Important Takeaways:
- Robert F Kennedy Jr has pulled promotional ads for vaccines and postponed a meeting of key vaccine advisors, in one of his first moves as health secretary.
- Kennedy wants the CDC to move away from nudge tactics and focus its vaccine communications on ‘informed consent’ – which involves telling the patient the medical risks and benefits and letting them come to their own decision.
- Meanwhile, the year’s first meeting of the CDC’s influential panel of vaccine experts has been delayed indefinitely, marking the first time the meeting has been postponed in over 40 years, except for during the emergency Covid pandemic.
- RFK released his blueprint for reevaluating recommended vaccines, shifting research priorities, removing legal protections for vaccine manufacturers, and modifying vaccine advertising practices years ago.
- It calls for subjecting vaccines to the same rigorous approval process as other drugs, mandating automated adverse event reporting, eliminating conflicts of interest in federal vaccine approvals, and reevaluating all vaccines recommended before evidence-based guidelines were established.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Senate on Thursday confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, sweeping aside concerns about his past vaccine skepticism to let him “go wild” on health under President Trump.
- The 52-48 vote capped a run of success for Mr. Trump’s most polarizing nominees and placed the heir of a Democratic political family in a vital job within a Republican administration.
- Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican who had polio as a child, voted no alongside all Democrats.
- HHS is a sprawling agency with a $1.7 trillion budget and oversight of food and drugs, disease-fighting efforts and major insurance programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.
- Kennedy built his career as an environmental lawyer, activist and chairman of the anti-vaccine Children’s Health Defense, making him an unusual pick after a run of HHS secretaries who included former congressmen and a pharmaceutical executive.
- He has vowed to end the cozy relationship between drug companies and U.S. officials who regulate them while he combats additives in the food supply and finds the root causes of disease.
- Based on his pledges, one of Mr. Kennedy’s first moves could be to fire legions of workers from HHS agencies or to eliminate entire offices from the Food and Drug Administration. He also proposes shifting resources away from infectious disease-fighting and toward research that promotes general health.
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Important Takeaways:
- Some staff members at the Food and Drug Administration are considering a quick exit as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is being floated as a potential health official in the incoming Trump administration, according to three former and one current government official who were granted anonymity to speak freely about sensitive issues. The former officials are still in touch with colleagues who work at the FDA.
- Staff turnover is typical when a new administration comes in, and a significant number of FDA employees similarly considered leaving before President-elect Donald Trump’s first term in office, said one former and one current official. At the time, there were also concerns about what the FDA would look like under the first Trump administration.
- This time, however, there’s an added layer of anxiety outside Trump: Kennedy.
- Trump has said he’ll let the former independent presidential candidate and vaccine skeptic “go wild on health.” Meanwhile, Kennedy is promising a shakeup at the federal health agencies, including the FDA, telling NBC News the day after the election that “in some categories, there are entire departments, like the nutrition department at the FDA that are, that have to go.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is suing the Wisconsin Elections Commission in an attempt to remove his name from the ballot in the battleground state just two months before the presidential election.
- The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in Dane County, argued independent candidates such as Kennedy are treated unfairly by the elections commission because they operate under different deadlines from party-aligned candidates when it comes to ballot access.
- Party-affiliated candidates had until 5 p.m. on Sept. 3 to certify their candidacy, according to guidance from the elections commission, while independent candidates had until 5 p.m. Aug. 6. Kennedy ended his campaign on Aug. 23.
- Wisconsin law holds that anyone who files nomination papers and qualifies to appear on the ballot — which Kennedy did — cannot decline nomination.
- The only exception to that provision is “in case of death of the person,” according to the law.
- “The only way he gets to not be on the ballot is to up and die, which I’m assuming he has no plans on doing,” WEC chairwoman Ann Jacobs, a Democrat, said last week. “The statute is absolutely clear on this.”
- Wisconsin is not the only battleground state where Kennedy appears likely to remain on the ballot. Elections officials in Michigan and North Carolina have also said Kennedy cannot withdraw from the ballots.
- There will be eight presidential candidates on Wisconsin’s ballot in November, including Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent candidate Cornel West.
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Important Takeaways:
- Independent US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is considering ending his campaign to join forces with Republican rival Donald Trump, Kennedy’s running mate said in an interview posted online on Tuesday.
- The vice presidential candidate, Nicole Shanahan, said that as independents, she and Kennedy ran the risk of drawing support from would-be Trump voters and clearing the way for Democrats Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to win the November election.
- “Or we walk away right now and join forces with Donald Trump,” she told Los Angeles media company Impact Theory. When asked about the timing of their decision, she did not say.
- “Not easy, not an easy decision,” she added.
- Earlier in the interview, Shanahan stated, “I did not put in tens of millions of dollars to be a spoiler candidate.”
- “I put in tens of millions of dollars to win, to fix this country, to do the right thing,” she said. “We don’t want to be a spoiler.”
- “We wanted to win. We wanted a fair shot,” Shanahan added.
- Trump told CNN on Tuesday he would “certainly be open” to Kennedy playing a role in his administration if the independent candidate drops out of the race and endorses him.
- “I like him, and I respect him,” Trump told the network in an interview after a campaign stop in Michigan.
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