It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
The largest medical organization in the US will help conduct a review on the safety and effectiveness of respiratory vaccines as federal health agencies and advisers end vaccine recommendations based on no new information. “They are filling a void that the government created,” Ezekiel Emanuel, vice-provost for global initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania, told journalists on Tuesday. The US government had “abdicated” this responsibility under Robert F Kennedy Jr, the secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and a longtime anti-vaccine critic, Emanuel said.
The American Medical Association (AMA) will partner with the Vaccine Integrity Project to review the evidence on vaccines for influenza, Covid-19 and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) for the fall.
For decades, this was the purview of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which regularly met to discuss the evidence on vaccines and make recommendations to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). States and local health departments would often build policies based on this evidence, and providers and patients depended on it for guidance. “That system has now effectively collapsed,” the AMA said in a statement.
The ACIP will meet in late February, but the committee chair has indicated that all vaccine recommendations are in the crosshairs despite decades of evidence showing the safety and effectiveness of routine childhood immunizations.
The most recent meeting of the ACIP was plagued with misinformation and more than 60 false or misleading statements, and the committee voted to end the universal advice that all newborns receive the hepatitis B vaccine at birth. In previous meetings, the committee also voted to end recommendations for flu vaccines containing the preservative thimerosal (thiomersal) and for the MMRV (measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox) vaccine.
In January, the HHS stopped fully recommending one-third of the routine childhood vaccines, without input from the ACIP or the public. Officials have also limited the development of new and updated vaccines, with Vinay Prasad, the top US vaccines regulator, reportedly overruling scientists at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to place restrictions on Covid shots and to refuse to review a new, potentially more effective flu vaccine from Moderna.
Nearly 300 children died from the flu last year. “With a good flu vaccine, we still lose 30,000 to 40,000 Americans a year,” Shaughnessy Naughton, president of 314 Action, an organization working to elect Democratic scientists and doctors, said at the Tuesday press conference. “Think about what happens if we have none. That is a threat when you have a health secretary that is so hostile to evidence and science.”
The Vaccine Integrity Project, which is based at the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (Cidrap), released in August its review of more than 16,000 studies on flu, Covid, and RSV vaccines, finding the shots have strong safety records and are vital to protecting against illness and death. Medical organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists used this evidence to issue guidance on vaccines.
The Vaccine Integrity Project also recently reviewed the evidence behind the birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine, and it is reviewing data on HPV vaccination. “Why are they doing this?” Emanuel asked. Because the US government was “not doing a scientifically based analysis of impending infections,” he said. “It’s just that simple. This is a testament to the problems we’ve had over the last year.”
The medical organizations will meet monthly, bringing in other professional groups to set questions – such as whether there is a need for an additional dose of the RSV vaccine – and develop a framework for evaluating the evidence.
The AMA has a “duty” to make sure the American public has an evidence-based process for regularly reviewing vaccines, Sandra Adamson Fryhofer, AMA trustee, said in the statement.
© 2015 Mutual Fund Observer. All rights reserved.
© 2015 Mutual Fund Observer. All rights reserved. Powered by Vanilla
Comments
I do not know if I have been successful.
Here is the letter I wrote last fall, updated to ad the 1000 more measles cases in 2025. People who were born after the 1970s do not remember the consequences for these deadly diseases
Vaccine Policies Misguided ( (/24/2025)
To the Editor
Early in my medical career, I saw measles, pertussis (whooping cough), rubella (german measles) and diphtheria cripple and kill people. Soon after medical school (1978), vaccine mandates made these diseases very rare.
A two year San Antonio diphtheria epidemic in 1970 infected 250 people; 3 died. Without vaccine requirements, only 33% of children were immunized.
In medical school we were powerless to help infants with whooping cough, unable to breathe because of the cough’s severity, or save kids with measles, 1-3% of whom died. Congenital rubella caused birth defects (blindness, heart defects, intellectual disabilities) in 20,000 babies a year.
Vaccine requirements eliminated diphtheria and most pertussis by 1980, all measles in 2000, and rubella in 2004.
Now with “personal exemption laws” vaccination rates have fallen to 56% in Idaho, 62% in Texas and 68% in Florida. (Massachusetts without “personal exemptions but still allowing "religious" ones ” is still 86%). There have been 2275 US measles cases in 2025 (285 in all of 2024). Pertussis cases are up 25 times since 2023 and infects even older adults.
Our national vaccine access is under serious threat from Robert Kennedy Jr, who has replaced vaccine experts and physicians at the CDC with non scientists and vaccine skeptics.
A venture capitalist now runs the CDC.
RFK is reviewing all vaccine requirements, and eliminated the COVID vaccine recommendation for pregnant women and healthy people without a provider visit.
RFK believes the COVID vaccine is “the deadliest vaccine ever made”. But vaccinated “Blue “counties had 47 % to 150% fewer COVID deaths than less vaccinated “Red” counties.
This attack on vaccines will cause a rapid increase in deaths, congenital birth defects and disability similar to the 19th century. Is this what we want for our children and grandchildren?
Politico, July 17, 2025
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/17/us-has-wasted-hundreds-of-thousands-of-vaccines-meant-for-africa-health-officials-there-say-00460290
On a personal note, I've been dealing with a mild bout of RSV over the past week. Except for one day, I've been pretty functional. My PCP attributes that to my having gotten an RSV vaccine. Like Covid vaccines, it may not give complete protection but does make the illness much less severe.
There are international treaties so that some countries just recognize or adopt these standards until they develop their own.
So, welcome to the club, AMA!
Well, they're certainly about to find out.