The new advisors on Vaccines of the Trump administration supported this Thursday the flu vaccination this autumn for practically all Americans, but only if certain vaccines are used that do not contain an ingredient that the anti -vacussion groups have falsely related to autism.
What is normally a routine step in the preparation for the next flu season was the subject of intense scrutiny after the Secretary of Health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., abruptly dismissed the influential advice committee on immunization practices, composed of 17 members, and carefully select their substitutes, among which are several skeptics of the vaccines.
The seven -members panel broke another rule this Thursday by debating the sEgurity of a preservative used in less than 5% of flu vaccines In the United States: Deliberate based only on a presentation of the former leader of an anti -Vacunas group, without allowing the usual public dissemination of the scientific data of the centers for disease control and prevention (CDC, in English).
The preservative, the timerosal, has been used for a long time in certain vaccines that occur in multidosis vials, to avoid contamination when extracting each dose. However, it has been the subject of controversy because it contains a small amount of a particular form of mercury.
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Several studies have not found any proof that thimerosal causes autism or other damage. However, since 2001, all vaccines that are commonly used in American children 6 years or less are presented in formulas without thimerous, including unique dose anti -plan vaccines, which represent the vast majority of flu vaccines.
The Advisory Committee voted in the first place, with an abstention, in favor of supporting the usual recommendation in the United States that almost all people 6 months or more are vaccinated annually against the flu. Next, the advisors decided that only unique dose formulations should be administered without timerosal, with a vote of 5 to 1 and one abstention.
This would include single dose vaccines, which are already The most common type of flu vaccineas well as the Nasal Flumist spray. Vaccines against flu dispensed in multidosis vials would be excluded.
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“There is still no demonstrable evidence to be harmful,” said one of the members of the panel, Dr. Joseph Hibbeln, a psychiatrist who previously worked in the National Health Institutes, recognizing that the Committee was not following its usual practice of acting based on the tests.
However, he added that “regardless of whether the molecule itself is a risk or not, we must respect the fear of mercury”, which could deter some people from vaccinating.
The ACIP helps CDC determine who should be vaccinated against a long list of diseases and when. These recommendations have a great impact on vaccine coverage by insurance and availability.
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Normally, the director of the CDC would decide whether he accepts the recommendation of the ACIP, but the Senate has not yet confirmed to the candidate Susan Monarez. Administration officials said Kennedy would make that decision.
The medical groups condemned the lack of transparency of the panel by blocking an analysis of the CDCs on the thimerosal that concluded that there was no relationship between the preservative and neurological development disorders, including autism. The data had been published on the Internet page of the Committee on Tuesday, but were subsequently eliminated because, according to Dr. Robert Malone, a member of the ACIP, the report had not been authorized by the Kennedy office. Panel members said they had read it.
Although this Thursday’s debate was only focused on a small part of flu vaccines, some public health experts argue that The discussion raised unnecessary doubts about vaccine safetys. Already less than half of the Americans are vaccinated annually against flu, and distrust of vaccines in general is increasing.
“The selective use of the data and the omission of contrasted scientific data undermines the public’s confidence and feeds the misinformation,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary, of the American Pediatrics Academy. On the new members of the panel, he said: “Inguna of his recent actions has been based on science or has been transparent.”
The vote on the flu marked the end of a two -day meeting that alarmed pediatricians and other groups of doctors, who pointed out the lack of experience of the new panel members in the proper monitoring of vaccines’ safety, as well as a change of approach to some messages that have been defending the groups against vaccines for some time.
“What should have been a rigorous debate and based on tests on the national vaccination calendar seemed rather a predetermined orchestrated exercise to undermine the well -established safety and efficacy of vaccines and the basic foundations of science,” said Dr. Jason Goldman, of the American Medical College.
Especially worrying was the announcement of the president of the panel, Martin Kulldoff, to reassess the “cumulative effect” of the child vaccination calendar, that is, the list of vaccines that are administered at different times throughout childhood. This reflects the idea, scientifically denied, that today’s children receive too many vaccines, which somehow overloads their immune system.
Doctors claim that the improvement of vaccine technology makes Children are now exposed to less antigens – substances to which the immune system reacts – than its grandparents, despite receiving more doses.
The American representative Kim Schrier, a pediatrician and Democrat for the state of Washington, told journalists on Thursday that children are exposed to more antigens “on a day of nursery” than in all their vaccines.
These were other issues addressed at the ACIP meeting:
- The panel supported a new option to protect babies against the VSR, an especially dangerous virus for them. He voted for 5 to 2 in favor that an antibody vaccine can be used recently approved by Merck together with the two existing options.
- Kuldff said that The panel could study whether hepatitis B vaccination Of the newborns it is adequate if the mother is not a carrier of the virus that destroys the liver. Pediatricians claim that babies can contract the virus by other roads, such as through other caregivers who do not know they are infected.
- Kennedy has already put aside the advisory group and announced that the COVID-19 vaccine will no longer be recommended for healthy children or pregnant women. However, CDC scientists told the panel that vaccination is “the best protection” during pregnancy and that most children hospitalized by COVID-19 during the last year were not vaccinated. Some advisors questioned the reliability of the exhaustive monitoring of vaccine safety by CDC.
