Measles, Mumps and Rubella Vaccine(GlaxoSmithKline Plc)

Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb opposed President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, saying Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s policies would lead to a resurgence of preventable diseases and cost lives. Gottlieb led the FDA in the first Trump administration. In comments on CNBC Friday, he called Kennedy (widely known as RFK Jr.) a “committed” anti-vaccine advocate who, if confirmed by the Senate, could easily take steps to decrease the use of vaccines in the US. “I have deep concerns about Kennedy’s stated intentions to roll back core public health protections, particularly as it relates to childhood vaccines,” Gottlieb said. “I think if RFK follows through on his intentions, and I believe he will and I believe he can, it will cost lives in this country.” He said he had raised his objections with Republican senators who will vote on the selection of Kennedy, who Trump announced last month . Trump’s pick of Kennedy has been followed by a series of announcements that would put skeptics of longstanding US healthcare and public health policy in positions of power. Along with Kennedy, that includes Trump’s choice to lead the National Institutes of Health (Stanford researcher and Covid policy skeptic Jay Bhattacharya) and the CDC (former congressman Dave Weldon). While in Congress, Weldon pushed for significant changes to vaccine policy that have been sought by vaccine skeptics. Kennedy has questioned the use of childhood vaccines for years, attempting to link them to the rise of autism and raising other questions about their safety. While his remarks on his exact plans have shifted over time, at their core is the idea that he wants to push away from a policy of vaccine requirements — meant to create widespread immunity and protect those who can’t be vaccinated or who have immune issues — and create a policy of individual choice. “I’m not going to take away anybody’s vaccines,” Kennedy said in a television interview last month. “People can make individual assessments about whether that product is good for them.” The Trump transition team didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Gottlieb in particular warned about a resurgence of measles, a highly infectious disease that can be deadly in young children. Vaccination rates of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine have fallen in some parts of the country, and been followed by occasional outbreaks. Nationally, kindergarten vaccination rates are around 92% with two doses of MMR vaccine, according to a CDC study published this year . But in some states, they are far lower. In Idaho, only about 80% of children have received the vaccine. In Wisconsin, the rate is 85%. Those rates are below the 95% target the CDC says is a benchmark for creating population-level immunity to the disease. “If we lose another 5%, we’re going to see a situation where we see distributed outbreaks,” Gottlieb said. “What I worry about is that we’re at a tipping point where we’re going to see epidemics of diseases that have long been vanquished.”

A British MP wants an MRR vaccine TikTok campaign to help boost lagging rates. Amid a new outbreak of measles in England and rates of vaccination against the infectious disease dropping below critical levels in the country, one British politician believes TikTok may hold the answer In several big cities in England, there's been a surge in measles cases in recent weeks, including in the capital London and in Birmingham, which has seen the most cases, now hitting more than 200. There were just over 1,600 suspected cases of measles in England and Wales last year, according to recent data out by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), more than double the 735 cases in 2022 and 360 found in 2021. Health officials see this as a worrying upward trend.  Measles can in some cases prove fatal or lead to complications such as pneumonia or blindness. There are of course vaccines for the disease, including in England GSK’s Priorix, which vaccinates against measles, mumps and rubella (the so-called MMR vaccine). It is offered in a two-dose schedule via the taxpayer-funded NHS system to newborns and preschool children, but the World Health Organization (WHO) says that 95% of all children should have MMR for herd immunity. But just 85% of children in 2022-23 had both MMR doses by the time they went to school, the lowest level in more than 12 years. There are several issues underlying this, including a legacy of vaccine hesitancy spurred by Andrew Wakefield. He wrote a paper in the late 1990s attempting to link the MMR vaccine to autism, but these tests were later deemed “critically flawed.” The paper however garnered a lot of media attention and set back vaccine uptake for years. There has also been a slow post-COVID catch-up program for the vaccine after appointments were stopped during the COVID lockdowns. Birmingham MP Jess Phillips, who is a politician for the Labour Opposition party in the U.K. and in charge of the largest area with an outbreak, said in an interview with the BBC that social media may hold the answer. In her Midlands constituency, she said many parents under the age of 40 with children, “were largely talking to each other on TikTok and that a TikTok campaign was needed to promote the MMR vaccine.” She also believes that people, largely those on social media sites, should be held to account for spreading misinformation around vaccines, which is also partly fueling vaccine hesitancy. “I think it's criminal when people spread that fake news because it's hurting people, it's harming people,” she said. “Frankly those people should be held to task and account for essentially causing illness in these areas.”