Rachael Robertson

Hundreds of former and current #HHS workers signed an open letter calling for HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to stop spreading misinformation and to guarantee their safety after a gunman opened fire at #CDC headquarters in Atlanta earlier this month, @rachrobertson.bsky.social reports.

Why Menopause Hormone Therapy Still Divides Physicians Rachel Weinerman, MD, on what physicians have learned since the WHI published two decades ago

Why does menopause hormone therapy still divide physicians? I spoke with a reproductive endocrinologist about this debate, how research on MHT has evolved since the WHI, + how doctors can interpret the science when caring for their patients. @medpagetoday.com
www.medpagetoday.com/obgyn/hrt/11...

“That's a red flag for me, that people were hand-picked to represent a particular perspective and may have big conflicts of interest that were not disclosed." — Susan Mayne, PhD, a former director of the FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition

Meanwhile, expert panels are announced last minute, held in small rooms, panelists have significant COI, and often share the opinion of federal health officials.

Experts worry these expert panels sidestep regulated advisory committees which require transparency measures like advance notice, public comment periods, shared evidence, and conflict of interest disclosures.

FDA 'Expert Panels' Raise Concerns of Evading Regulations, Ethics Do panels cherry-pick experts and evidence that align with FDA leadership's views?

FDA has recently held a slew of so-called "expert panels" (on menopause, SSRIs in pregnancy, talc, + baby formula) that sidestep legal procedures + ethics guardrails, raising concern about cherry-picking of experts and evidence.

For @medpagetoday.bsky.social 👇🏻
www.medpagetoday.com/washington-w...

There's a Major Publishing Slowdown at CDC's Flagship Journal Each MMWR article now requires clearance by the HHS secretary, sources said

There's a major publishing slowdown at CDC's flagship journal, MMWR. Submissions are down, and there's a new step in the process that's never been required before -- all articles must be cleared by the HHS secretary's office (though an HHS spokesperson said this was "false"). More here:

Map of the United States highlighting states with legislation allowing over-the-counter ivermectin

A handful of states have passed legislation allowing ivermectin to be sold and purchased over-the-counter -- and other state legislatures have their sights set on doing the same. @rachrobertson.bsky.social

"I don't want to stand by the bed of children and watch them die of vaccine-preventable diseases, which I have done in the past, before we had these vaccines," Kathryn Edwards, MD, a retired pediatrician and vaccine expert said.

“Medicine isn't about silencing the people that you disagree with. Medicine is about taking science and looking at the data and coming up with conclusions." — Kathryn Edwards, MD, a retired pediatrician and vaccine expert in Tennessee.

Anti-Vaxxers on CDC Panel: A Broken Promise From RFK Jr.? Being called an anti-vaxxer is a compliment, one new ACIP member says

RFK Jr promised that new CDC vaccine advisors wouldn’t be “ideological anti-vaxxers” — yet many of his new appointees are known for their anti-vax views. One even posted this week that the term is “not a slur, but a compliment.”

My latest 👇🏻
www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdi...

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Honored to be a NIHCM finalist alongside the rest of my amazing team for our dive into the dirty details of the weight-loss drug boom🏆

For people experiencing a poisoning emergency or who have questions, America’s Poison Centers encourages contacting Poison Help at 1-800-222-1222, or visiting PoisonHelp.org for online resources and support.

"It is markedly concerning to see an increasing trend of pediatric exposures this year already." —Christopher Holstege, MD, medical director of UVA Health's Blue Ridge Poison Center.

“Vitamin A cannot prevent measles. Vaccines prevent us from getting measles.”

Amid Measles Outbreaks, Poison Centers See Uptick in Vit A Exposures in Kids RFK Jr. has touted the vitamin for the highly contagious virus

SCOOP: Poison control centers have received nearly 40% more reports of vitamin A exposures among kids from Jan. 1 through Mar. 31 this year compared to the same time last year -- a trend that lines up with the growing measles outbreaks in Texas and other states.

www.medpagetoday.com/special-repo...

“As a friend of mine likes to say: vaccines don't prevent disease -- vaccination prevents disease. And as I like to say, vaccine in the refrigerator never yet prevented a single case of infection.” — William Schaffner, MD, professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Private industry produces the vaccines, but government promotes them. Sources told me people are worried about how recent staffing cuts will impact health agencies' ability to function — including on the vaccine front.

“From a pure efficacy standpoint, the cell-based vaccines have always been superior," Amesh Adalja, MD, of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security told me. Egg-based vaccines have downsides, like a long production time, which can lead to vaccine mismatch. // @ameshaa.bsky.social

Previous bird flu outbreaks and decades-old public health infrastructure have led industry to protect the hens used for vaccine production, protecting them from wild birds. These are not the same flocks used for commercial egg production. Plus, we have other vax technologies that don’t rely on eggs.

Will the Egg Shortage Affect Flu Shots? Millions of vaccine doses are made using chicken eggs each year

Millions of vaccine doses are made from chicken eggs each year. So how exactly will the #eggshortage impact flu vax production for next season? My latest for @medpagetoday.bsky.social

www.medpagetoday.com/special-repo...

"These findings indicate that many pregnant people were unable to overcome barriers to access abortion services and instead were forced to continue an unwanted or unsafe pregnancy to term.” —Suzanne Bell, PhD, MPH, of @johnshopkinssph.bsky.social

Birth Rates, Infant Mortality Increased in Abortion Ban States Results of two new studies are in line with earlier findings looking at Texas alone

In 14 states that adopted abortion bans after Roe v. Wade was overturned, birth rates increased — but so did infant mortality. The greatest differences were seen by marginalized women, according to two studies.

www.medpagetoday.com/obgyn/aborti...

"Watching what happened in the past week has me asking, do we need to have more than one warehouse? What are the costs versus benefits of locating all the data in one spot? Should we have a backup?" — Epidemiologist Becky Smullin Dawson, PhD, MPH, told @medpagetoday.bsky.social

Cross-referencing archived data with re-released data will be critical for understanding what exactly was altered, said epidemiologist Katelyn Jetelina, PhD, MPH // @kkjetelina.bsky.social

Some datasets the Trump administration took down are live again — though "the newly available versions have been censored, most notably to remove data related to transgender people." — Rachel Hoopsick, PhD, MS, MPH // @rachelhoopsick.bsky.social

Archives Host Missing CDC Data Comparing archived data with censored government data will be critical, epidemiologists say

Researchers have been learning the hard way that government data may not always be available or reliable — so archives, like @archive.org, have been hosting critical CDC data. That particular archive was spotlighted by @altcdc.bsky.social.

www.medpagetoday.com/special-repo...

And with that…RFK Jr got the votes he needs to become HHS secretary🤮 It’s an increasingly dark time for public health.

"Removing evidence-based scientific information from websites or apps could lead to delays in care or confusion." — Nikki Zite, MD, MPH, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine in Knoxville

"Given everything going on, we are sadly going to need our professional organizations to step up in this regard." — David Hackney, MD, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland // @davidnhackney.bsky.social