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NIAID Staffers Ordered to Remove Biodefense, Pandemic Preparedness Language on Website
Staff members at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) have been told to delete the words “biodefense” and “pandemic preparedness” from the institute’s website.
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Study Finds No Link Between COVID-19 Vaccines and Autism
A study today finds no increase in autism rates in babies born to mothers who received COVID-19 vaccines just before or during pregnancy, compared with children of unvaccinated moms. A growing number of studies show that COVID-19 vaccines are safe for women who want to start a family.
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Health Care Workers Want ICE Out of Hospitals, and Blue States Are Responding
As the Trump administration intensifies its immigration crackdown, health care workers in multiple states say ICE is increasing its presence in health care facilities, deterring people from seeking medical care and creating chaos that jeopardizes the safety of their patients.
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ICE Is Using Medicaid Data to Find Out Where Immigrants Live
A recent court ruling has cleared the way for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to resume using states’ Medicaid data to find people who are in the country illegally. States fear immigrants will shy away from seeking health care.
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Vaccine Myths That Won’t Die and How to Counter Them—Part 2
This article and its Part 1 catalogue the debunked myths driving the vaccine skeptics who now run HHS. These myths share four fundamental errors: First, the conflation of temporal association with causation. Second, the confusion of regulatory paperwork with the totality of scientific evidence. Third, the demand for impossible standards. Fourth, the selective citation of evidence. The current political moment has given unprecedented platforms to vaccine skepticism. But politics cannot change biology.
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Vaccine Myths That Won't Die and How to Counter Them—Part 1
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services, has spent decades promoting vaccine skepticism. He has replaced scientists at different HHS such as CDC and NIH with vaccine skeptics and anti-vaccine activists. They have polluted the information environment with, and base their policy changes on, myths about the supposed risks of vaccines. Each of these myths has been studied extensively. Each has been refuted. And yet each persists, because misinformation travels faster than correction and because these myths tap into fears that are genuinely human.
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States Go Their Own Way as RFK Jr. Shifts Federal Vaccine Policy
In response to the new federal vaccine guidance, advanced by anti-vaxx activists now determining vaccine policy at HHS, many states have created formal alliances to share health information and formulate science-based policies for their residents. “The science is clear. Vaccines remain the best protection for keeping children and communities healthy,” the Northeast Public Health Collaborative said in a statement.
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Quiet Dismantling: How “Shared Decision-Making” Weakens Vaccine Policy and Harms Kids
Shared clinical decision-making was designed to acknowledge complexity where it exists. Using it to manufacture complexity where none exists is a betrayal of the concept and, ultimately, of the patients it was meant to serve.
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Trump’s Second Term Is Reshaping U.S. Science with Unprecedented Cuts and Destabilizing Policy Changes
President Donald Trump is far from the first president to be deeply skeptical of the academic research community. But his relentless attempts to overhaul the federal support system for research and development have set a new precedent for the level of mutual distrust and its consequences for scientists.
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Senator Endorses Discredited Doctor’s Book on a Chemical He Claims Treats Everything from Autism to Cancer
Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson has a history of spreading vaccine misinformation. Now he’s giving credence to assertions about the therapeutic powers of chlorine dioxide, a disinfectant and deodorizer. “It is all lunacy,” one expert said.
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CDC Advisers Drop Decades-Old Universal Hepatitis B Birth Dose Recommendation, Suggest Blood Testing After One Dose
Scientists say that hepatitis B vaccine is safe and effective, and that dropping the decades-old practice of a universal dose at birth will have only one result: hepatitis B rates and resulting liver cancer, cirrhosis, and premature death will rise among the unvaccinated or undervaccinated—whether in infancy or later in life, when unprotected adults will be vulnerable to infection.
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Aluminum in Vaccines: Separating RFK Jr.’s Claims from Scientific Evidence
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s belief that aluminum in vaccines can cause health issues is contradicted by scientific evidence, a fact which RFK Jr. does not allow to interfere with his campaign against vaccination. What is incontrovertible is that increasing vaccine hesitancy and reduced vaccination rates lead to more vulnerable people and more infectious diseases, illnesses, and deaths. It is important to question medical interventions, but this questioning should be informed, rational, and open.
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Study Warns Past Heat Waves Would Be Far More Lethal Now
The weather patterns behind Europe’s past extreme heat waves could cause tens of thousands more deaths in today’s hotter climate –unless countries rapidly scale up heat-adaptation efforts.
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South Carolina’s Measles Outbreak Shows Chilling Effect of Vaccine Misinformation
For the first time in more than two decades, the United States is poised to lose its measles elimination status, a designation indicating that outbreaks are rare and rapidly contained. The confluence of larger national trends —including historically low vaccination rates, skepticism fueled by the pandemic, misinformation, and “health freedom” ideologies promoted by conservative politicians —have put communities at risk for the reemergence of a preventable, potentially deadly virus.
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CDC’s New Deputy Director Is Vocal Critic of Vaccines, Advocated for Ivermectin
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. named a critic o COVID vaccines — and a promoter of a worthless alternative to such vaccines – as deputy director of CDC.
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The long view
How Cuts to CDC Are Dismantling Its Capacity to Protect Americans’ Health
CDC’s mission is to protect and improve the health of Americans, which it fulfills by preventing, detecting and controlling disease. CDC also staffs a pool of public health experts who are rapidly deployed to respond to public health emergencies – including disease outbreaks – worldwide. The cuts to CDC put these functions in jeopardy.