Kennedy’s HHS is happy to make diseases available to anyone who wants them for their children.

From Maggie Astor on Blusky, screenshot from HHS: “Copy Editing Matters, from HHS's release on the new childhood vaccine schedule: All the diseases will still be available to anyone who wants them.”

https://lnkd.in/gGz7GEjG

Why this clinical trial is extremely concerning : Graham Walker, MD should be commended for reviewing all that is wrong with the Guinea-Bissau HepB vaccine trial… And there so many reasons for such… Too many to see such trial move forward…

One minute you’re doing the downward dog, the next you’re listening to conspiracy theories about Covid or the new world order. How did the desire to look after yourself become so toxic?

Children in the US are actually dying of flu. Like actually dying. And yet, HHS has just said that influenza vaccines are no longer routinely recommended for children. Square that circle.

https://lnkd.in/epNbNeZf

Another case of misleading information from Physicians for Informed Consent. As pointed out by @jacques lefebvre in a very elegant manner, this post is misleading and might miss adquate content to make informed consent.
Your timeline/history point is fine, but the “does not prevent transmission” line needs tighter wording.
- Diphtheria toxoid vaccines primarily protect against the toxin-mediated disease (which is what kills/maims). They do not reliably prevent infection or carriage, so asymptomatic carriage can still occur.
https://lnkd.in/eb8vxr_d
- But “doesn’t prevent transmission” is often interpreted as “no effect on spread”, and that’s not accurate: multiple analyses estimate that completing a primary series reduces transmission (e.g., modelling/outbreak estimates about 60% reduction).
https://lnkd.in/evNSVeB7
- Public health control is therefore vaccine + case management (isolation/antibiotics) because carriage can persist even in immunized people.

If the goal is informed consent, the most honest phrasing is: “excellent protection against severe diphtheria, imperfect at preventing carriage; likely reduces transmission but doesn’t eliminate it.”

Starting off 2026 with MAJOR changes to the childhood vaccine schedule.

Today, HHS announced they're overhauling childhood vaccine recommendations to align with peer countries.

What's changing:
→ HPV reduced from 2 doses to 1
→ Hepatitis A, RSV, and meningococcal ACWY moved to "high-risk groups only"
→ Rotavirus, flu, and hepatitis A moved to "shared clinical decision-making"

What's staying the same:
Measles, mumps, rubella, polio, pertussis, tetanus, diphtheria, Hib, pneumococcal, and varicella remain recommended for all children. Other vaccines that are recommended for high-risk groups remain optional for others with shared clinical decision-making (meningococcal B, hepatitis B).
And COVID-19 vaccines remain available through shared clinical decision-making only.

Why we're concerned:
Fewer kids will get vaccinated. More kids will end up in hospitals with preventable diseases. These vaccines prevent liver cancer, severe dehydration, meningitis, and death—and the science supporting them hasn't changed. The politics has. This decision bypassed ACIP and was delayed due to legal concerns. Children will pay the price.

For parents: The AAP's recommended schedule remains unchanged. Per AHIP, vaccines should still be covered by private insurers until the end of 2026. Your pediatrician can still recommend and administer these vaccines. Don't skip vaccines based on this announcement.

cc: Edward Nirenberg Elisabeth Marnik Marisa Donnelly, PhD Katelyn Jetelina David Higgins, MD, MPH Jessica Steier, DrPH, PMP

You might have read from individuals like McCullough Foundation and Dr Philip McMillan claims that COVID vaccines would potentially increase cancer risk and incidence. The data from which these claims originated was critically analyzed in this attached review. This critical review looks at all that is bad from the Korean study these individuals are basing their narrative on. And there is plenty. We are looking at temporal biases, at imcomplete data along with so many confounding factors, at overdiagnosis and screening biases. But the greatest issue here is that we should never look at any association as a potential case of causality without such being fully demonstrated. Especially that the biological plausality of such COVID vaccines inducing cancers is not only extremely unlikely, it is non existent. If any data exists on COVID vaccines and cancers, it is that the first would potentialize the efficacy of immunotherapies and providing more positive outcomes by positively stimulating the immune system and leading to better response.


https://lnkd.in/eKD79D_M

!New publication alert! In this paper, using #Ultraorthodox #Jews as an example we look at how groups that seem homogenous (and treated as homogenous by public health authorities) are actually very diverse when it comes to #childhood #vaccination #attitudes and #behaviour. Why is it important? Because based on the assumption of homogeneity, #publichealth services may develop interventions that are not suitable or ineffective- here we show that differences between groups within the Ultra-Orthodox umbrella can be larger than between Ultra-Orthodox and the rest of the population! The results call for an in depth understanding of the population #public #health authorities work with, beyond broad-brush categories and labels. Congrats to our PhD student Avraham Jacobson (co-supervised with Sivan Spitzer) for leading this work!

Ben Kasstan-Dabush Tracey Chantler Aviva Sapir Avital Regev-Kessar

https://lnkd.in/eHRwy3-s

Alex Jones is a radio host and media personality known for the Alex Jones Show and InfoWars.com, both known for spreading conspiracy theories and fake news, including about genetically modified food and modern agriculture.

If you are reading this, you can 👏 clap yourself on the back for engaging on a platform where exposure to misinformation appears to be limited and where sharing misinformation does not seem to reap the same benefits as on other platforms.

This is according to the latest study from Science Feedback looking at four EU countries (France, Spain, Poland, Slovakia), and which poses interesting questions about how platforms can design systems that do not reward the sharing of misleading content.

Personally, I wonder if the professional nature of the platform, along with accurate headshots and links to employers, as well as the more thought out posts in comparison to "hot takes" mean that people are more conscious about what they post and engage with. For me, it definitely seems conducive to a better environment for my own mental health. Instagram - my other platform of choice - also seems to be comparatively more favorable to high-credibility actors in this dataset. Nevertheless, I still try to be critical of what I see and read online and particularly stay conscious of how it makes me feel. Digital literacy is something I hold dear, especially with teenagers at home who actively consume social media content across different platforms and who can so easily be influenced.

For more details of this study, I've posted the link below 👇
https://lnkd.in/emJAr48F

Happy New Year. I hope you are ready and set to improve health literacy.

A bit more detail on the ways that RFK's changes to the childhood vaccine schedule will impact our kids. We also wrote a briefing over at the Evidence Collective that you can find here:
https://lnkd.in/ei5rNdvp

Covid flu RSV. Happily killing for the holidays

🚨 USA : Le Pr Wafik El-Deiry, oncologue de renom, appelle à une réévaluation rigoureuse des vaccins ARNm COVID en raison de contaminants, biodistribution inattendue et risques cancérigènes potentiels. Études à l'appui !
https://lnkd.in/ehgTypak

If science requires honesty, before assessing the science, one should assess the honesty of the source. Not sure that Shankara Chetty would qualify as a credible source...
As a reminder:¨The disciplinary hearing against “anti-vax” doctor Shankara Chetty got underway in Durban this week (in the past, 2024...) , after changes to the charge sheet were made. The charges are based on allegations by Francois Venter, a medical professor at Wits University who was at the forefront of Covid research in South Africa. He said Chetty was practicing “pseudo-science” at the height of the pandemic, with Chetty claiming that vaccines made no sense.
Chetty’s argument, in the main, focusses on his right to freedom of expression and claims that expressing a view is not a violation of the ethical guidelines of the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA).
His lawyers argued that the charges should have been dropped. Instead, the disciplinary committee ordered that they be amended.
The revised charge sheet contains four charges of unprofessional conduct.
They include that he contravened norms and standards by using unproven and unrecommended health technologies, namely Chetty’s “8th day” protocol, and that he failed to act in the best interests of patients by prescribing ivermectin, corticosteroids, and hydroxychloroquine for Covid, which were not approved by the South African Health Products Regulatory Council for this purpose.
He is also charged with casting aspersions on expert health care professionals who were authorised to provide advice and develop protocols, by stating that they engineered protocols in hospitals to “cause death and damage” to Covid patients.
The final, and fourth charge, is based on allegations that he “mischaracterised the cause and identification of the Covid illness, spike proteins and the toxicity of the virus”, which was not in line with the tenets of science.
In his complaint to the HPCSA, Venter said Chetty had made unprecedented claims in a video regarding the toxicity of Covid vaccines and that they were a “deliberate mass poisoning and planned to kill billions”.

https://lnkd.in/ezDBhZaU

It is surprising and alarming that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cut 6 pathogens from updated recommendations for childhood vaccines (https://lnkd.in/g_vQBdSW). I view this as a major mistake. Here, I’ll focus on one of them, Rotavirus, and why it is an important part of healthy infancy and childhood.
 
The oral vaccine for rotavirus is safe and very effective. In the United States, it reduces the risk of severe diarrhea and/or vomiting in children by about 85%, has reduced rotavirus associated hospitalizations by about 80%, and saves about $200 million dollars in direct healthcare costs each year. All of this evidence is from the CDC’s own page on rotavirus (https://lnkd.in/gHVJTCax.)
 
In my previous role, I studied the global epidemiology of rotavirus. Outside of the US, rotavirus is the leading cause of diarrhea mortality in children under-5, responsible for about 125,000 deaths (https://lnkd.in/gA7msu9B). In fact, it is one of the deadliest pathogens, trailing only malaria and Streptococcus pneumoniae. Nearly all of those deaths could be prevented with rotavirus vaccine, shown below from a publication I coauthored here (https://lnkd.in/g23NunrF).
 
The rotavirus vaccine should be considered fundamental to a healthy world. Children everywhere, including those in the US, benefit from the rotavirus vaccine. Removing it from US recommendations for immunizations is a giant step backwards. | 26 comments on LinkedIn

How do we move from sharing facts to telling stories that actually stick?

In Part 1 of a new blog series, Yiannis Mastoras digs into narrative tools from Randy Olson’s Houston, We Have a Narrative and the Dobzhansky Template, and explores how they can help science communicators build clearer, more compelling stories.

If you’ve ever struggled with turning complex science into something audiences can follow (and remember), this is a thoughtful place to start.

👉 Read the story: https://bit.ly/49TDNyf

What if citizen participation in health policy is valued in principle, but marginalized in practice?

Citizen involvement has become a near-consensus norm in #PublicHealth policy. We speak of co-creation, community voice, and participation as if they are already embedded realities.

This paper on Dutch municipalities ⬇️ tells a more sobering story.

👉 Local policymakers genuinely value citizen involvement. They see it as essential for understanding community needs, setting priorities, and building trust. Yet, in everyday policy work, participation remains concentrated at the safest points: early consultations, agenda setting, and brainstorming sessions. When it comes to policy design, implementation, monitoring, or evaluation, citizen input largely disappears.

This is not because policymakers are indifferent.
This is because participation is constrained by time pressure, organizational routines, data quality concerns, and unclear mandates.
Citizen involvement is expected, but rarely resourced.
Encouraged rhetorically, but weakly embedded institutionally.

💡 The result is a familiar paradox: participation without power, voice without influence, engagement without continuity.

What this study quietly reveals is a #governance issue, not a motivational one.

Meaningful citizen involvement requires more than good intentions or creative engagement methods. It requires structural integration into policy cycles, clarity about how citizen input shapes decisions, and political willingness to share control.

📢 Until participation is treated as core policy work rather than an add-on, we will continue to celebrate citizen engagement while systematically limiting its impact.

#PolSci4Health

It is not because it leopard’s coat that it is a leopard. The new approach of some antivaxxer groups is to make themselves look like « legitimate » medical entities. We have seen World Council For Health Scandinavia presenting themselves as a pseudo-legitimate medical-like society, only to see them post anti-vaccine narratives. One of which is around aluminium salts in vaccines trying to use literature that is so flawed that researchers are calling it as pure anecdotes and bad science. Indeed, Rohan Ameratunga et al have refuted the arguments put forth by both Crepeaux et al and Blasco et al demonstrating how wrong these two authors were. We should remind all that since the publication of such elegant demonstration of absence of risk of aluminium salts, Hviid and his group further demonstrated how safe these products are.

https://lnkd.in/eKb9bMhB