from the shut-it-all-down dept
It’s a bit jarring to be reminded that it was solely on June tenth that RFK Jr. determined to fireplace each member of ACIP, the CDC’s immunization advisory panel. These 14 specialists had quite a lot of backgrounds all associated to and demonstrating business expertise particularly coping with vaccination science and coverage. They had been changed by an 8 member panel, handpicked by Kennedy and chockablock with vaccine deniers/skeptics and folk whose credentials don’t precisely match Kennedy’s description when he introduced the brand new panel.
Now, it’s one factor when somebody like me, who has been fairly out within the open about my distaste for this administration and for Kennedy particularly, to speak about how dangerous this all is. And it’s! ACIP suggestions impact every little thing from the provision and proposals of vaccine schedules amongst docs as to whether and what protection insurance coverage corporations are mandated to supply for them.
However when a staunch GOP Senator who voted to substantiate Kennedy’s appointment as Secretary of HHS says that Kennedy’s selections for ACIP had been so dangerous that he’d reasonably they not meet in any respect? Properly, that ought to be indicative of simply how absurd Kennedy’s conduct has grow to be.
Sen. Invoice Cassidy (R-La.) known as for the delay of this week’s assembly of a federal vaccine advisory panel handpicked by Well being and Human Companies Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, citing issues about members’ lack of expertise and potential bias in direction of vaccines.
“Wednesday’s assembly shouldn’t proceed with a comparatively small panel, and no CDC Director in place to approve the panel’s suggestions,” Cassidy wrote in a publish on X late Monday night.
He famous that members of the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices “don’t have vital expertise learning microbiology, epidemiology or immunology,” and a few might also have a “preconceived bias towards” mRNA vaccines.
The Hill, which I typically like, has introduced this quote in such a method that I don’t assume it actually gives the total impression of Cassidy’s assertion. It virtually seems like simply your run of the mill response from a politician on social media.
It’s not. That is Cassidy saying that Kennedy’s ACIP advisors are so ill-equipped to carry out the position they’ve been assigned by RFK Jr. that they merely shouldn’t carry out their jobs in any respect. Cassidy additional couched his statements by saying that failing to a minimum of delay the assembly, given how the panel is at present seen, would create mistrust of its suggestions. However that’s simply saying the identical factor once more: the general public would mistrust ACIP’s suggestions as a result of the ACIP panel members are largely fully unqualified for the position and a few are actively hostile in direction of good public well being coverage.
ACIP is about to satisfy at the moment and tomorrow. I someway doubt that Kennedy’s conceitedness, nevermind that of his boss, will enable him to delay the assembly as Cassidy requests. And, when that finally ends up being the case, the one remaining query is the one which we’ve been asking for a while: when is Congress going to place an finish to RFK Jr.’s tenure at HHS?
Filed Below: acip, invoice cassidy, cdc, well being and human companies, immunization, rfk jr., vaccines
