Kennedy Issues Demands for Vaccine Approvals That Could Affect Fall Covid Boosters

[Nevilledog]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/01/us/rfk-jr-vaccine-safety-placebos-covid.html

No paywall link
https://archive.li/ffr54

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a plan that would require placebo-controlled studies for all new vaccines, surprising some experts who noted that such testing already routinely takes place.

In a statement, Andrew Nixon, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said that “all new vaccines will undergo safety testing in placebo-controlled trials” before approval, and called the move a “radical departure” from existing standards.

Even though modern studies routinely use placebos, one exception has been the Covid booster shots, which have been authorized without human trials to target new strains of the virus as it has evolved. It’s unclear how the announcement will affect availability of Covid vaccines that were expected to be updated for the fall.

Mr. Kennedy also announced an effort Thursday for the National Institutes of Health to turbocharge the development of new inoculations for Covid, bird flu and seasonal flu.

The new vaccine development initiative would involve methods other than the mRNA technology used to develop the dominant Covid vaccines that are already in use, a statement from the Health and Human Services department said. The mRNA shots have been the subject of conspiracy theories, and Mr. Kennedy has intensely criticized them.

*snip*

[TnDem]

1. re: control groups

Testing everything that goes in our body to its highest level of scrutiny is a good thing..

[flamingdem]

2. But his agenda is anti-vaccine

So bound to hurt the many to protect a teeny tiny few.

[LudwigPastorius]

3. Sounds good, unless...

you can't get ahead of a new wave of infections from a mutated virus because your vaccine is stuck in a newly required 6 month testing regime.

There are scientists who run the numbers to determine the extent of testing that will produce the least likely amount of deaths and suffering when bringing new vaccines to market.

[TnDem]

7. re: getting ahead of a virus

Medical pontificators rarely if ever, "get ahead" of any new virus...Every year, the flu strain is predicted by experts and then the vaccine is manufactured to that prediction. Invariably, the flu strain is usually different than the vaccine that it was predicated for because the virus mutated beyond the vaccine.

Vaccines are almost all "catch up" and never "get ahead".

[Mountainguy]

13. "Medical pontificators" ??????

Hmmmm

[yardwork]

16. Bullshit.

[Crunchy Frog]

9. Not when it keeps them from even coming on to the market.

Then it just becomes a way for Bobby to ban things that he doesn't like.

I want to be able to get seasonal Covid and flu vaccines, and I don't care if you or Bobby don't want me to have them.

[Iris]

10. Exactly. As things stand, I'll be mostly masked next fall- spring

I work in a college campus and am old

Guess I better stock up on masks before they are banned too

[Meowmee]

11. It has already been tested

It is clear what the real agenda is here.

[yardwork]

14. THEY ALREADY WERE DOING THAT.

I'm sorry to shout in all caps but I'm sick to death of the lies coming out of this man's mouth.

He destroyed a system that spends years - decades - testing drugs. He doesn't know anything. He wrecked it.

To hear people on DU repeat his lies makes me vomit.

STOP IT.

[Silent Type]

4. Do they reformulate vaccines every year such that Covid vac is "new?" Think new vaccines are usually

tested as proposed. And, they can always change rules in a dire pandemic.

I get Kennedy’s goal is suspect, but this rule doesn’t seem nefarious, otherwise.

[PJMcK]

6. I don't trust anything this crew does

They are up to no good things and they lie all the time.

Kennedy is an uneducated ignorant buffoon. His plans are anti-science and anti-health. That's all I need to know.

ETA: My wife and I plan to get our shots from our good doctors or outside the U.S.

[yardwork]

15. It's a fucking lie.

Period. He's lying about everything.

[Hekate]

5. Bob K's scheme seems likely to cause delays -- and uncertainty

[Crunchy Frog]

8. The Novavax Covid shot already exists

but it looks like he's trying to throw up hurdles that it will be impossible for it to clear.

Would we be able to go to Canada for boosters?

I think he wants the more vulnerable population dead.

[Meowmee]

12. It is clear that the psychopath rfk jr

Who has already murdered children by stating vaccines aren’t safe and pushing crack pot remedies etc. is trying to derail all vaccines period. Will anyone stop him before millions more are murdered?

For those that aren’t aware, he also profited off pushing the lie that vaccines cause autism.