A CDC advisory panel vote to recommend against use of seasonal influenza vaccines containing small amounts of thimerosal followed a presentation that misled on the risks of the rarely used preservative. There isn’t evidence that thimerosal in vaccines is harmful, and studies assessing a variety of health problems, including neurological conditions, have supported its safety.
As the Republican budget bill, called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, nears the July 4 deadline set by the White House, lawmakers have been ramping up the rhetoric. We referee the claims from both sides.
The chair of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s newly constituted vaccine advisory committee announced in his first meeting that the panel will revisit the longstanding practice of vaccinating all babies against hepatitis B, questioning whether it was “wise” to administer shots “to every newborn before leaving the hospital.” Experts, however, say there are valid reasons to vaccinate babies against hepatitis B, and that it has proven to be safe and very effective.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory panel, claiming it “has been plagued with persistent conflicts of interest and has become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine.” But there’s no evidence of problematic conflicts of interest or that the group inadequately scrutinizes vaccines.
In the past two weeks, U.S. public health authorities have skirted normal procedures and announced two major policy changes that will likely reduce access to COVID-19 vaccines and restrict use to higher-risk populations. Here, we explain what we know — and don’t — about these new COVID-19 vaccine policies.
Since regaining power in January, the Trump administration has repeatedly claimed with false certainty that the COVID-19 pandemic originated in a lab. But there isn’t clear evidence that the virus came from a lab. A new government website promoting the claim also gets some basic facts wrong.
Speaking before Congress, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. misleadingly claimed that Europe doesn’t vaccinate children against chickenpox because a study shows that when you do, “you get shingles in older people.” While that is a theoretical concern, studies have not borne that out — and parts of Europe do vaccinate kids.
To commemorate his first 100 days in office this term, President Donald Trump gave a speech in Michigan and granted interviews to several news outlets. In our review of his remarks, we found false and misleading claims, including quite a few Trump has made before.
In announcing new autism prevalence data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. distorted scientific research to argue that there is an “epidemic” of autism that must be due to an “environmental toxin.”
On four separate occasions, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Health and Human Services secretary, has suggested that the measles outbreak in Texas, which is now over 500 cases, is beginning to subside and grow more slowly. But a review of state data indicates there’s no decline yet in the pace of cases.