• Developing New Vaccine Against Three Biothreat Pathogens

    Scientists are seeking to develop a multi-pathogen vaccine that will protect against three bacterial biothreat pathogens.

  • Trump’s Vaccine Endorsement Moves the Needle on COVID-19 Vaccines

    A team of economists and political scientists that included Stanford’s Brad Larsen ran a large-scale advertising experiment in thousands of U.S. counties showing a video compilation of former President Donald Trump’s Fox News interview recommending the COVID-19 vaccine, leading to a significant increase in vaccinations.

  • COVID Vaccines Offer Lasting Protection against Reinfection: Studies

    Two new studies suggest good, durable protection of COVID-19 vaccines against recurrent infection. NEJM editor-in-chief said that COVID-19 survivors can still benefit from subsequent vaccination, although the ideal time to vaccinate is yet unknown: “There is an advantage, and although the absolute risk difference may be small, it’s real. Also, there doesn’t appear to be a safety issue with getting boosted.”

  • Antimicrobial Resistance Far Deadlier Than Thought

    In the largest and most comprehensive study to date on the global burden of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), an international team of researchers estimates that more than 1.2 million people died from drug-resistant infections in 2019.

  • Covid Is Less Risky to Children than Covid Vaccines

    We should be careful about vaccinating children against the COVID-19 because it is likely that more children will die from the effects of the vaccine than from Covid itself.

  • COVID: Will the U.K. Vaccinate Children Under 12?

    The U.K. Joint Committee on Vaccinations and Immunizations (JCVI) will help decide whether the U.K. should follow other countries – the U.S., Israel – in offering COVID-1 vaccines to all children aged five and over. When the JCVI weighed up vaccinating the next youngest age group – 12-to-15-year-olds – it found that the benefits were only “marginally greater than the potential known harms.” So marginal, in fact, that it advised against offering vaccines to this group. So, for the JCVI to give the green light to vaccinating over-fives, the health benefits will need to be more compelling than for 12-to-15-year-olds. But what does the evidence say?

  • Russian Anti-Vaccine Disinformation Campaign Backfires

    For more than a year, Russian-aligned troll factories overseeing thousands of social media accounts have been spreading anti-vaccine messages in an aggressive campaign to spread conspiracy theories and cast doubt on Western coronavirus vaccines. But the year-long offensive appears to have backfired. Russian officials now worry that the anti-vaccine skepticism encouraged by the troll factories has spilled over and is partly responsible for the high level of vaccine hesitancy among Russians.

  • Nation of Islam Pushes Anti-COVID-19 Vaccine Message, Conspiracy Theories

    Months before the first COVID-19 vaccine began to be distributed in the United States, the Nation of Islam (NOI) had already widely disseminated its directive that Black people refuse the vaccine. Through all of this, the NOI has exploited legitimate concerns and distrust about the history of medical experimentation on marginalized communities in the United States in order to promote conspiratorial claims about a government-sponsored depopulation plot that targets Black people.

  • Less than a Third of U.S. Parents Eager to Vaccinate Young Kids Against COVID-19

    The latest poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation found that only 27 percent of parents said they were eager to get their young children vaccinated against COVID-19. Thirty percent said they would definitely not get their child vaccinated, and 33 percent said they would take a wait-and-see approach.

  • Parents Were Fine with Sweeping School Vaccination Mandates Five Decades Ago – but COVID-19 May Be a Different Story

    The ongoing battles over COVID-19 vaccination in the U.S. are likely to get more heated when the Food and Drug Administration authorizes emergency use of a vaccine for children ages 5 to 11, expected later this fall. As a public health historian who studies the evolution of vaccination policies, I see stark differences between the current debates over COVID-19 vaccination and the public response to previous mandates.

  • Terrorist Attacks Against Vaccinators

    Since 2010, Islamist terrorists have increased their attacks on vaccinators in the Middle East, south Asia, and sub-Saharan Africa. Pakistan has seen the most attacks on vaccinators.

  • COVID Vaccine Protection Waning Against Infection -- but Not Hospitalization

    One study of 2-dose vaccination with Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines found significantly diminishing efficacy against infection in nursing home residents, while two other studies showed sustained protection against coronavirus-related hospitalizations but declining coverage against new adult cases.

  • U.S. Early COVID-19 Vaccine Campaign Prevented Nearly 140,000 Deaths

    The early U.S. COVID-19 vaccination campaign prevented nearly 140,000 deaths and 3 million cases of COVID-19 by the second week of May, according to a new study. As a result of these early vaccination efforts, states experienced five fewer deaths from COVID-19 per 10,000 adult residents.

  • What the “Lyme Wars” Can Teach Us about COVID-19 and How to Find Common Ground in the School Reopening Debate

    As schools reopen, concerns over a delta-driven surge in cases, vaccine ineligibility for children younger than 12 and varying opinions about mask use in school settings loom large.The Lyme controversy offers four lessons on how parents, school districts, elected officials and scientists can find common ground – and a path forward – in the 2021-2022 school year.

  • Studies Look at COVID-19 Vaccines-Connected Clotting, Myocarditis

    Two studies published by JAMA Cardiology Tuesday discuss adverse effects associated with COVID-19 vaccines. Despite these risks, both research teams continue to advocate for COVID-19 vaccines as the health risks from the virus are far greater than those linked to the vaccine.