ICYMI: How RFK Jr. Is Reshaping Vaccine Regulations in the US
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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Vaccine Advisory Committee recommended Merck shot to prevent newborns from getting RSV at the same time. That's a big deal. I know it's a big deal. RSV for kids, I mean. Right. Yeah. Right. It's scary stuff. When we talk about, at least in the past, when we've talked about the importance of RSV, we talk about the importance from kids. You know that you've had little ones. Yeah. And this is pretty new. We haven't had

been able to get this for my kids. Not this early. Yeah. Not this early. All right. And then we also had the vaccine panel moving to restrict the use of some flu shots for Americans. And then one more thing, Tim, we had the actual Health and Human Services Secretary come out and say that the U.S. will cut funding to the organization responsible for vaccinating children in poor countries. So it's a move that some experts believe

say will result in unnecessary deaths. So there's a lot going on in this space, something that I think we just take for granted in terms of vaccines, but there's some debate over it. Well, here in the studio with more on these developments and more Bloomberg News health reporter Damian Garday joins us in the Bloomberg Businessweek studio. I kind of want to start a little bit back in time. I think this is yesterday's news, and then we can get to everything that happened today. The questions over the vaccine schedule for kids.

This is something that anybody who has a young kid knows. You look at this thing, your doctor looks at this thing and says, okay, these are the recommended vaccines at this age.

They work in tandem sort of with the American Academy of Pediatrics, I believe. What's happening with this from Washington right now? Right. So the American vaccine schedule is recommended by the CDC, not required. But I think for most people, you just kind of go with what your pediatrician tells you. And that's where it comes from. What we learned yesterday is that the CDC's group of vaccine advisors intends to reopen the book on the vaccine schedule, which is

In the abstract, kicking the tires scientifically on something like that seems perfectly reasonable. The reason for the alarm that you may have heard from public health officials is that this is a handpicked group by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who famously has advanced and espoused debunked theories about the safety of vaccines going back to the 1990s, if not before. So people are reading the tea leaves. Is this an attack on...

the vaccination of young kids, which is something Kennedy has fixated on for many years and tied various vaccines to the development of autism and other issues for which there is just no evidence. So the concern is that when they reopen the book, their consideration of the evidence behind, for example, the measles vaccine or anything else that's recommended for young kids will not be even-handed and that this could be a kind of breadcrumb trail to a dismantling of public health in the United States.

Well, how does it work in the panel? What evidence are they looking at? What research are they looking at? What goes into determining their decision? Or is it kind of how they feel? It's pretty rigorous. So there's a multi-step process. Any new vaccine, which at some point each of these vaccines was new, must first win approval from the FDA, which looks at safety and efficacy also pretty rigorously. And then it goes to this panel of independent advisors to the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control,

and prevention, they pour over even more of that data and look at things beyond what the FDA looks at, including the cost and cost effectiveness of these things and real world evidence as to how safe they are, how well they prevent disease, and what side effects they may have. The US does not have the only children in the world. There are children all over the world.

I'm wondering how the U.S. vaccine schedule is different than vaccine schedules in other parts of the world. So at least against like the big five European nations, they're pretty much the same. We all vaccinate against about 15 of the same childhood diseases. There is some difference in like hepatitis A, hepatitis B, basically based on prevalence in different countries. Some countries, that's more of a risk for young kids than it is in others for all kinds of reasons. The

The number of individual shots you get varies, and the US has more of those than, for example, Germany or the United Kingdom.

This is a little bit in the weeds. Even though we're vaccinating against largely the same diseases, in Europe there are more combination vaccines that we don't necessarily use in the U.S. So the number of needles varies, but I would say by and large, Japan, other comparable nations, we are trying to prevent the same diseases in our kids. So they're basically giving a shot that may cover numerous things, whereas we are doing individual shots. Right.

Yeah. Why is there a difference? You know, I mean, if I have a little critter, I don't want to. Fewer needles, the better. Yeah, exactly. You know, it really does. I did have a little critter. It's a big critter now. But I mean, yeah, like that was something you wanted to limit as much as possible. Right. And it boils down to basically, you know, the same way that like reasonable people can disagree. Different groups of experts will look at safety and risk and cost differently.

So one example is measles. In the United States, we recommend the MMR vaccine, which is measles, mumps, and rubella, and then the chickenpox vaccine separately.

There is a vaccine that has all four of those things together. It can lead to, in small numbers of cases, seizures. And the CDC decided years and years ago, eh, better to do them MMR plus V is what they call it. Overseas, it's largely, or in many cases, MMRV. And there are other cases like that where basically reasonable people, sort of equivalents of the CDC in countries around the world, came to different considerations. And some of this does have to do with cost.

Does it seem like the secretary of health and human services is fulfilling promises that he made as he was testifying? If we remember back a few months ago, it was pretty contentious. And there were some holdouts who ultimately ended up supporting him because they said, hey, we're

He will not do the things that the worst critics are saying he will do. Right. The short answer is no. I mean, one specific case is, as you mentioned, it was Senator Bill Cassidy from Louisiana who ended up being... Who's a doctor. Who is a doctor and clearly was, or at least...

in public, seemed very pained over this vote, over whether to confirm Kennedy, and ended up being basically the deciding vote as a result. And in order to get that vote, according to Cassidy, Kennedy promised him explicitly that he would not mess with this particular committee on the CDC.

Now, that's according to Kennedy. I'm sorry, that's according to Cassidy. Kennedy did not, to my knowledge, say that publicly, but I think we can trust the senator or at least we have little choice but to. Cut to this June. Kennedy fired all 17 of the standing members of this committee and replaced them with eight people, one of whom resigned before the first meeting.

So the remaining seven, and they include people with nontraditional backgrounds, not necessarily MDs or vaccine experts. And in a few cases, people who have, like Kennedy, echoed those debunked claims about vaccines causing autism or other safety risks. Well, someone would say that a panel should have diverse points of view, right, so that you get a healthier debate. Having said that, is a typical administration like this?

changes this panel completely? I mean, it does change over time, right? It does. They're appointed to four-year terms by Health and Human Services Secretaries. And it's considered serving on this committee is like a real badge of honor in public health. Whether you're a vaccinologist, a pediatrician, a registered nurse, you often, it's almost like a minor league baseball system. You will serve on the working groups that serve this committee. And then to be selected- So there's a farm team, actually. Is an honor. It's kind of, yes. So to liquidate

maybe not the right term, to fire outright all of the standing members and replace them. That is unprecedented. Just, yeah, go ahead. The one thing I wanted to get to is that

They may not provide the U.S. funding for vaccinating children in poor countries, as we learned with the pandemic. Pandemic doesn't know a border. And like, I wonder about this. So what are what's top of mind for you? And forgive us. It's only 30 seconds. No, that's right. The separate issue. So, as you mentioned, Kennedy announced that the United States will no longer fund Gavi, a program that was founded in part by the United States to vaccinate children around the world. This is cause for serious alarms.

around the globe. As you noted, like the next COVID is not something that will just stop because of a border. We need to see what the knock-on effects of this are. But I think, I mean, the United States pulling out of funding as the major funder is a serious concern.

Who needs chat GPT? We just need Damien. Thank you so much. Damien Garday, Bloomberg News Health Reporter. This is the Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Podcast. Available on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live weekday afternoons from 2 to 5 p.m. Eastern on Bloomberg.com, the iHeartRadio app, TuneIn, and the Bloomberg Business app. You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg Terminal.

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