedy dismissed every member of the committee, calling for a “clean slate” with new members. The committee is scheduled to hold a meeting later this month.

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vaccines

Kennedy dismisses entire US CDC vaccine panel, replacing all 17 members

Published June 9, 2025

Published by: Reuters
Published on: June 9, 2025
By Ahmed Aboulenein, Michael Erman, Julie Steenhuysen

WASHINGTON, June 9 (Reuters) – Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has fired all members sitting on a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel of vaccine experts and is reconstituting the committee, his department said on Monday.

Kennedy removed all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement, and is in the process of considering new members to replace them.

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measles

Ontario confirms death of infant infected with measles

Published June 5, 2025

Published by: CTV News
Published on: June 5, 2025
By Joshua Freeman

An infant in southwestern Ontario who contracted measles from their mother before birth and was born prematurely has died, Ontario’s chief medical officer of health says.

The child’s mother had not been vaccinated against the viral illness, Dr. Kieran Moore said in his statement.

While measles can be fatal, especially for young children, Moore noted the child also faced other “serious medical complications.”

“While measles may have been a contributing factor in both the premature birth and death, the infant also faced other serious medical complications unrelated to the virus,” Moore said.

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vaccines

Exclusive: CDC expert resigns from COVID vaccines advisory role, sources say

Published June 3, 2025

Published by: Reuters
Published on: June 3, 2025
By Julie Steenhuysen, Michael Erman, Dan Levine

Pediatric infectious disease expert Dr. Lakshmi Panagiotakopoulos of the U.S. CDC resigned on Tuesday as co-leader of a working group that advises outside experts on COVID-19 vaccines and is leaving the agency, two sources familiar with the move told Reuters.

Panagiotakopoulos said in an email to work group colleagues that her decision to step down was based on the belief she is “no longer able to help the most vulnerable members” of the U.S. population.

In her role at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s working group of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, she co-led the gathering of information on topics for presentation.

Her resignation comes one week after Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a long-time vaccine skeptic who oversees the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health, said the COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women had been removed from the CDC’s recommended immunization schedule.

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vaccines

RFK Jr.’s stance on Covid vaccines for pregnant women is profoundly unethical

Published June 3, 2025

Published by: STAT
Published on: June 3, 2025
By Ruth R. Faden

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy’s proposal to end the government’s existing Covid vaccine recommendation for healthy pregnant women, if enacted, will be a major setback to decades’ worth of efforts to advance the health of pregnant people and their babies.

It also profoundly unethical.

Pregnant people are consistently left behind in biomedical R&D in ways that are deeply harmful to the health of both mother and child. In the decade before the Covid pandemic, consensus reports emerged denouncing this pregnancy evidence gap and providing road maps for how to ethically generate evidence during pregnancy within the confines of existing research regulations. I co-led one of these efforts, the PREVENT project, initiated in response to the Zika epidemic and completed in fall 2019. PREVENT specifically focused on how to ethically include pregnant women in the development and deployment of new vaccines for emerging pandemic threats.

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avian flu

Cancelling funding for mRNA vaccine is both risky and foolish

Published June 2, 2025

Published by: The Ottawa Citizen
Published on: June 2, 2025
By Raywat Deonandan

With Donald Trump’s second administration, disruptive news seems to arise on a daily basis. Most concerning for clinicians and health scientists in Canada and around the world was Trump’s appointment of anti-vaccination zealot Robert Kennedy Jr. to the enormously influential position of Secretary of Health and Human Services. Kennedy’s ideological dismantling of the U.S.’s vaunted health research apparatus has been at speeds surprising even to his most ardent critics.

But his recent decision to cancel a nearly $600-million contract with vaccine manufacturer Moderna might be among his most shortsighted and destructive moves, with ripple effects globally.

The contract with the mRNA pioneer, signed under the Joe Biden administration, was meant to fund the development, testing and licensing of vaccines targeting particular flu strains, including the strain responsible for the dreaded avian flu, H5N1. Many scientists fear that H5N1 could become the next world-stopping infectious disease pandemic.

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pandemic response

COVID-19 Disease Burden Remains Greater Than Influenza, Study Shows

Published May 31, 2025

Published by: Forbes
Published on: May 31, 2025
By Dave Wessner

Researchers in Denmark conducted a large-scale evaluation of the disease burdens associated with COVID-19 and influenza. Their conclusion? COVID-19 has a greater impact than influenza, resulting in more hospitalizations and deaths. These findings, they note, emphasize the continued need for a strong public health response.

COVID-19 Exhibits Greater Disease Burden Than Influenza

To compare the disease burden of COVID-19 and influenza, the researchers evaluated data available from Danish health registries from May 16, 2022 to June 7, 2024. The results were published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. A commentary about the findings was published in the same issue of the journal.

During this period, the risk of hospitalization due to COVID-19 was approximately two times higher than the risk of hospitalization due to influenza. The risk of death was approximately three times higher. The researchers note that these increased risks were greater during the first year of the study period but still were evident during the second year. The risk of mortality, for example, was five times greater for COVID-19 during the first year of the study. That increased risk dropped during the second year, but COVID-19 still had a two and a half times greater risk of mortality than influenza.

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vaccines

FDA approves a next-generation Covid vaccine from Moderna, with restrictions

Published May 31, 2025

Published by: STAT
Published on: May 31, 2025
By Helen Branswell

The Food and Drug Administration approved Moderna’s new Covid-19 vaccine late Friday, though it placed restrictions on its use that the company’s existing Covid shot, Spikevax, does not currently face.

The new vaccine, which will be marketed under the name mNexspike, will not immediately replace Spikevax. A statement from the company said both vaccines will be available on the market for the time being.

“The FDA approval of our third product, mNEXSPIKE, adds an important new tool to help protect people at high risk of severe disease from Covid-19,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in the statement. “Covid-19 remains a serious public health threat, with more than 47,000 Americans dying from the virus last year alone.”

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COVID-19 Exhibits Greater Disease Burden Than Influenza

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