WASHINGTON — Vaccine policy has become a key issue for the Trump administration, especially under the leadership of health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who himself once led an anti-vaccine group. In less than a year, Kennedy has bulldozed vaccine policy precedent and government personnel. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food…
WASHINGTON — A possible Trump administration effort to change the childhood vaccine schedule left hospital leaders, health policymakers, and pediatricians scrambling to navigate what could be the most significant changes to the American vaccine program in decades. The administration had planned to announce on Friday moves to pare down the number of shots on the…
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Tuesday adopted its vaccine advisory committee’s recommendation to end the decades-old policy that every newborn be offered a hepatitis B shot, despite an outcry from health experts that the decision ignored key evidence around the shots. Instead, parents should discuss with their doctors whether to vaccinate infants at birth…
WASHINGTON — Federal vaccine advisers, through a freewheeling, and at times combative two-day meeting, recommended a major change to childhood vaccinations that runs counter to the medical consensus — and began setting the stage for a larger rethink in the future. The new recommendations and many of the arguments about U.S.vaccination strategies overlook vast bodies…
A panel that advises on U.S. vaccine policy voted on Friday to recommend a delay in when most babies begin to be vaccinated against hepatitis B, overturning a 30-year-old policy that has contributed to a massive decline in cases of the virus. The vote, which followed a day of contentious discussion, was 8-3. Specifically, the…
Patient advocacy groups have urged the South African government to issue a compulsory license for a groundbreaking HIV prevention treatment after the Trump administration refused to include South Africa in a new program to distribute the drug to poor countries. They argued the decision will not only harm efforts to thwart HIV in South Africa…
WASHINGTON — As the Trump administration moves ahead on what could be its most wide-reaching vaccine changes yet, the makers of the shots are weighing their options — and privately warning that officials could severely limit access to key vaccines and upend the childhood vaccine schedule for years to come. U.S. health authorities, under the…
Andrew Joseph covers health, medicine, and the biopharma industry in Europe. You can reach Andrew on Signal at drewqjoseph.45. Merck said Friday it would buy Cidara Therapeutics, the maker of an experimental flu therapy, in a $9.2 billion deal, as the pharma giants widens its pipeline to counter the impending revenue hit as its mega-blockbuster…
WASHINGTON — Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has said he does not want to take vaccines away from Americans. But at a closed-door meeting of Food and Drug Administration vaccine scientists in September, a top official suggested doing just that. Scientists listened as Tracy Beth Høeg, a lieutenant to FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, laid…
In 2023, Johnson & Johnson announced it had stopped research and development on therapeutics for many infectious diseases, including hepatitis and tuberculosis. Less visibly, AbbVie shuttered last year its pro bono technical R&D support on infectious diseases such as malaria and Chagas’ disease. These are not isolated cases. An increasing number of large pharmaceutical companies…