RFK Jr.’s Vaccine Panel Votes In opposition to Thimerosal Flu Pictures, Citing Debunked Dangers

Robert F. Kennedy’s conflict towards vaccines has garnered one other victory. An outdoor advisory panel newly reassembled by RFK Jr. has voted at present to suggest towards individuals utilizing vaccines containing thimerosal, a once-common ingredient that anti-vaccination advocates have wrongly blamed for inflicting autism and different well being issues.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices met this week to situation a number of vaccine-related suggestions. In a majority vote, the ACIP really helpful towards youngsters, pregnant individuals, and adults receiving sure flu vaccines with thimerosal, regardless of many years of knowledge displaying no hurt. The choice is the strongest indicator but that the nation’s public well being has been hijacked by anti-vax zealots.

The ACIP is a panel of outdoor specialists organized by the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention. Their suggestions enormously affect which vaccines are routinely offered to the general public. For instance, states usually mandate that youngsters obtain vaccines universally really helpful by the ACIP, such because the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, earlier than they will enter public faculty.

RFK Jr., who has a protracted historical past of spreading vaccine-related misinformation, has been busy stacking the deck towards vaccines in a number of methods, together with through the ACIP. In early June, he unilaterally fired all 17 members of the ACIP. He then shortly, with none public assessment, restocked the panel with new appointees, a few of whom have misrepresented the science on vaccine security or have financially benefited from testifying towards vaccine producers.

The brand new ACIP panel met for the primary time Wednesday and Thursday. Its members did move some non-controversial votes, reminiscent of recommending the routine use of clesrovimab, a lately accredited lab-made antibody remedy to forestall extreme respiratory syncytial virus an infection in infants not protected by maternal vaccines. And it continued to suggest a yearly seasonal flu shot for Individuals aged six and over with no contraindications.

However the ACIP was additionally tasked with reexamining a long-debunked speaking level from anti-vaccination proponents regarding the supposed well being dangers of thimerosal in flu vaccines. Lyn Redwood, a former president of the anti-vaccine group based by RFK Jr., Youngsters’s Well being Protection, gave a presentation to the ACIP Thursday morning blaming thimerosal for neurological points.

Thimerosal is a mercury-based preservative as soon as generally added to many vaccines within the U.S. Within the late Nineties, it turned a bogeyman of the anti-vaccination motion, who argued it was a potential perpetrator behind the supposed hyperlink between larger charges of autism and vaccines. In 1999, in an abundance of precaution, well being companies and a few pediatric teams pushed for the elimination of thimerosal from childhood vaccines. Today, within the U.S., it’s primarily utilized in multi-dose formulations of the flu vaccine, which is what the ACIP panel was requested to assessment.

However the vast majority of studies have since failed to seek out any strong proof that thimerosal in vaccines causes any well being points, not to mention autism. This week, previous to the ACIP assembly, CDC scientists even published a report that supported this conclusion and outlined the methodological flaws of the few research opposite to it. However the doc was quickly taken down from the CDC’s web site, purportedly as a result of it didn’t undergo the “acceptable course of to be posted,” in keeping with the HHS. In the meantime, Redwood’s unique ACIP presentation appeared to reference a research that doesn’t exist—not the primary time something similar has happened recently (the presentation was later reuploaded with out the pretend quotation).

None of this stopped Redwood from giving a presentation to the ACIP Thursday that ignored the scientific consensus on thimerosal. Kennedy has additionally now appointed Redwood, a retired registered nurse, to work within the CDC’s vaccine security workplace. And regardless of misgivings from some ACIP members, the bulk agreed to suggest towards the usage of thimerosal-containing flu vaccines.

The advice will hopefully have little sensible impact, since most flu vaccines are single dose. Different accessible substances may exchange its preservative results if vaccine producers so want. However the determination is irritating, given the entire lack of proof behind it, and foreboding.

RFK’s reshuffling of the ACIP appears to have labored as anticipated in boosting the voice of the anti-vaccination motion and their nonsensical concepts. At the moment, it’s thimerosal. Tomorrow, it is likely to be lots of crucial vaccines we depend on.