Tag Archives: Rumors and Misinformation

What to Know About mRNA Vaccines

What to Know About mRNA Vaccines

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., has repeatedly questioned the safety of mRNA vaccines against Covid-19. Scientists with funding from the National Institutes of Health were advised to scrub their grants of any reference to mRNA. Around the country, state legislatures are considering bills to ban or limit such vaccines, with one describing them as weapons of mass destruction. While …

Read More »

RFK Jr. Orders Search for New Measles Treatments Instead of Urging Vaccination

RFK Jr. Orders Search for New Measles Treatments Instead of Urging Vaccination

With the United States facing its largest single measles outbreak in 25 years, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will direct federal health agencies to explore potential new treatments for the disease, including vitamins, according to an H.H.S. spokesman. The decision is the latest in a series of actions by the nation’s top health official that experts …

Read More »

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

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

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 took 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 …

Read More »

Autism Rate Continues to Rise Among Children, C.D.C. Reports

Autism Rate Continues to Rise Among Children, C.D.C. Reports

The percentage of American children estimated to have autism spectrum disorder increased in 2022, continuing a long-running trend, according to data released on Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among 8-year-olds, one in 31 were found to have autism in 2022, compared with 1 in 36 in 2020. That rate is nearly five times as high as …

Read More »

A Scientist Is Paid to Study Maple Syrup. He’s Also Paid to Promote It.

A Scientist Is Paid to Study Maple Syrup. He’s Also Paid to Promote It.

For more than a decade, Navindra Seeram, a biomedical researcher, has praised maple syrup, calling it a “hero ingredient” and “champion food” that could have wide-ranging health benefits. Dr. Seeram, dean of the School of Pharmacy at the University of New England, has published more than three dozen studies extolling the power of maple. Much of his work has been …

Read More »

The Many Ways Kennedy Is Already Undermining Vaccines

The Many Ways Kennedy Is Already Undermining Vaccines

During his Senate confirmation hearings to be health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. presented himself as a supporter of vaccines. But in office, he and the agencies he leads have taken far-reaching, sometimes subtle steps to undermine confidence in vaccine efficacy and safety. The National Institutes of Health halted funding for researchers who study vaccine hesitancy and hoped to find …

Read More »

Kennedy Offers Qualified Support for Measles Vaccination

Kennedy Offers Qualified Support for Measles Vaccination

In a rare sit-down interview with CBS News, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s health secretary, recommended the measles vaccine and said he was “not familiar” with sweeping cuts to state and local public health programs. The conversation was taped shortly after his visit to West Texas, where he attended the funeral of an 8-year-old girl who died after contracting …

Read More »

A Second Child Dies of Measles in Texas

A Second Child Dies of Measles in Texas

The measles crisis in West Texas has claimed the life of another child, the second death in an outbreak that has burned through the region and infected dozens of residents in bordering states. The eight-year-old girl died of “measles pulmonary failure” at a hospital in Lubbock, Texas, according to records obtained by The New York Times. It is the second …

Read More »

Why the Right Still Embraces Ivermectin

Why the Right Still Embraces Ivermectin

Joe Grinsteiner is a gregarious online personality who touts the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin. In a recent Facebook video, he produced a tube of veterinary-grade ivermectin paste — the kind made for deworming horses. He gave the tube a squeeze. Then he licked a slug of the stuff, and gulped. “Yum,” Mr. Grinsteiner said in the Feb. 25 video, one of …

Read More »

Trump Administration Has Begun a War on Science, Researchers Say

Trump Administration Has Begun a War on Science, Researchers Say

Some 1,900 leading researchers accused the Trump administration in an open letter on Monday of conducting a “wholesale assault on U.S. science” that could set back research by decades and that threatens the health and safety of Americans. The letter’s signatories, all of them elected members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, warned of the damage being …

Read More »