Get Medical Advice from Your Personal Physician Regarding COVID-19’s New Vaccinations; RFK Jr Justifiably Is Getting Blowback from Medical Societies Over His Leadership
It’s been five years since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic. The virus has largely faded from public discourse. When it is mentioned, it is often in the context of the past. It’s generally agreed upon by most public health experts that COVID-19 is now endemic—meaning that the virus is continuing to circulate, but at more predictable levels that are consistent with other common viral diseases.
At the same time, most doctors and the scientific community acknowledge that people – certainly not to the extent of Covid’s peak – are still getting sick from Covid, and certain populations like those in advanced age, underlying medical condition, immunocompromised are still at risk of hospitalization or potentially dying from the virus.
Most doctors would also add to this list of potentially more vulnerable to COVID-19 than the general population, those who are 1) pregnant and 2) healthy children.
This is why when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the updated COVID-19 vaccines late last month recommending that they be available only to individuals over 65 years old, adults and children with underlying health conditions, medical societies groups disagreed with the FDA and CDC’s recommendations.
Moreover, medical societies are opposing parts of the limited recommendation. Some have joined a lawsuit against it, while others plan to continue following the previous guidance that aligns more closely with the WHO. Traditionally, physicians and insurers adhere to the CDC-recommended vaccine schedule, which almost guarantees access and coverage. Removing the CDC’s endorsement like what just occurred could reduce the new vaccine from wider use.
“The American Academy of Pediatrics remains focused on increasing access to vaccines for all children, in all communities,” said Susan J. Kressly, MD, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
She adds, “As we enter respiratory virus season, any barrier to COVID-19 vaccination creates a dangerous vulnerability for children and their families,” she went on to say, explaining that respiratory infections can be especially risky for infants and toddlers, with their airways and lungs still developing.”
Politicization of HHS This is just one area that the medical community and societies disagree with, in essence, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). CDC and FDA are under the HHS. Some critics of Kennedy Jr. look at him as an unqualified political appointee without the proper medical or scientific credentials to be secretary of HHS.
Some have called him out on his unscientific claim that vaccines cause autism. He’s defunded mrNA vaccine development, he’s cut the CDC’s staff in charge of public health, staff of the National Institutes of Health, and other invaluable areas under HHS. Regulators, scientists, infectious disease experts and more have been fired.
RFK Jr said, “We are the sickest country in the world. That’s why we have to fire people at the CDC.” It’s this kind of odd inflammatory statement and unscientific decision-making by RFK Jr. that have led some high-level staff at the CDC to quit.
Certainly, there is always room for improvement administratively and in policy, but what’s causing Americans to get sick has a lot more to do with healthcare access and unaffordability, as well as income inequality. And certainly, reducing access to vaccines and gutting the CDC will not make America healthier.
In his resignation letter, Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, one of the top CDC staff who was pushed out of the CDC headquarters said, “I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponizing of public health.”
Some critics and health experts go further and say Secretary Kennedy’s hostility to life saving vaccines, is not only a major risk with the ongoing threat of Covid and further mutations of the virus, but his leadership of our public health programs must come to an end.
Get medical advice from your personal physician The confusion over the new COVID-19 vaccines, who should get it or not, should ultimately be best handled by talking with your personal physician who can determine what’s right for you. They are aware of your personal medical history, past and present. They are up to date with the latest research and scientific literature.
Access to the vaccination might be more difficult than simply going to a pharmacy as in the past – could require a doctor’s visit now — for some Americans under this new FDA-CDC guidelines. But technically, they are just guidelines, and access is possible in some cases beyond those groups specified in those guidelines. At least for now.
It’s a sad and potentially dangerous situation that HHS is under the leadership of a political individual who ran for president and got an appointment because he eventually worked to get President Donald Trump elected. Kennedy Jr. lacks scientific data-based knowledge to make sound medical decisions for our country. He may have qualified advisers to lead him. But as a well-known anti-vaccination advocate in the past, can RFK Jr’s beliefs really be put aside to make the best public health decisions for our nation?
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