The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Penmenvy (Meningococcal Groups A, B, C, W, and Y Vaccine) for active immunization against invasive meningococcal disease (IMD), according to a press release from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).

Penmenvy, approved for use in individuals aged 10 through 25 years, targets five major serogroups of Neisseria meningitidis (A, B, C, W, and Y), the common cause of IMD. The vaccine is an injectable suspension for intramuscular use that combines components of GSK's two well-established meningococcal vaccines, Bexsero and Menveo.

The vaccine's safety, tolerability, and immune response were supported by two phase 3 trials with more than 4,800 participants aged 10 to 25 years. The safety profile was found to be consistent with GSK's licensed meningococcal vaccines. The most common side effects reported were pain at the injection site, fatigue, headache, muscle pain, and nausea.

"The consequences of IMD can be devastating for those who contract it, for their families and friends," Judy Klein, president and founder of Unity Consortium, a nonprofit organization focused on adolescent health and immunization in the United States, said in a statement. "We welcome new tools to help protect more adolescents from meningococcal disease. Pentavalent MenABCWY vaccines could help address the disease by providing protection against the five vaccine-preventable serogroups in one vaccine and making it easier for adolescents to get the coverage they need."

Approval of Penmenvy was granted to GSK.

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President Donald Trump signed an executive order withholding funding from schools and universities that require students to be vaccinated against COVID.

The move is part of Trump's larger efforts to roll back vaccine mandates, despite studies showing that they help increase vaccination rates and reduce COVID deaths, according to a report from The New York Times.

The impact of the Feb. 14 order is unclear, as no states require K-12 students to get the COVID vaccine.

The advocacy group No College Mandates noted that only 15 colleges still required students to be vaccinated as of late last year.

But Trump's order aligns with a larger anti-vaccine sentiment:

• 21 states have already banned COVID vaccine mandates for students.

• Some Republican lawmakers are pushing for broader bans, including a Montana proposal to block mRNA vaccines and an Idaho ban on local health departments offering any COVID vaccines.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) maintains that COVID vaccines are safe for children -- and while young people are less likely to suffer severe illness, the virus has still harmed many kids.

Research shows that vaccine rules in schools helped more students get vaccinated and may have slowed the spread of COVID.

But some studies have also found that these rules made some people less trusting of public health guidelines, turning the issue into a political debate instead.

Trump’s latest executive order represents a shift from his first term, when his administration led the rapid development of COVID vaccines.

Those early vaccine rollouts saved an estimated 140,000 lives, The Times reported.

The new policy follows Trump's recent move to reinstate more 8,000 troops who were discharged from the military for refusing the COVID vaccine.

The order only applies to COVID vaccines, leaving state-level requirements for measles, mumps, polio, and other childhood vaccines in place.

States still allow vaccine exemptions for medical, religious or personal reasons.

It’s unclear whether the order will affect medical schools, some of which require COVID vaccinations for students.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on staying up to date with COVID vaccines.

SOURCE: The New York Times, media report, Feb. 14, 2025

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vocal vaccine skeptic and activist lawyer, was confirmed Thursday as the nation's new health secretary.

The Senate voted largely along party lines to put Kennedy at the helm of the $1.7 trillion U.S. Health and Human Services Agency.

In his new role, Kennedy will oversee 11 agencies including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) as well as Medicare and Medicaid.

Former Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, was the only Republican who voted against Kennedy, whose nomination was confirmed by a 52-48 vote.

McConnell, who had polio as a child, had also voted against President Donald Trump's picks for Pentagon chief and director of national intelligence. All Democrats opposed Kennedy.

The 71-year-old takes over Health and Human Services in the midst of a federal government shakeup led by billionaire Elon Musk.

In less than a month, it has shut off billions of taxpayer dollars in public health funding and left thousands of federal workers unsure about their jobs.

Kennedy himself has called for a staffing overhaul at the NIH, FDA and CDC, the Associated Press noted.

Last year, he vowed to fire 600 workers at the NIH, which is the nation's largest funder of biomedical research.

His confirmation came less than two weeks after the Republican-controlled Senate Finance Committee advanced his nomination on a 14-13 vote.

All of the Democrats on the committee had opposed sending his bid to the Senate floor. They cited Kennedy's work to sow doubt around vaccine safety and his potential profit from pharmaceutical industry lawsuits.

His family name had been synonymous with the Democratic party for generations until he aligned with Trump during the 2024 presidential campaign.

His nomination moved forward Feb. 4 after Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, a doctor who had questioned his bid, said Kennedy had assured him he would not topple the nation's childhood vaccination program.

"Your past, undermining confidence in vaccines with unfounded or misleading arguments concerns me," Cassidy told Kennedy during his confirmation hearings.

Cassidy said later in a speech on the Senate floor that, in return for his support, Kennedy had promised not to change existing vaccination recommendations from a federal advisory committee.

Cassidy also said Kennedy had agreed not to remove statements from the CDC website, which clarify that vaccines do not cause autism.

During his confirmation hearing, Democrats raised alarms about his potential to benefit financially from changing vaccine guidelines or weakening federal lawsuit protections against vaccine makers.

After initially saying he would continue to accept referral fees in legal cases that do not involve the federal government, Kennedy said during the confirmation process that he would not collect fees from litigation against drugmakers of a cervical cancer vaccine.

SOURCE: The Associated Press, Jan. 31, Feb. 4, Feb. 13, 2025

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When it comes to the potential of H5N1 avian flu, otherwise known as bird flu, picking up mutations that might lead to human-to-human spread, that "train has already left the station," warns one infectious disease expert.

If and when bird flu -- already widespread in cattle, cats and other mammals -- gains the ability to transmit between people, the best Americans can hope for is to "control the speed of the train" with vaccines, masks and treatment, said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong. He's a professor of medicine at the University of San Francisco.

Speaking with HealthDay, Chin-Hong stressed that both rapid surveillance and reporting on any new cases of H5N1 that arise are crucial. So the recent silencing of communications from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) by the Trump administration is worrisome.

"It's not that people won't get the information eventually if it's serious, it's the rapidity of information that I'm worried about," Chin-Hong said.

He compared the recent CDC gag order to a dysfunctional smoke alarm.

"You hope the fire isn't going to come, but if it comes, there will be a delay before you feel it," Chin-Hong said. "Time means lives when we're talking about infectious diseases that really don't know any borders."

As the UCSF expert explained, the current strain of bird flu has been circulating through avian species for about 30 years. It has only occasionally infected people -- usually those who've had extended close contact with birds, such as poultry farm workers.

However, viruses are built to mutate and find new hosts.

That's what's been happening with alarming rapidity in recent years, with more cases of mammals -- such as seals, cattle, cats, dogs and pigs -- coming down with bird flu.

Just one mutation

Over the past year, especially, there's been an uptick of cases among American people, including the recent death of an already frail patient in Louisiana.

In most human cases, H5N1 was thought to have been contracted from close contact with an infected animal.

Unfortunately, human-to-human transmission may only require a few new genetic tweaks by the virus, Chin-Hong warned.

"I think the length of the road before [we see] a mutation that allows easier entry into our lungs is much shorter than people think," he said.

One recent study "looked at the amount of mutations needed before that can occur, and it was very, very short, just one mutation," Chin-Hong noted. "[That] doesn't mean that this mutation will be picked up, but what it means to me is that it's not that far away."

He explained that H5N1 can also interact with "regular" seasonal flu viruses.

"We have a lot of influenza going around and influenza is engineered to really swap genes with each other and they can pick up tricks," Chin-Hong told HealthDay. "And some of those tricks include getting the combination to enter our bodies, which it is not so great at doing right now."

In the relatively few U.S. cases of human bird flu so far recorded, symptoms have typically been mild -- congestion, pink eye and other transitory effects. But if H5N1 mutated so that it could pass easily between people, "all of this may change," Chin-Hong said.

"You might get 'inside' disease, and that includes shortness of breath and you may have other organ involvement," he said.

Vaccines, masks, treatments

Chin-Hong stressed that societies are in a better position to fight mutated H1N1 than they were with COVID-19.

"We're in a very different place from the early days of COVID because we have a test, we have vaccines," he said.

The United States currently has a stockpile of 4.5 million H5N1 vaccines, based on older mutations.

"I think that the stockpiled vaccines would mitigate the effects probably by preventing serious disease, hospitalization and death," Chin-Hong said.

But 4.5 million vaccines would run out very quickly, especially when two doses might be needed to protect each recipient.

"It's a good start and it will be a good way to protect probably frontline workers in the event that we need to," Chin-Hong said, but production of any vaccine would need to be scaled up enormously in a potentially short period of time.

Other forms of prevention would be key, too, such as handwashing and widespread use of N95 masks, he said.

A handful of influenza treatments appear to be somewhat effective against H5N1, including oseltamivir (Tamiflu). "We may also need to stockpile more Tamiflu," Chin-Hong said.

A hobbled CDC and FDA

Key to all of this will be a coordinated effort by key government players, however.

Central to that effort is the CDC, which at the present moment seems hamstrung, Chin-Hong said.

"The CDC is generally the conductor of the orchestra" when it comes to safeguarding public health, he said. "And right now, different parts of the orchestra are playing their own music. And, you know, I think that's that's what we suffered from in the early days of COVID, too."

The potential appointment of anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services (which oversees both the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration) also has Chin-Hong "worried."

"I'm concerned about, you know, any barriers at the FDA level" when it comes to areas such as vaccine research and distribution, he said.

"I know that humans are resourceful and will come up with the science, but the devil is always in the details, and implementing the science is often even more important than the science itself," Chin-Hong concluded.

More information

Find out more about H5N1 avian flu at the World Health Organization.

SOURCE: HealthDay interview, Peter Chin-Hong, MD, professor of medicine, University of California San Francisco

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Neoantigen-targeting personalized cancer vaccines (PCVs) are highly immunogenic in high-risk clear cell renal cell carcinoma (RCC) and can target key driver mutations and induce antitumor immunity, according to a study published online Feb. 5 in Nature.

David A. Braun, M.D., Ph.D., from the Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, and colleagues conducted a phase 1 trial to examine a neoantigen-targeting PCV in nine patients with high-risk, fully resected clear cell RCC (stage III or IV), with or without ipilimumab administered adjacent to the vaccine.

The researchers found that none of the participants had a recurrence of RCC at a median follow-up of 40.2 months after surgery; there were no dose-limiting toxicities reported. T-cell immune responses against the PCV antigens were generated by all patients, including to RCC driver mutations in VHL, PBRM1, BAP1, KDM5C, and PIK3CA. There was a durable expansion of peripheral T-cell clones observed following vaccination. In seven of nine patients, T-cell reactivity against autologous tumors was detected.

"The idea behind this trial was to specifically steer the immune system toward a target that is unique to the tumor," Braun said in a statement. "For patients with high-risk clear cell RCC, we want to improve postsurgery treatment options that reduce the risk of the cancer coming back."

Several authors disclosed ties to the biopharmaceutical industry.

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced a plethora of tough questions on vaccines, abortion and public health policy during his Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday as President Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Lawmakers pressed Kennedy, a longtime vaccine critic and former Democrat-turned-independent, on his qualifications to oversee HHS, a $1.7 trillion agency that would put him in charge of Medicare, Medicaid, funding for medical research, public health outreach and much more.

While he's expected to win Republican support, his responses left many unconvinced about his ability to run the nation's largest health agency.

Here are some top takeaways from the hearing, from national and international news agencies:

Vaccine stance sparks a heated debate

Kennedy’s long history of vaccine skepticism was a major focus. Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat of Oregon, set the tone for his party with a deeply critical opening statement.

“Mr. Kennedy has embraced conspiracy theories, quacks, charlatans, especially when it comes to the safety and efficacy of vaccines,” Wyden said, as reported by USA Today.

Kennedy repeatedly claimed he was not anti-vaccine but "pro-safety."

Unsurprisingly, he was pressed about his past claims that COVID was made to target white and Black people while sparing Chinese people and Ashkenazi Jews and that Lyme disease was “highly likely” to have been a bioweapon.

“I probably did say that,” Kennedy said about Lyme disease, as reported by The New York Times. As for the COVID-19 claim, Kennedy stated that he had not said the virus was “deliberately targeted.”

Kennedy also said he supports the current childhood vaccination schedule and that he is not a conspiracy theorist.

"That's a pejorative that's applied to me to keep me from asking difficult questions about powerful interests," he told senators, as reported by BBC.

Medicare and Medicaid

Kennedy struggled to explain how he would manage Medicare and Medicaid, two major programs overseen by HHS.

Wyden argued that “from abortion to universal health care, Kennedy has changed his views so often it’s nearly impossible to know where he stands,” according to AP News.

Under questioning by Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican who chairs the Senate Health Committee, Kennedy said he would like to integrate the two programs, The New York Times reported. Cassidy asked him how he would do it.

“I do not know the answer to that,” Kennedy said. “I look forward to, uh, exploring options with you.” He also said of Medicaid: “The premiums are too high, the deductibles are too high, and everybody’s getting sicker.” But except in very rare cases, Medicaid enrollees do not pay either premiums or deductibles.

Abortion stance leaves Democrats skeptical

Kennedy’s stance on abortion has shifted in recent years, aligning him more closely with Trump's.

He sidestepped questions about whether he would support attempts to restrict the abortion pill mifepristone, a goal of abortion opponents.

That led to a sharp response from Sen. Maggie Hassan, a New Hampshire Democrat. She noted that when Kennedy visited her state as a presidential candidate in 2023, he described himself as “pro-choice.” At that time, he also said the government did not have “any business telling people what they can or cannot do with their body,” Hassan recalled.

“When was it that you decided to sell out the values you’ve had your whole life in order to be given power by President Trump?” Hassan asked.

Kennedy sidestepped the question, The New York Times reported. “I agree with President Trump that every abortion is a tragedy," he said, in contrast to his past support for abortion access and reproductive rights.

Food policy and chronic disease prevention

On another note, there was some common ground when Kennedy outlined his plan to implement a nutrition-oriented disease prevention plan, CNN reported.

He received loud applause when he promised he would "make America healthy again."

"We will reverse the chronic disease epidemic and put the nation back on the road to health," Kennedy said, according to the BBC.

However, he reassured the public he wasn’t banning fast food.

"If you like a McDonald's cheeseburger or a Diet Coke - which my boss loves - you should be able to get them," he said, referring to Trump's well-known admiration for the fast-food giant.

More information

Learn more about the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.

SOURCE: The New York Times, media report, Jan. 29, 2025; USA Today; media report, Jan. 29, 2025; Associated Press, media report, Jan. 29, 2025; BBC, media report, Jan. 29, 2025; CNN, media report, Jan. 29, 2025

Copyright © 2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Parental sociodemographic characteristics and COVID-19 vaccination status are associated with measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccination rates in the United States, according to a study published online Jan. 16 in the American Journal of Public Health.

Eric Geng Zhou, Ph.D., from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, and colleagues conducted a cross-sectional study from July 2023 to April 2024 using a digital health survey to examine the association between parental characteristics and MMR vaccination status of children in the United States. Responses of 19,892 parents of children aged younger than 5 years were analyzed.

The researchers found that MMR vaccination rates were higher for children of parents who received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine versus children of unvaccinated parents (80.8 versus 60.9 percent). MMR vaccination rates were lower for children of parents who identified as Republican versus Democrat, for those with Medicaid or Medicare versus private insurance, and for racial/ethnic minority versus White parents. In the Northeast and Midwest United States, MMR vaccination rates were higher.

"Our research highlights the link between parental characteristics and MMR vaccine uptake, showing how pandemic-related hesitancy may affect other routine vaccines," Zhou said in a statement. "Addressing these disparities, through equitable access and fostering trust and transparency in vaccine safety, is key to protecting children from preventable diseases like measles."

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The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is awarding the pharmaceutical company Moderna $590 million to continue developing a vaccine to protect against bird flu.

This funding, announced Friday by Moderna, builds on the $176 million it received from HHS last year to support earlier stages of vaccine research.

Moderna’s vaccine is designed to target H5 and H7 avian influenza viruses.

The company plans to move into phase 3 clinical trials to test the vaccine in a larger group of people after receiving positive results in earlier phases. It said those findings will be shared at an upcoming scientific conference.

“Avian flu variants have proven to be particularly unpredictable and dangerous to humans in the past," outgoing HHS secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement, who added that the response had been a top priority for HHS and the Biden administration.

“Accelerating the development of new vaccines will allow us to stay ahead and ensure that Americans have the tools they need to stay safe,” he continued.

Avian influenza, commonly known as bird flu, refers to several types of influenza that typically infect birds. But certain variants, such as H5N1, have raised alarm among health officials because they can occasionally infect humans.

Over the past several months, dozens of people in the U.S. have been sickened by the virus, including the first reported human death from bird flu in Louisiana earlier this month.

While the U.S. already has vaccines against H5 viruses in its Strategic National Stockpile, they are based on older technology. Moderna’s new mRNA-based vaccine aims to offer a more effective option.

"The project will provide additional support for late-stage development and licensure of pre-pandemic mRNA-based vaccines," Moderna said in a news release. "The agreement will also support the expansion of clinical studies for up to five additional subtypes of pandemic influenza."

Under the Biden administration, HHS also pledged more than $300 million to improve bird flu surveillance, testing, hospital preparedness, and public awareness.

While most recent cases of H5N1 have involved animal-to-animal transmission, federal health officials emphasize the importance of staying vigilant and working together to protect human and animal health.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers the current risk of bird flu to the public to be low, as there is still no evidence of human-to-human transmission. But experts warn that it is important to keep investing in monitoring and vaccine development to stay ahead of possible threats.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has more on the current bird flu situation.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, news release, Jan. 17, 2025; Moderna, news release, Jan. 17, 2025; CNN

Copyright © 2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Antimicrobials, vaccines, and anti-inflammatories are associated with a reduced risk for Alzheimer disease and dementia, while antipsychotics and drugs for diabetes are associated with an increased risk, according to a review published online Jan. 21 in Alzheimer's & Dementia: Translational Research & Clinical Interventions.

Benjamin R. Underwood, Ph.D., from the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, and colleagues conducted a systematic review to examine the association between a range of prescribed medications and dementia risk. Fourteen studies with administrative or medical records data from more than 130 million individuals and 1 million dementia cases were included.

The researchers found that some themes emerged for drug classes with biological plausibility, despite inconsistencies in identifying specific drugs that may modify Alzheimer disease or dementia risk. Reduced risk was seen in association with antimicrobials, vaccinations, and anti-inflammatories, while an increased risk was seen in association with diabetes drugs, vitamins and supplements, and antipsychotics. Evidence for antihypertensives and antidepressants was found to be conflicting.

"Though the results are not immediately clear-cut for individual drugs, some expected and some unexpected patterns have emerged," the authors write. "Understanding whether drugs in current use could be repurposed for use in dementia is an urgent priority and will become more important with the emergence of platform trials in the field."

One author disclosed ties to Lilly and TauRx.

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The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)-approved immunization schedules for children and adolescents and for adults for 2025 have been published in the Jan. 16 issue of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Anindita N. Issa, M.D., from the CDC in Atlanta, and colleagues issued the ACIP-approved "Recommended Immunization Schedule for Children and Adolescents Ages 18 Years or Younger, United States, 2025," which provides a summary of current recommendations for vaccinating children and adolescents. The authors note that changes in the 2025 immunization schedule compared with the 2024 schedule include new and updated recommendations for the COVID-19 vaccine, Haemophilus influenzae type b vaccines, influenza vaccines, and meningococcal serogroup B vaccines. Recommended influenza vaccines have been changed from the quadrivalent to the trivalent formulation.

A. Patricia Wodi, M.D., also from the CDC, and colleagues issued the ACIP-approved "Recommended Immunization Schedule for Adults Ages 19 Years or Older, United States, 2025," which provides a summary of current recommendations for adult vaccinations. The authors note that vaccine-specific changes to the 2025 schedule compared with the 2024 schedule include new and updated recommendations for the COVID-19 vaccine, influenza vaccines, meningococcal serogroup B vaccines, pneumococcal conjugate vaccines, and respiratory syncytial virus vaccines. Recommended influenza vaccines have been changed from the quadrivalent to the trivalent formulation.

"For vaccines that appear in both the adult immunization schedule and the child and adolescent immunization schedule, the language in both schedules has been harmonized to the greatest extent possible," Wodi and colleagues write.

One author from both studies disclosed ties to the publishing industry.

ACIP Schedule for Children and Adolescents

ACIP Schedule for Adults

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration now requires and has approved safety labeling changes to the prescribing information for the Abrysvo (Pfizer) and Arexvy (GlaxoSmithKline) respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccines to include warnings and precautions about the risk for Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS).

For each vaccine, postmarketing observational studies suggest an increased risk of GBS during the 42 days following vaccination.

Arexvy has been approved for the prevention of lower respiratory tract disease caused by RSV in all individuals 60 years of age and older and for those aged 50 to 59 years at increased risk. Abrysvo has been approved for the prevention of lower respiratory tract disease caused by RSV in all individuals 60 years of age and older, as well as individuals aged 18 to 59 years at increased risk. Abrysvo is also approved for pregnant individuals at 32 through 36 weeks of gestational age for the prevention of lower respiratory tract disease caused by RSV in infants from birth through 6 months of age.

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For immunocompromised individuals, antibody response to respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccines is heterogeneous and about 40 percent do not seroconvert, according to a research letter published online Dec. 30 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Andrew H. Karaba, M.D., Ph.D., from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, and colleagues measured antibody response to RSV vaccinations in immunocompromised individuals in a prospective, national cohort study. Persons with self-reported immunocompromising conditions were enrolled. Those reporting plans to receive adjuvanted RSV prefusion F (preF)3-AS01E­ or nonadjuvanted RSVpreF were asked to provide blood samples prevaccine and at two, four, and 12 weeks after vaccination. The primary outcome was fold rise in antibody titers from baseline to four weeks; seroconversion was defined as a fourfold or greater rise in preF immunoglobulin G (IgG) at four weeks.

Overall, 139 participants reported RSV vaccination during the study period, and of these, 38 submitted paired baseline and four-week postvaccination samples. The researchers found that the median preF IgG increased from 87,292 AU/mL at baseline to 626,280; 439,086; and 464,170 AU/mL at two, four, and 12 weeks postvaccination, respectively. The median four-week preF IgG fold rise was 4.21; 23 of the participants (61 percent) achieved seroconversion.

"In contrast to universal seroconversion and preF IgG fold rises greater than 10 in immunocompetent persons, approximately 40 percent of immunocompromised participants did not seroconvert or achieve a conservative neutralization threshold postvaccination," the authors write.

Several authors disclosed ties to the pharmaceutical industry.

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 Vaccines to protect against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in newborns and older adults are being more widely accepted by the American public, while confidence in other vaccines remains unchanged, according to the results of a new Annenberg Public Policy Center survey.

The survey, led by Kathleen Hall Jamieson and other researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, included a nationally representative sample of 1,771 U.S. adults and was conducted from Nov. 14 to 24, 2024.

More than half of U.S. adults (52 percent) think the vaccine given to pregnant individuals to protect infants from RSV is effective, up from 42 percent in October 2023, while 61 percent say the RSV vaccine is effective for adults aged 60 years and older, up from 54 percent in October 2023. In contrast, 86 percent of respondents say the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine is safe, up from 81 percent in October 2023 and similar to August 2022 (88 percent), and 83 percent say the flu vaccine is safe, unchanged from October 2023. Less than two-thirds of respondents (65 percent) say the COVID-19 vaccine is safe, unchanged from 2023. Respondents view the seasonal flu shot as more effective at reducing the risk for getting a severe illness (75 percent) compared with the COVID-19 booster for reducing the risk for getting a severe case of the disease (55 percent). Despite belief in safety and effectiveness, only 51 percent of respondents either received the seasonal flu shot (40 percent) or say they are very likely to receive it (11 percent) or the COVID-19 booster (38 percent received it and 9 percent are very likely to).

"Despite continuing attacks on the safety and efficacy of certain vaccines by some politicians, nine in 10 respondents say it is important for parents to get their children vaccinated," according to the authors of the report.

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Federal health officials have confirmed unsettling new details about the first United States case of severe bird flu, reported recently in a hospitalized patient in Louisiana.

Genetic samples from the patient contained mutations that could, in theory, help the virus better infect human cells.

Importantly, these mutations were observed in the later stages of infection and were not present in the virus samples taken from the backyard poultry flock that infected the patient, a media report from The New York Times shows.

This suggests that the changes occurred as the virus adapted to its human host, rather than spreading widely in nature, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in an update published Dec. 26.

Still, experts are concerned about the broader implications. “Every additional human case gives H5N1 more opportunities to adapt to people,” The Times reported.

“It has the potential to really harm a lot of people,” Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization in Canada, said.

In a positive finding, the CDC emphasized that there is no evidence the virus has spread from the Louisiana patient to others, and the mutations alone are unlikely to spread from person to person.

CDC scientists also confirmed, however, that the Louisiana virus samples are closely related to candidate vaccine strains already developed for bird flu.

Yet, Rasmussen questioned why those vaccines are not being used to protect high-risk groups, such as farmworkers, who have the greatest exposure.

Sixty-six other cases of H5N1 avian flu have been reported in people across the United States since April of this year, but have resulted in relatively mild symptoms that resolved after treatment.

However, the Louisiana case -- the first-ever reported H5N1 illness in that state -- "marks the first instance of severe illness linked to the virus in the United States," the CDC said in a previous statement.

Most of the other bird-to-human cases have occurred in workers at major poultry farms; "this is the first case of H5N1 bird flu in the U.S. that has been linked to exposure to a backyard flock," the CDC noted.

The agency also stressed that an eventual case of severe H5N1 avian flu in an American was "not unexpected."

"Avian influenza A(H5N1) virus infection has previously been associated with severe human illness in other countries during 2024 and prior years, including illness resulting in death," the CDC stated.

The case does serve as a reminder, however, that anyone with close exposures to birds needs to be careful. "This means that backyard flock owners, hunters and other bird enthusiasts should also take precautions," the agency said.

In a health alert issued Dec. 13, state officials said the case involves a resident of southwestern Louisiana.

"The individual had exposure to sick and dead birds that are suspected to have been infected with H5N1,” the virus that causes bird flu.

Of the 66 human bird flu cases reported in the United States, the majority of them have been in California and Washington, and the infections have mostly surfaced in workers who had been in close contact with infected poultry or dairy cows.

For now, there's no evidence that the bird flu is spreading from person to person, and most cases have largely been mild, with the main symptom being conjunctivitis, or pinkeye. No deaths have been reported.

Earlier this month, U.S. health officials also reported that the strain of bird flu detected in a California child is similar to the strain spreading through livestock, though the patient had no known exposure to infected animals.

While the findings were not definitive, tests "showed that the virus was very similar to viruses detected in both dairy cattle and poultry as well as to A[H5N1] viruses from previous human infections in dairy workers in California," a previous health update from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated.

“This case does not change CDC’s assessment of the immediate risk to the general public, which remains low at this time,” the agency added.

Meanwhile, California health officials also reported this month that their investigation into how the child may have been exposed to bird flu is continuing. The child received flu antivirals and has since recovered.

Richard Webby, a virologist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital who studies influenza, said it is unlikely that community spread explains the California case. Instead, other animals that could have come into contact with the virus, such as cats, dogs or rodents, might be contributing to its spread.

In the California case, no person-to-person spread of the virus has been detected and the child's family members all tested negative.

Bird flu has been spreading in poultry since 2022, and cases in dairy cows began to crop up in March. The virus was discovered in a pig for the first time earlier this year.

Bird flu infections in people -- nearly all among farmworkers -- have now been confirmed in 10 states.

California accounts for the largest share of human bird flu cases in the country, with 37 confirmed infections. Washington has recorded 11 cases, and Colorado 10, CDC data show.

Across the United States, more than 900 dairy herds in 16 states have been infected since the outbreak in dairy cows was first confirmed last spring. Avian influenza has been spreading in wild and domestic birds in the United States for several years.

“We should be very concerned at this point,” Dr. James Lawler, co-director of the University of Nebraska’s Global Center for Health Security, told the New York Times. “Nobody should be hitting the panic button yet, but we should really be devoting a lot of resources into figuring out what’s going on.”

More information

The CDC has more on bird flu.

SOURCES: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, health update, Dec. 26, 2024; U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, health update, Dec. 18, 2024; Louisiana Department of Health, news release, Dec. 13, 2024; U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, health update, Dec. 10, 2024; California Department of Public Health, news release, Nov. 19, 2024; British Columbia Ministry of Health, news release, Nov. 9, 2024; New York Times

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The incidence and prevalence of genital herpes simplex virus (HSV) type 1 and 2 infections are high worldwide, contributing to the burden of genital ulcer disease (GUD), according to a study published online Dec. 10 in Sexually Transmitted Infections.

Manale Harfouche, M.P.H., from Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar in Doha, and colleagues estimated genital infection with both HSV types and associated GUD globally in 2020 using a calibrated mathematical model. A comprehensive systematic review and meta-analyses of HSV prevalence data for all World Health Organization regions were conducted to provide input for the model.

The researchers found 25.6 million people aged 15 to 49 years had new HSV-2 infections and 519.5 million (13.3 percent) had existing (prevalent) HSV-2 infections globally in 2020. In addition, there were 16.8 and 376.2 million people (10.2 percent) aged 15 to 49 years with new genital HSV-1 infections and prevalent genital HSV-1 infections, respectively. The estimated number of people aged 15 to 49 years with at least one episode of HSV-attributable GUD in 2020 was 187.9 and 16.7 million for HSV-2 and HSV-1, respectively, totaling 204.6 million.

"There is a need for HSV prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines as a strategic approach to control transmission and to curb the disease and economic burdens of these infections," the authors write.

One author disclosed ties to GlaxoSmithKline.

Abstract/Full Text (subscription or payment may be required)

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If Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is approved to head the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, he will be free to revisit a long-debunked link between autism and childhood vaccines, President-elect Donald Trump said Sunday.

The remarks came during an exclusive interview with "Meet the Press."

“I think somebody has to find out,” Trump told moderator Kristen Welker. “If you go back 25 years ago, you had very little autism. Now you have it.”

The topic came up after Welker noted that studies have shown childhood vaccines prevent about 4 million deaths worldwide every year. Welker also noted that there's been no connection found between vaccines and autism, and increases in autism diagnoses are probably tied to greater screening and awareness of the developmental disorder.

Kennedy, a one-time independent presidential candidate who backed Trump after leaving the race, has criticized the American health care and food system for years. As the founder of the Children's Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group, Kennedy has repeatedly claimed that autism is likely linked to childhood vaccinations.

The agency that Trump has tapped Kennedy to run supports and funds both autism research and new vaccine development and research.

The now debunked link between autism and childhood vaccines was first claimed in 1998 by a British doctor who was later banned from practicing medicine. His research was found flawed and was subsequently retracted, NBC News reported.

Autism diagnoses have spiked about 1 in 150 children in 2000 to 1 in 36 today, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Instead, scientists have reported on a strong genetic link to the complex disorder, along with other factors.

“Hey, look, I’m not against vaccines,” Trump said during the Sunday interview. “The polio vaccine is the greatest thing. If somebody told me, ‘Get rid of the polio vaccine,’ they’re going to have to work real hard to convince me. I think vaccines are -- certain vaccines -- are incredible, but maybe some aren’t. And if they aren’t, we have to find out. But when you talk about autism, because it was brought up, and you look at the amount we have today versus 20 or 25 years ago, it’s pretty scary.”

Trump added that “a lot of good things” are going to come from Kennedy’s leadership.

“He’s not going to upset any system,” Trump said. “He’s not looking to reinvent the wheel totally. But when you look at the numbers, we really don’t have a very healthy country.”

More information

The CDC has more on childhood vaccines.

SOURCE: NBC News

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President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford health economist and critic of pandemic lockdowns and vaccine mandates, to lead the nation's largest medical research agency, the National Institutes of Health.

In a statement late Tuesday, Trump said Bhattacharya will work under Robert F. Kennedy Jr., potential head of the Department of Health and Human Services, "to direct the Nation's Medical Research, and to make important discoveries that will improve Health, and save lives," CBS News reported.

"Together, Jay and RFK Jr. will restore the NIH to a Gold Standard of Medical Research as they examine the underlying causes of, and solutions to, America's biggest Health challenges, including our Crisis of Chronic Illness and Disease," Trump wrote.

Bhattacharya was a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, a paper released in October of 2020 that claimed ongoing public lockdowns were harming Americans.

"I think the lockdowns were the single biggest public health mistake," Bhattacharya said in March of 2021. He touted the idea that herd immunity would end up protecting the bulk of people and lockdowns were only essential for those individuals at highest risk from COVID-19, according to CBS News.

But many other scientists disagreed with the Great Barrington Declaration, including Dr. Francis Collins, who was director of the NIH at the time.

Bhattacharya also opposed COVID-19 vaccine mandates, claiming that they kept unvaccinated people from working and leisure activities, while eroding trust in the public health system.

Helping Bhattacharya direct the NIH as deputy secretary would be another Trump nominee, Jim O'Neill, a former HHS official. Trump said O'Neill will "oversee all operations and improve Management, Transparency, and Accountability to, Make America Healthy Again."

The NIH has an annual budget of $48 billion and conducts its own research with a staff of thousands of scientists. It also funds competitive grants for outside research into a myriad of health issues including cancer, vaccines and infectious disease.

O'Neill would be the only health agency nominee with any prior experience working within the massive bureaucracy. His other picks -- Kennedy, Dr. Mehmet Oz for Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator and Dr. Marty Makary for Food and Drug Administration commissioner -- are all outsiders. 

SOURCE: CBS News

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President-elect Donald Trump has announced his picks for key health positions in his new cabinet.

To run the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Trump has turned to David Weldon, M.D., a long-time internist who interrupted his medical career to represent a Florida district for seven terms in the U.S. House of Representatives before returning to medical practice.

According to The New York Times, some of Weldon's opinions have been controversial, including endorsing the notion that thimerosal, a preservative used in some vaccines, is a cause of autism in children. That theory has long been discredited by science. In 2007, Weldon also sponsored a failed bill in Congress, which called for vaccine safety research to be conducted by a separate agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Trump has turned to Johns Hopkins School of Medicine pancreatic surgeon Martin Makary, M.D., to run the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. According to The Times, Makary is, on the whole, supportive of childhood vaccines, although he has voiced concern about certain shots, such as the hepatitis B vaccine for newborns and the need for a third COVID-19 booster for healthy children. He has also been a vocal critic of vaccine mandates, claiming instead that doctors underestimate the power of natural immunity in warding off disease.

Trump's pick to be the new surgeon general is Janette Nesheiwat, M.D. She is medical director of CityMD, a chain of urgent care centers, and a frequent Fox News contributor, according to The Times. She is on record as being generally supportive of COVID-19 vaccines, once telling Fox News that they were a "gift from God." But she has also voiced opposition to vaccine mandates.

Nesheiwat also sells her own line of vitamins and is the author of a forthcoming book, Beyond the Stethoscope: Miracles in Medicine, which the publisher notes discusses the "transformative power of prayer." She is also politically well connected: Her sister Julia Nesheiwat was homeland security adviser in the first Trump administration and is the wife of U.S. Rep. Michael Waltz, the Florida Republican who is Trump's pick for national security adviser.

The New York Times Article

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