👉 Natural infection = immunity + risk of hospitalization, complications, long-term sequelae, or death. 👉 Vaccination = immunity + short-lived side effects. The outcome (immune memory) may look the same, but the cost is worlds apart.

Decades of research have found that acetaminophen is safe for children when administered as recommended. Misleading claims link the medicine to autism. These false claims send a dangerous message to parents and does a disservice to autistic individuals. www.aap.org/en/news-room...

ACOG reaffirms that acetaminophen is safe for managing pain and fever during pregnancy. No reputable studies support suggestions like those in HHS’s recent announcement linking acetaminophen use in pregnancy to autism; in fact, high-quality studies show no such risk. https://bit.ly/47Wxc59

Okay. ACIP meeting is over. Here are the four things they voted on with regard to Covid vaccines. Votes 1, 3 and 4 passed. Vote 2 (the call for a prescription requirement) did NOT pass. The language is so unclear that two legal experts I've consulted so far don't know what this means for access.

Listening to ACIP meeting which is a catastrophe, as predicted. I’d like emphasize in all this that the CDC subject matter experts and leads have been tremendous and continue to represent good science on our behalf. I am very grateful for their dedication, despite internal and external pressure.

CDC official giving ACIP and update on COVID epidemiology. As has been seen over the years, the very youngest and very oldest are most likely to be hospitalized due to COVID. #Medsky #IDsky #infectiousdisease

AMA and NFID liaison reps to ACIP are now pointing out what the data has shown: that babies too young to be vaccinated are at highest risk for hospitalization and death from COVID. Maternal vaccination is the best way to protect them, they said. #Medsky #IDsky #vaccines #pediatrics #obgyn

We vaccinate to *reduce harm.* Vaccines are not immunity passports with absolute guarantees of no infection. What drives me crazy is that these people know that. By repeating these claims, they validate and endorse vaccine refusal.

Has everyone forgotten the endpoints of the original COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials? They were designed to prevent hospitalizations & deaths. Transmission reduction was observed, but total transmission prevention was never promised. This is a bad-faith argument against vaccine effectiveness.

Yes! Exactly the types of affordability/access divides that VFC was created in ‘94 to address. (And it’s done so!) The immediate issue here is a pretty niche one—15% of families who opted for a non-preferred option for 1 dose of 1 vaccine—but likely a harbinger of more consequential changes to come.

It’s no longer required that private insurers cover this vaccine for this age group either (per yesterday’s other vote), but AHIP’s recent announcement suggests that their coverage won’t change, ensuring that financial barriers to that parental choice won’t exist (for those with private ins only).

They reversed the confusing VFC vote that would have preserved MMRV coverage for kids <4. But contrary to how the chair described the effect of this new vote, it really just means that VFC-eligible families of <4 kids won’t have free access to MMRV (which they no longer recommend) even if desired.

And they are starting today’s meeting by cleaning up this mess from yesterday. Not a surprise.

My thought on why the ACIP HepB vote was postponed. The scientific evidence that was presented by career CDC scientists as well as from the numerous expert public commenters inarguably demonstrated why the birth dose is NECESSARY. RFK Jr.’s ACIP couldn’t come up with a way to deny it in time.

ACIP voted to table the hepatitis B vaccine decision for now.

Without the birth dose: - Screening misses cases - Babies get infected from household contacts - ~90% of infected infants develop chronic infection leading to lifelong liver disease, cancer, early death. Before 1991, thousands of U.S. children were infected each year.

Blue line shows ages 0-19: near-zero hepatitis B cases. The birth dose created an entire generation nearly free of hepatitis B. Adults who missed this protection still get infected. That's 30 years of proof this works. Tomorrow's vote could end it. www.cdc.gov/hepatitis-su...

Reminder: you’re discussing whether to change a recommendation of thirty years protecting babies and public health made by people with actual expertise. If you’re going to change their recommendations you need good evidence for the change. You don’t have that.

"AAP recently published our own immunization schedule to ensure providers and families have evidence-based guidance.... Following today’s meeting, we want to be clear that our recommendations on hepatitis B and measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella (MMRV) vaccination have not changed."

To be clear, when I said the ACIP votes were a goat rodeo, I refer to the fact that the committee failed to even word the propositions they were voting on in a comprehensible manner. They did not even understand what their votes would mean. I wish I were joking.

None of the ACIP understand that they just voted to maintain VFC coverage for the MMRV vaccine for kids under 4 (50% of US kids) through one vote—a good thing!—while removing the overall recommendation for any kid to get it (and thus ending ACA coverage requirement for kids with private insurance).

ACIP just punted the HepB vote until tomorrow. I will be watching so I’ll update when that happens.

About the combined MMR and varicella vaccine (MMRV), ACIP has just voted to *not* recommend MMRV before the age of 4 years. This will not change access to MMR and varicella separately.

ACIP members are questioning whether the hepatitis B vaccine should continue to be universally administered to children at birth. Fact: Implementation of universal birth dose hepatitis B vaccine is the most effective strategy to prevent childhood infections.

Staff from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention summarized data from 17 studies showing that the hepatitis B vaccine is overwhelmingly safe and has helped to virtually eliminate hepatitis B infections among newborns. #ACIP www.cdc.gov/acip/downloa...

Most of the world recommends a universal birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine, because that's when it's most effective. Babies need to be vaccinated within hours of birth to avoid being infected during delivery. #ACIP

CDC official provides the ACIP panelists a look at the success of the universal birth dose of hepatitis B vaccine. #Medsky #IDsky #pediatrics #vaccines

Sigh, ACIP members asking questions during the meeting that reveal they aren’t aware of the most basic aspects of the Vaccines for Children program, one of the most important implications of their recommendations and votes. www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

Dr. Malone asked about adjuvants in MMR. Live-attenuated vaccines like MMR don’t use adjuvants. Because the weakened virus replicates a bit in the host, it naturally provides the innate immune stimulus — the very role adjuvants play in non-live vaccines.

Newborn lives are on the line. The hepatitis B birth dose is safe, effective, and lifesaving yet it’s under attack at ACIP this week. Weakening this policy would be a grave mistake. Read why we must defend it. open.substack.com/pub/bktitanj...

Since 1994 childhood vaccines have prevented: 508M cases of illnesses 32M hospitalizations 1.3M deaths Every $1 spent on childhood vaccines, the US has saved $10.90, totaling $2.7 trillion in societal savings. Yet, tomorrow ACIP will consider changing the schedule based on no science or data.

Grateful to the scientists standing up for the integrity of institutions essential to the health & well-being of our whole society Evidence-based approaches are especially critical to the health of infants & children, whose health depends on reduced community spread of infectious diseases

While new ACIP is set to make its recommendations later this week, AHIP says “Health plans will continue to cover all ACIP-recommended immunizations that were recommended as of September 1, 2025, including updated formulations of the COVID-19... with no cost-sharing... through the end of 2026."

On this day in 1963, a white man detonated a bomb under the steps of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, with 400 congregants inside. Four Black children were killed in the blast.

These are the faces behind the fight to keep the Lower Ninth Ward from being washed away -- again. Both through storms and gentrification. 20 years after Katrina, this is the story of the community's next existential crisis: capitalbnews.org/katrina-anni...

"WAGES OF UNIONIZED WORKERS ARE 13% HIGHER THAN THEIR NONUNION COUNTERPARTS" 🪶

At least seven historically Black colleges and universities across the South received threats Thursday that caused lockdowns and closures. via @wwno.org

#FOTW: 2 Million Children in Families at Risk of Housing Instability under Administration’s Proposed Rental Assistance Time Limits: One-Third Reside in Six States.

Are there non-pharmaceutical interventions that are effective for many? Of course, & I'm a big proponent of therapy. But to denigrate these advancement-- not to mention misattribute shootings to their use-- is shameful & dangerously stigmatizes the pursuit of evidence-based care that can save lives.

It is hard to describe just how infuriating it is to hear RFK Jr. challenge the appropriateness of antidepressants. I am a health policy professor with a forthcoming book and a second book-in-progress, none of which would be remotely possible without antidepressants to manage major depression.

Acetaminophen remains a safe pain relief option during pregnancy. Despite recent unfounded claims, there’s no clear evidence linking prudent use to fetal development issues. ACOG's guidance remains. When needed in pregnancy, acetaminophen should be used in moderation, after consulting a doctor.

It's true! 500 days of bargaining with @society4science.bsky.social and still no contract! Big thanks to @wbng.org for working hard to help us secure the fair deal our workers deserve! If you'd like to help, be sure to sign our petition below! #faircontractNOW #Solidarity #workerrights

Sharing some encouraging news re: CDC PRAMS. The CDC has indicated they will weight and clean the 2024 PRAMS data. Also, the PRAMS data collection system (PIDS) is up and running again and some sites have begun 2025 PRAMS data collection. Hopefully restoration of the ARF portal is coming soon too.

Alt text: Graphic shows dramatic reduction in polio, rubella, mumps, measles, and hepatitis A cases after the introduction of vaccines for each disease.

Disease prevalence in US states before & after vaccine introduction 🧪 From Edward Tufte & graphics.wsj.com/infectious-d...

Joseph McNeil, one of four North Carolina college students whose occupation of a racially segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter 65 years ago helped spark nonviolent civil rights sit-in protests across the South, died, his university said. He was 83. https://cnn.it/3JOhsqT

@pidsociety.bsky.social PIDS strongly supports state mandated vaccines for school entry. “The actions announced today not only jeopardize the health and well-being of children of Florida but also will have a negative impact on vulnerable adults…” pids.org/2025/09/03/p...

As national medical, scientific, public health and patient organizations, we call for the resignation of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to ensure the health of the American people. Our statement: https://bit.ly/45LeJHi

RFK pressured her to *pre approve* panel recommendations for a panel that had not actually met! "Once trusted experts are removed and advisory bodies are stacked, the results are predetermined. That isn’t reform. It is sabotage."

Health authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have declared an outbreak of #Ebola virus disease in Kasai Province where 28 suspected cases and 15 deaths, including four health workers, have been reported as of 4 September 2025 👉 bit.ly/4ndz9yv