It is not controversial in FDA documentation that vaccines can cause brain damage.  
New episode just dropped! https://lnkd.in/gR-uXzGt

Some of the most influential vaccine research I have been part of did not happen in high-tech laboratories. It happened in rural African communities.

While working in The Gambia, our research revealed that 𝘚𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘵𝘰𝘤𝘰𝘤𝘤𝘶𝘴 𝘱𝘯𝘦𝘶𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘢𝘦 was the leading cause of child mortality. This evidence directly shaped pneumococcal vaccine development.

But our work also revealed something critical: “vaccine effectiveness depends on local disease patterns”.

Strains causing disease in Africa differed from those in Europe and North America. This insight helped inform the expansion of pneumococcal vaccines from 5-valent to 13-valent and now higher.

Africa did not just benefit from vaccine science.
Africa helped shape it.

This experience reinforced my belief that global health advances faster when African data informs global decisions.


#vaccinedevelopment #medicalresearch #Africa #infectiousdisease #IFAIN| 15 commentaires sur LinkedIn

🗓️ Demain, 21h, TV5MONDE 📺

Je participerai à la nouvelle émission À Vrai Dire sur la désinformation médicale et débâterai avec Agnès Buzyn, serge hercberg, Thomas Huchon et #PatrickCohen.

Désinformation d'État, infodémie, vies en jeu : comment résister quand les "fake news" deviennent politique de santé ?

Nous aborderons les outils concrets pour comprendre et lutter contre cette infodémie qui menace notre santé, notre cohésion sociale et notre démocratie

🔗 https://lnkd.in/eT6pWUKR

Dean Lewis, Université de Bordeaux, Vincent-Nicolas DELPECH, CHU de Bordeaux, Nicolas Dudouet,

Il y a tout dans cet article. Entre la crédulité, l'ignorance, la complaisance, la croyance, la diplomatie, extrêmes jusqu'à l'absurde, au point qu'on pourrait imaginer que des policiers, vêtus sous leur uniforme d'une soutane sacerdotale, auraient voix dans les médias, et conseilleraient à la population sans aucune répréhension de leurs supérieurs, en lieu et place de la ceinture de sécurité en voiture, un chapelet très apprécié autour du cou : "pas de souci vous avez le choix, nous sommes soucieux de votre sécurité, rien n'est obligatoire". Les entreprises se mettraient donc à proposer ces chapelets en série dans les voitures de fonction de leurs employés, et tout le monde applaudirait.
Aucun fact-checking de ce média évidemment, un policier acquis à la cause témoignerait de la grande efficacité du chapelet sur les jeunes conducteurs - les plus à risque d'accident - parce que voyez-vous la ceinture ne protège que du choc de l'accident alors que le chapelet améliore la conduite. Et puis en conclusion, un simple sondage d'entreprise montrerait qu'il n'y a pas eu plus d'accident avec les chapelets qu'avec la ceinture de sécurité. C'est donc cela l'esprit critique et la science...
Cet article date de 2015, mais il est probablement encore d'actualité.
Source : https://lnkd.in/gDAQWxHU

Substantial amount of medical information provided by popular chatbots inaccurate and incomplete

Half of answers to evidence based questions “somewhat” or “highly” problematic; public education and oversight needed to avoid amplifying misinformation, urge researchers

A substantial amount of medical information provided by 5 popular chatbots is inaccurate and incomplete, with half of the answers to clear evidence based questions “somewhat” or “highly” problematic, show the results of a study published in the open access journal BMJ Open.

Continued deployment of these chatbots without public education and oversight risks amplifying misinformation, warn the researchers.

While the quality of responses didn’t differ significantly among the 5 chatbots, Grok generated significantly more highly problematic responses than would be expected (29/50; 58%). Gemini generated the fewest highly problematic responses and the most non-problematic ones.

The chatbots performed best in the area of vaccines and cancer, and worst in the area of stem cells, athletic performance, and nutrition.

Source in comments.

poor antivax ! their universe is collapsing 🤣😂

CIDRAP's Vaccine Integrity Project posted protocols for their upcoming systematic reviews of three immunizations against respiratory pathogens. Full details of the systematic reviews are available publicly. ⬇️


💉 Effectiveness and Safety of COVID-19 Immunizations in Adults and Children: Evidence Review to Inform the 2026-27 Respiratory Virus Season
https://ow.ly/bhPS50YIYqw

💉 Effectiveness and Safety of Influenza Immunizations in Adults and Children: Evidence Review to Inform the 2026-27 Respiratory Virus Season https://ow.ly/e0si50YIYqy

💉 Effectiveness and Safety of Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) Immunizations in Adults and Children: Evidence Review to Inform the 2026-27 Respiratory Virus Season https://ow.ly/lWuv50YIYqx


Research protocols are important because they show methodological rigor and transparency, and once they're in place, they can't be changed based on what researchers find. They also allow others to follow and duplicate the work.

More information on the Project: https://ow.ly/15un50YIYqv

This cross-sectional study examined perceptions of health and ageing, and their influence on vaccine acceptance among individuals aged 65 and older living

Western Australian children can now access a game changing needle-free influenza vaccination, with Australia’s most comprehensive FluMist program launched yesterday by Hon Meredith Hammat MLA, Minister for Health; Mental Health, and Hon Sabine Winton MLA, Minister for Education; Early Childhood; Preventative Health; Wheatbelt.

Eligible children aged 2 to 11 years can access the intranasal spray vaccine, offering a simple and painless alternative to the traditional injection.

The vaccine will be available through Child and Adolescent Community Health Immunisation clinics and at the Perth Children’s Hospital Stan Perron Immunisation Centre, as well as GPs, Aboriginal Medical Services and pharmacies across the state.

FluMist provides a safe and painless alternative for many children who may be anxious about needles.

The vaccine is highly effective, providing equivalent protection against influenza A and B as traditional injectable influenza vaccines.

FluMist is expected to increase influenza vaccine rates among young children and help reduce the spread of influenza across the community during winter. 

Learn more at https://lnkd.in/gcuWN3CV

"Shortly after Kennedy was nominated, questions swirled over how he might overhaul America’s immunization system. Two Stanford University researchers wondered how many people would suffer if vaccination rates dropped or shots became entirely unavailable for four of the most infamous diseases: polio, measles, rubella and diphtheria.

Outbreaks often start when an American catches one of these illnesses abroad and returns home. So epidemiologists Mathew Kiang and Nathan Lo, who is also an infectious diseases doctor, built a model to simulate how the four contagions could spread from sick travelers based on each state’s vaccination rates.

Since a sizable chunk of the population is currently vaccinated, some of the infections wouldn’t get a foothold right away. But over time, as more babies are born and not vaccinated, a larger share of the population would become susceptible.

The professors ran thousands of simulations for each disease, producing a range of possible outcomes. From there, they figured out the average number of deaths and disabilities over a 25-year period.

Their model shows that at current vaccination rates, the nation is already teetering on the brink of an explosion in measles cases — one that would be virtually wiped out with just a 5% increase in vaccination. But if current rates drop by half, all four diseases could return."
https://lnkd.in/gCXPq6M6

Would you believe that a anti-vaccine/ pro-ivermectin/ McCullough Foundation minion has reported this as misinformation ? And that LinkedIn has yet to understand that there is no reason for such. The reality is simplement and remains: the #mccullough paper is a terrible paper that should never have been published, and that must retracted. It is simply a trash paper that does hold to any standards of an oncology study. As said, poor on methods, science, reporting, assessment of patient demographics, staging of their cancer and responses. A paper that simply is the perfect definition of a placebo is in the mind of patients brain washed to believe it might help them which is not the case as ivermectin adds nothing to the standard of care and optimized cancer therapies they are on…

You might be surprised to learn how many people used to die with measles, pertussis, diphtheria, and other now vaccine-preventable diseases.

“What started as a cure for covid that doesn’t cure covid, has transmogrified into claims that ivermectin cures cancer, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, lyme disease & even aging.”
https://lnkd.in/gAx3wwjn

"...does this poll support the idea that RFK Jr.’s views are now commonplace and vaccine skepticism is widespread?

Absolutely not.

A careful reading of the poll data tells a different story.

To understand why, we need to look carefully at the specific survey question driving these headlines. ...

Here is the actual question from the poll:

Which of the following comes closest to your view?: The science on vaccines is clear and it is damaging to question it | The facts on vaccines are still up for debate and it is damaging to enforce their uptake

Read that question carefully and answer it honestly.

Did you notice the problem? You weren’t asked about one thing; you were asked about four different things simultaneously.

Is the science on vaccines clear?
Is it damaging to question vaccine science?
Are the facts on vaccines still up for debate?
Is it damaging to enforce vaccine uptake?

These are separate and independent beliefs all bundled into a binary choice. ... This question has four barrels.

Think about how people might answer this.

A pediatrician who believes the science is clear, but also that vigorous debate is essential to good science. Where do they land?
A parent who thinks the evidence is clear and has vaccinated their children, but believes that “enforcing uptake” is government overreach, agrees with half of both options.
A hesitant parent who has real questions about the childhood schedule, but still brings their kids in for every appointment and supports school vaccine requirements as a reasonable community protection, has nowhere to go either.

The survey question cannot distinguish these people.

...

There are several findings worth considering carefully.

When asked what best describes their view, only 10% of respondents chose the most skeptical position that “vaccine risks are significant, and enforcing vaccines is dangerous”. I hesitate to cite this finding, as the answer choice combines two different concepts—risk and enforcement—but even then, this seems inconsistent with the headline finding above.
When asked if they support reducing the number of vaccines Americans receive, 40% of respondents supported this. This question has a similar framing problem. Nobody in the United States is forced to receive a vaccine, and the actual policy debate is about recommendations, not what Americans are compelled to accept. The wording subtly implies that vaccines are currently happening to people rather than being chosen. Even so, 40% is real and reflects something the medical and public health community needs to take seriously.
When asked whether reducing vaccines is a core principle of the MAHA movement, only 34% said yes. Even for people who identified with MAHA, vaccines don’t seem to be the animating issue. That challenges the idea that RFK Jr.’s views are commonplace across the land." https://lnkd.in/gNgUzMAX

This article presents a scoping review of #mpox-related #misinformation in #Africa (2022–2025), highlighting how #conspiracy #theories and #vaccine #myths have shaped #public #perception and challenged #outbreak #response efforts. Doudou DIOP Melvin Sanicas

This is an important study regarding COVID vaccination that looked at the NNV (number needed to vaccinate) to prevent one death in children. The NNV depends upon co-morbidities. For children co-morbidities, the NNV was 23. For health children the NNV was 2000. In other words, you have to vaccinate 23 chronically children to prevent a single death. In healthy children, you need to vaccinate 2000 to prevent a single death.

"A federal judge's 2023 order to roll back Mississippi's stringent school vaccine requirements caused alarm among medical professionals, as reported by The Guardian. This change notably ended a long-standing state policy that had ensured some of the nation's highest childhood vaccination rates, despite Mississippi often ranking low in other health indicators.

The state's health director issued warnings about potential severe consequences, including the resurgence of preventable diseases such as measles, diphtheria, and whooping cough (pertussis). Dr. Daniel Edney, the state health director, emphasized that these diseases remain active and pose a continuous threat, stating, "They've not been eradicated. They’re just waiting. They’re lurking."

These warnings proved accurate, with a significant increase in whooping cough cases in Mississippi last year. Tragically, this surge included the first whooping cough-related infant death in the state in 13 years. Concurrently, incidents of parents seeking religious exemptions for vaccinations, a new option following the 2023 ruling by Judge Sul Ozerden, have also risen."

Great to see publication of this amazing paper in Nature Health from colleagues in the Futures, Copilot Health and Data teams, led by Beatriz Costa Gomes and Pavel Tolmachev.

This is the first time anyone is sharing and analysing detailed information on how AI is being used for health reasons. It's a hugely important and revealing picture. If there was any doubt that the frontier for healthcare delivery is AI, it has now been dispelled. Certainly in the UK, most of are painfully aware of the problems within our health system. I genuinely believe that AI is probably the best shot we have at upgrading the entire experience in the manner we did once before across the middle decades of the twentieth century.

It is though a huge responsibility for those building these systems to get it right. There is no area with higher stakes or greater demands.

New study out in BMJ Open -> We audited five major AI chatbots using adversarial-style prompts to assess how they respond to health and medical questions in misinformation-prone contexts. Nearly half (49.6%) of responses were rated problematic (e.g., suggesting possible alternative cancer clinics for treatment), with little evidence of meaningful guardrails (e.g., question refusals) and frequent use of poor or fabricated citations.

Link to study: https://lnkd.in/gXk9YDuy. Completed with a great team: Nicholas Tiller, Alessandro R Marcon, Zubin Master, Kristine Kidd, Asker Jeukendrup, & Timothy Caulfield.

New paper published in BMC Medicine:
https://lnkd.in/g8h_zDsP

Among many viruses, SARS-CoV-2 has provided a rare opportunity to understand how immune protection develops following vaccination in the absence of prior infection.

In this study, we analyzed data from the MARVELS (MARkers of Vaccine Efficacy and Longevity in SARS-CoV-2) cohort—a longitudinal study of healthy children aged 5–12 years vaccinated with BNT162b2 in Singapore. Participants were followed for over a year (now extended to three years, with the final year ongoing), with repeated measurements of key immunological markers, including binding and neutralizing antibody titers (nAbs), spike-specific memory B cells (MBCs), and spike-reactive T cell responses.

Using a mathematical modeling framework, we reconstructed the dynamics of these immune responses over time and evaluated their association with infection risk. A few key findings:

1. Antibodies drive early protection, but their role declines over time
2. From ~3 months onward, T cell responses become the dominant correlate of protection
3. This effect is strongest under hybrid immunity
4. Memory B cells and T cells show more sustained dynamics than antibodies
5. Model projections suggest ~500 days of protection under hybrid immunity (requires external validation)

These findings highlight the time-dependent nature of correlates of protection and the importance of moving beyond single time-point measurements when interpreting immune responses.

This work was a collaboration with the MARVELS team. The study was designed by Prof Lynette Shek, Prof Elizabeth Tham, and Prof Youjia Zhong. I am grateful to all clinicians and scientists involved in data collection, and to the children and families who participated. I would also like to congratulate my team, particularly Hoong Kai Chua and YIYU LIAO, for their excellent work on the data analyses.

We celebrated this milestone over lunch (photo) and are already discussing the next phase of analyses using the full three-year dataset. Stay tuned!

Boon Kiat Law, Yuqian Wang, Franciszek Polak, Allyson Choi, Carina Tay, Hui’En Li

NTU LKCMedicine PHD Programme, NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, Duke-NUS Medical School

Are campaign-style approaches the most efficient way to vaccinate missed children?

This study from Ethiopia examines the cost of using Periodic Intensification of Routine Immunization (PIRI) to reach zero-dose children in hard-to-reach areas—and highlights important trade-offs for programme design.

📊 Key findings:
• 1,449 zero-dose children were reached (64% of Penta1 doses delivered) across assessed PIRI sessions
• Economic cost per zero-dose child reached: $6.65
• Strong regional variation ($13.06 in Afar vs $4.82 in Somali)
• Higher delivery volumes in Somali were associated with lower unit costs
• Per diem and travel allowances accounted for over half of costs

💡 While PIRI can reach many zero-dose children cost-efficiently, infrequent campaigns may increase dropout if children are not effectively linked to routine services. Caregivers may wait for the next PIRI for follow-up doses, increasing the time children are left off-schedule. More frequent PIRIs could reduce this risk—but would likely reduce cost-efficiency.

Ensuring strong routine immunization systems is key to sustaining the gains achieved through campaign-style strategies.

Read more here 👉 https://lnkd.in/es5_h3zJ

Authors: Abdi Gari, Firew Bobo, Flavia Moi, Melkamu Ayalew, Yohannes Lakew Tefera, Mirkuzie Woldie, Girmaye D Dinsa, Laura Boonstoppel

Haramaya University Fenot Associates Federal Ministry of Health Ethiopia
Health Systems Insight Jimma University Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

Confused why a lawyer would be talking about vaccines? It's because mandates infringe on civil and individual rights. Pushing mandates by claiming vaccines are "safe and effective" made this claim a legal and political issue. To reverse course, end mandates, immunity to liability, and gov't involvement. But that is unlikely to happen willingly because these products can't survive on their own merit. | 17 comments on LinkedIn

HPV vaccines could be even more of a game-changer for head and neck cancers than for cervical cancer, Otis Brawley told me maybe 15 years so ago.

A new study suggests he was right. Find out why in my latest story for CIDRAP News.

P.S. Getting the chance to interview Otis was the highlight of my work week.

https://lnkd.in/eMqcEva3