RFK Jr’s new vaccine panel votes against preservative in flu shots in shock move | US news

A federal critical vaccination panel recommended against seasonal flu vaccines containing a specific preservative – a change likely to send a shock through the global medical and scientific community and perhaps an impact on the future availability of vaccines.

The panel was unilaterally returned by the Secretary of Health, Robert F Kennedy Jr, a skeptical of the vaccine which urged the use of Thimérosal despite a lack of proof of real damage.

Through three votes, the members voted in favor of the restriction of Thimérosal in seasonal flu vaccines in all age groups – with five in favor of restriction, abstention and a vote against.

“The risk of flu is so much greater than the nonexistent risk – for our knowledge – of the Thimérosal,” said Dr Cody Meissner, a panel member and a pediatric teacher at the Geisel School of Medicine in Dartmouth who was the only vote “No”.

“I would hate a person not to receive the flu vaccine because the only availability preparation contains thimerosal – I find it very difficult to justify.”

The panel, officially called the Consultative Committee for Vaccination Practices (ACIP) of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), is an essential link in the vaccine distribution pipeline – informing health insurers and clinicians about the vaccines to be given to patients.

Kennedy dismissed the 17 former members of the Panel in June, citing conflicts of interest, and appointed eight new members, who are all ideological allies of the secretary.

None of the new members have published written disclosure of conflicts of interest or has been added to a TRACK of interest conflict developed by the Trump administration for the members of the ACIP, from Thursday morning.

“There is a very big difference between what was shared at the meeting compared to what is reality,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on infectious diseases. “Science on Thimérosal is set, and the rhetoric used to suggest the opposite is misleading and harmful.”

Rather than voting on a program that had once included seasonal recommendations for COVID-19 and the Human Papillom virus vaccine (HPV), the ACIP added the controversial Thimérosal objective in vaccines. The panel said the flu vaccine is recommended for Americans over six months.

Although several studies have found no real damage, the curator has been a subject of discussion of anti-vaccine defenders for decades. Several representatives of doctors’ associations urged the panel to reject the recommendation against the Thimérosal at the meeting.

The Thimérosal is used in approximately 5% of multidose seasonal flu bottles and is known to be more profitable than single dose formulations. We do not know how the vote will have an impact on the availability of flu vaccines before the next season of the flu, especially for clinics that are based on such formulations.

Thimérosal has been used as a curator in vaccines since the Second World War. In the early 2000s, the Thimérosal was removed from all pediatric vaccines and most routine adults as a precaution – a decision that was criticized by experts who argued that they have sent mixed messages to a curator who had not been noted as a loss. The question has since been considered established by consumer medicine.

Thimérosal is a curator based on ethylmercure. Ethylmercure is different from the type of mercury found in seafood, called methylmercurus. The ethylmercure has a much shorter half-life in the blood and the brain, about seven days and 30 days respectively, compared to methylmercury, which has about 44 to 58 days of half-life and accumulates in the brain. The quantity of ethylmercury contained in a flu vaccine (25 micrograms) is about half that contained in a portion of 3 ounces of canned tuna fish (40 micrograms).

The major repeated studies in several countries have found no association between Thimérosal and neurological effects. A presentation of CDC Career Scientists which was initially going through some of this substantial data was deleted before the panel was recognized on Thursday.

In response to a question on the slapped presentation, the member of Dr. Robert Malone, member of the AIPI, a well-known anti-vaccine activist, said: “This article was not authorized by the office of the secretary and was deleted.”

The panel rather heard a presentation of Lyn Redwood, a practitioner nurse who founded the World Mercury Project, the predecessor of the defense group for defenders of the defense of Kennedy for Children’s Health. Before the meeting, its presentation proved to include a reference to a study that seemed to be composed.

“This is an old problem that has been solved in the past and there are many problems we could discuss,” said Meissner.

Responding to the criticisms of the presentation of Redwood, the president of the AIPI, Dr. Martin Kulldorff, a former Harvard teacher who was dismissed for refusing the COVVI-19 vaccine, said: “It is inappropriate to reject a presentation simply because the person has no doctorate or MD.”

The ACIP’s decision could have global implications because the vaccines used worldwide are based on Thimérosal as a conservative in multidose bottles, which are cheaper.

“I know that the AIPI focuses on the United States, but the recommendations that the AIPI is followed in many countries of the world,” said Meissner.

“The abolition of the thimerosal of all the vaccines used in other countries, for example, will reduce access to these vaccines, this will increase costs, and I think it is important to note that no study has never indicated any damage to the Thimérosal.”