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New CDC director also backed a new option for infant immunization against RSVHHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last month quietly endorsed recommendationsopens in a new tab or window from his handpickedopens in a new tab or window vaccine advisors that everyone in the U.S. ages 6 months and older receive a flu shot for the upcoming season. The backdated notice appeared this week on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices' (ACIP) recommendationsopens in a new tab or window page without fanfare -- a contrast to Kennedy's July announcementopens in a new tab or window endorsing the removal of thimerosal...

The U.S. Senate voted… along party lines, 51 to 47, to confirm Susan Monarez as the new director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Monarez has been serving as the acting head of the CDC since January, and previously worked as the head of the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health. At her confirmation hearing before the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pension (HELP) committee on July 9, Monarez garnered praise from the Republican chairman, Sen. Bill Cassidy, who is a physician, for her commitment to rebuilding public trust in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Democratic Sen....

The shooter opened fire outside the CDC headquarters, striking windows across the sprawling campus and killing the officer before he was found dead.The Georgia Bureau of Investigation has identified the man who opened fire at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White of Kennesaw, Georgia. The GBI statement says White died and Officer David Rose with the DeKalb County Police Department was shot and killed during the shooting Friday. The shooter opened fire outside the CDC headquarters, striking windows across the sprawling campus and killing the officer before he was found dead in a...

Agency may have been the target of shooter who blamed his illness on COVID shotsA gunman opened fire on the CDC campus in Atlanta on Friday evening, and the shooter and a police officer are dead, according to authorities. Sources inside the CDC shared images with MedPage Today showing multiple windows with bullet holes that appeared to be in different rooms, on various floors. CNN reportedopens in a new tab or window that the CDC may have been the target of the shooter. Police think the shooter believed he was sick due to the COVID vaccine, the outlet reported. During...

A mosquito-borne virus that leaves victims in crippling pain and has triggered Covid-era restrictions in China is already in the US, experts say.Chikungunya virus can cause sudden, agonizing joint pain in the hands and feet, sometimes so severe that it leaves sufferers unable to move normally for months.Southern China is currently battling its largest outbreak since at least 2008, with more than 7,000 cases recorded in Foshan, at the epicenter, and infections in 12 other major cities. Heavy rains and warm weather have fueled a surge in mosquitoes, driving the outbreak.Dr Louisa Messenger, a mosquito researcher in Nevada, told the...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's top vaccine official, Vinay Prasad, has left the agency after just three months as Director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, a government spokesperson said. Prasad, an oncologist who was a fierce critic of U.S. COVID-19 vaccine and mask mandates, had been appointed in May by FDA Commissioner Marty Makary. Together they had promised to speed regulatory action and pilot new review pathways. In recent days, criticism of Prasad's tenure has intensified around the agency's handling of a gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy from Sarepta Therapeutics (SRPT.O), opens new tab. The...

Rather than extending lifespan, daily multivitamin use is linked to a 4 percent higher risk of death, according to a large study of healthy U.S. adults conducted by the National Cancer Institute.The 2024 study challenges the common belief that multivitamins improve health and longevity, even as nearly one in three U.S. adults takes them with those hopes in mind.About the StudyLed by Dr. Erikka Loftfield, the study published in JAMA Network Open, sheds light on the effects of multivitamin (MV) use on longevity and questions the benefits of these popular supplements.Drawing data from three extensive cohort studies, the research followed...

“I wear no tin-foil hat. I’m asking for the ability to officially document what happened to me.” Three and a half years ago I contracted Guillain Barre Syndrome after getting the Jansen-J&J viral vector vaccine for COVID-19. The neurological disorder has left me hobbled by numb hands and feet, staggering around imbalanced, and battling debilitating fatigue. It has also left me, and thousands of others, feeling ignored and unheard by the government and the public health establishment. I wrote about the experience in 2021 in The Boston Globe, after the FDA attached a warning to the J&J shot, citing an...

Trump administration policy tug-of-war between big medical groups that want COVID vaccines back on CDC schedule for healthy kids and pregnant women, groups that want mandate ban extended to health sciences students. The Trump administration is getting pulled in opposite directions on its COVID-19 vaccine policy, sued by mainstream American medical associations for removing jab recommendations for healthy children and healthy pregnant women and pressured by jab opponents to further restrict the novel therapeutics, which continue to be mandated in some settings. Now public health officials are faced with new evidence the jabs accelerate the cancer with the third-most deaths...

It’s common sense: Local challenges should be confronted and solved locally whenever possible. Protecting Americans’ health is no exception. Yet few realize that the World Health Organization still exerts influence over American health care, even as the United States has taken steps to separate from it. Earlier this year, a presidential executive order initiated the process of withdrawing the U.S. from the WHO, citing concerns that the organization prioritizes politics over science and public accountability. There is no question that leaving the WHO was and still is an important step forward for American patients, but there is much more work...

World-renowned infectious-disease epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff — who was fired from Harvard Medical School last year after refusing the COVID vaccine — just got a new gig. Kulldorff has been named a member of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices. Kulldorff, who had refused the COVID vaccine because of his infection-acquired immunity, lost his appointment at a Harvard-affiliated hospital in the early days of the COVID era, and in March of 2024 was officially terminated as a med school faculty member. Since the COVID lockdowns began five years ago, Kulldorff argued that tactics such as...

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Monday that he was removing the entire membership of the influential vaccine advisory panel that makes immunization recommendations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, Kennedy said he was making the unprecedented move to retire the 17 independent vaccine experts from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices because the panel has been “plagued with persistent conflicts of interest” and has become a “rubber stamp” for vaccines. Kennedy has long criticized the panel, which makes vaccine recommendations to the CDC director....

Dr. Lakshmi Panagiotakopoulos, a pediatric infectious disease expert and top CDC official, resigned on Tuesday as co-leader of the agency’s group that oversees updates to COVID-19 jab recommendations. Reuters first reported her resignation. This is the start to a great Birthday!!🎂 CDC official overseeing COVID-19 vaccine recommendations resigns – CBS News https://t.co/bNn66H01Cg — Brian Tyson, MD 🇺🇸 (@btysonmd) June 4, 2025 Per Reuters: Panagiotakopoulos said in an email to work group colleagues that her decision to step down was based on the belief she is “no longer able to help the most vulnerable members” of the U.S. population. In her...

The suit alleges a coordinated effort to block medical care for those exposed to toxic chemicals. Also named are Vanguard, Mercy Health, and Quest Diagnostics, with the CDC accused of instructing healthcare providers not to test for dioxins or other hazardous substances. Plaintiffs claim this led to widespread misdiagnoses, delayed treatment, and that a letter was circulated telling providers to dismiss patient health concerns. ...

The lives of untold thousands have been lost or permanently diminished.It is an undeniable scandal of mammoth proportions, but one that is – surprise, surprise – still being ignored by major media. It all began in February of 2021, shortly after Joe Biden took the oath of office with the pandemic still raging. Health officials in Israel sent a dire warning to the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) detailing “large reports of myocarditis, particularly in young people” who received the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. Many doctors and vaccinated individuals witnessed the same phenomenon here in the US. The affliction strikes...

COVID is still around, and it is still deadly for a lot of Americans. The CDC says that the virus is killing multitudes in the U.S. each week, even though there are vaccines and treatments available. Experts say that a lack of vaccinations and missed treatment opportunities are two of the main reasons why these deaths keep happening. Are people still dying from COVID? Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that COVID killed an average of 350 people every week, as per a report by GMA. The CDC data indicates that although the number of...

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Tuesday that the COVID-19 vaccine was removed from the recommended immunization schedule for healthy children and pregnant women. Kennedy was flanked by FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary and National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya when he said he “couldn’t be more pleased to make the announcement.” This comes years after Kennedy founded the Children’s Health Defense, which challenges vaccination among children amid scrutiny of side effects. “Last year, the Biden administration urged healthy children to get yet another COVID shot despite the lack of any clinical data to...

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will no longer recommend the COVID-19 vaccine to minors and pregnant women, a significant departure from government policy during the pandemic. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will remove the recommendations when it enacts new policies for approving vaccinations. The exact timing of the announcement wasn’t clear, the people said, though it was expected in the coming days. The CDC currently recommends that everyone six months and older, including pregnant women, receive Covid vaccines. It wasn’t clear if the department is planning to remove...

The drug was first detected in illegally manufactured opioids in North America in 2022The animal sedative medetomidine is increasingly showing up in the U.S. illegal drug supply, according to three reports released Thursday. Medetomidineopens in a new tab or window, which is used to sedate pets and is somewhat similar to xylazineopens in a new tab or window, was first detected in illegally manufactured opioids in North America in 2022. Investigators say the drug is being mixed in with other illicit drugs, mainly fentanylopens in a new tab or window, the synthetic opioid behind most overdose deaths. On Thursday, the...

A majority of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's work group on COVID-19 vaccines now supports ending the agency's pandemic-era recommendation for virtually all Americans to get vaccinated against the virus each year, officials said Tuesday. Instead of the agency's longstanding "universal" recommendation, most of the CDC's advisers and health officials favor shifting to guidance based on people's individual risk of more severe disease. While a final decision has not yet been made, this could mean that only adults ages 65 years and older would still be recommended to get at least two doses every year, under a policy...