At the beginning of an unprecedented meeting of the US Disease Control and Prevention Centers Vaccine Committee, agencies scientists, usually generating and explaining data to inform the votes of this group, were in an unusual position: answering questions and contradictory statements that question the safety and efficiency of approved vaccines.
At the Wednesday meeting, agency experts responded to polite, but atypical requests for Covidid-19 diseases and vaccines, many focused on whether the data could have been biased or misinterpreted and whether patients were kept to the Covidid-19 hospital, could actually be mild infections.
Thursday’s Immunization Practice Advisory Committee Agenda includes two planned presentations on topics that have been skeptical for decades: one in the form of mercury, used as a preservative in vaccines and the other due to the risk of rare fever attacks after certain types of combination studies.
Non -CDC staff or members of the working groups who met for months to discuss topics, but a newly appointed committee chairman and former Children’s Health Defense Head of Antakaccin.
On Tuesday, CDC experts announced reviews of evidence marked as a background briefing material on both topics online. By Wednesday, one of the documents – about the Timerosal of Vaccines – was abolished because it had not survived “the right process to be published,” said a spokesman for the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Scientists of the agency often often collect available research before these meetings to help shorten ACIP members, and it is common for the delivery slides to be published prematurely. According to the former CDC official, the publication of the CDC scientists’ detailed briefing documents was unusual.
Officials said it was a silent sign of disaster that career researchers were feeling as the US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. seeks to redesign a process that provides information on vaccine recommendations.
“I am very curious that these documents have been published,” said a former CDC official who asked not to call it fearing revenge.
A different orientation around the vaccines
It was clear from the questions asked by members of the new committee on Wednesday that some did not trust evidence showing the safety and effectiveness of Covidid-19 vaccines.
Following last month’s HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Covidid-19 vaccine will no longer be recommended for healthy children and pregnant women, CDC showed data showing a continuous high percentage of hospitalization for children under 2 years of age.
The CDC noted that the Covid-19 hospitalization percentage for babies and young children were roughly the same as in older adults last year.
Committee member dr. Cody Saperer, a professor at the University of Dartmouth, pointed out that according to the latest CDC data, about 1.6 out of 100,000 babies were admitted to hospital for their infections per week ending on May 31.
“It’s now a very rare disease of young children and adults,” said Master.
Dr. Christopher Taylor, an expert on CDC respiratory disease, replied that although its website shows current rates for up to a week, scientists used the number of accumulations for their delivery for their presentation.
In absolutely speaking, from 2024. In July CDC data show that 268 out of 100,000 babies were hospitalized for Covid-19; For adults aged 65-74, the same speed was 266 per 100,000.
Children between the ages of 6 and 23 months have been hospitalized in the same way as adults between the ages of 50 and 64, about 100 for 100,000.
“During the cumulative number, it remains a great burden on the youngest and oldest age groups,” Taylor said.
Healthy children can still receive a Covid vaccine after consulting with a health care provider – unexpected cases known as a common clinical decision -making. Although the recommendations of pregnant women have been removed on the vaccine schedule, the pregnancy remains a condition that causes people to have a higher risk of serious illnesses against infection.
Master also asked if the CDC reported Covid-19 hospitalizations for people who have severe Covid-19 infections, or whether those patients could be in the hospital for other reasons and were positively evaluated by the Covid-19 before they were there.
“People could have been hospitalized for, for example, due to appendicitis, and they have a positive [test] The result is that we know that asymptomatic colonization is quite common with this virus, ”he said.
However, Taylor stated that while it is true that the definition of the researchers used depended on the Covidid-19-in infections approved in the laboratory, their clinical data are presented through another layer of inspection to find out if patients have symptoms of Covid-19 or medication, according to Covido infection.
Taylor added that in early pandemia, many hospitals demanded that all patients be checked for the Covid-19-19 stay, which chose infected people who initially arrived at the hospital for other reasons. Since then most hospitals have given up this practice;
Committee member dr. Rezef Levi, a professor of operations management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, asked about possible misleading in CDC investigations, which he believes could show the opposite conclusions about what the scientists have given about the effectiveness of Covid-19 vaccines. He speculated that research control groups consisting of people who had other types of respiratory infections were actually people who were violated by Covidid-19 vaccinations, which causes them to have a higher risk of those respiratory infections.
“In that case, you will think that the vaccine is protective,” said Levi, “But the alternative explanation would be that the vaccine actually makes you more vulnerable to several viruses.”
CDC epidemiologist dr. Ruth Link-Gelles said the control subjects were selected to carefully match hospitalized patients with Covid-19 as age and symptoms.
“We think here is exactly what we want to understand the relative effect of vaccination,” she said.
Senior Advisor to the US Food and Drug Administration dr. Tracy Beeth Hoeg, who attended the meeting as a member of communication, said she was also worried about the error in CDC research and would have wanted to see data from randomized investigations.
“I think I share a lot of people to see a randomized control tests to reduce this type of bias so that we do not sit here by saying,” Are we misleading this? “Hoeg said.
CDC experts say research projects have been chosen to get the economical results of the results in a timely manner, to better understand the impact of vaccination on emergency departments on visits, hospitalization and real time. The CDC works with study sites to ensure that cases and control are well compatible and reduce bias, they said.
“When it comes to the question of clinical trials, I would actually postpone it for you all the FDA,” Link-Gelles said.
“Yes, we are working on it,” said Hoeg.
Acceptance of CDC Timerosal
Anti-Vacine groups have long accused Thimerosal for causing neurodevelopmental problems such as autism in children, despite numerous studies showing that it is not related to those conditions.
Thursday’s presentation on this topic will be presented by a nurse practicing nurse Lyn Redwood, who was president of the World Mercury Project, a group that later “expanded his mission” to become a children’s health defense, where Kennedy points out its founder and former chairman. Kennedy described Redwood as one of the original Mercury Mams, which recruited him to join their fight against Thimerosal vaccines.
Redwood’s presentation emphasizes data, which she says shows that Thimerosal is not effective in preventing bacterial growth in vaccines and not safe. It then offers a recommendation that pregnant women, babies and children in the US only receive vaccines without thimerosal.
At least one of the studies listed in the Redwood slides, which originally published, was not. Those slides were later replaced by a version that had no quotes.
Before removing, the CDC briefing document pointed out that since 2001 All children’s vaccines, licensed and recommended in the US, were without thimerosal, except for some influenza vaccines drawn from a multiocese bottles that are uncommon. In the 2024-25 influenza season, 96% of US influenza vaccinations, while 98% of influenza vaccines provided during CDC vaccines for children were without thimerosal, the CDC document reported.
Peter Hottez, a pediatrician who heads the Texas Children’s Hospital Vaccine Development Center, said that although Redwood’s recommendation may seem to be compared to dental-so-so-children’s influenza vaccinations no longer thimerosal-cavity.
“I am worried that Thimerosal is not a goal, except that we eliminate our national vaccines and immunization programs,” CNN said in a letter, “Hottez said in a CNN email.”
In addition, the hottez said, some low and medium -income countries have to rely on the use of a multiocese vaccine bottles, and these compositions depend on the use of the antibacterial preservative, such as thimerosal. If the US doubts its safety, it could affect vaccination programs around the world.
According to the CDC evidence, science shows that Thimerosal does not harm the children’s brain.
“Given a lot of evidence and consistency in the results of various population studies conducted in several countries, with various research plans, evidence does not confirm the relationship between thimerosal vaccines and autism spectrum disorders or other neurodegeneication disorders,” the briefing document states.
Rare seizures after some measles shots
Another message about the agenda by dr. Martin Kulldorff, MMRV Children’s “Children under 5” was not posted on the ACIP website from Wednesday night.
The CDC briefing document explains that since 2009 The ACIP vaccine schedule recommended that measles, mumps and Ruba (MMR) vaccine and chicken pox vaccine separately for children between 1 and 2 years.
Giving the shots separately, the very low risk of fever with seizures that can occur when all the vaccine components are combined are increased. The added risk is 1 fever attack case every 2,300 to 2,600 vaccinated children. Giving vaccines separately avoids it.
The review notes that even in the event of these seizures, they resolve without lasting consequences.
“Although MMRV vaccination has been reported in rare cases of oncephalitis and death, there has been no direct relationship between these events and the vaccine with healthy immune systems with healthy immune systems,” the review states.
Kulldorff said Wednesday that the new CDC working group will review vaccines for measles, pigs, rubles and chicken pox or chicken pox. This can re -evaluate the combined vaccine recommendation for one -year children, optimal vaccine time and potential alternatives such as Japan.
CNN Meg Tirrell contributed to this report.
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