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Ed Belongia MD @belongia.bsky.social · 4h

The license remains valid even if the product is not sold in the US. For example, the live shingles vaccine (Zostavax) is still licensed but Merck does not sell it in the US. The left the US market after ACIP made a preferential recommendation for the recombinant shingles vaccine (Shingrix).

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Ed Belongia MD @belongia.bsky.social · 15h

There are other monovalent measles vaccines but I think only Attenuvax is licensed in the US. The path to licensure is slow and uncertain.

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Ed Belongia MD @belongia.bsky.social · 16h

Excellent point.

Ed Belongia MD @belongia.bsky.social · 16h

Correction: The measles monovalent vax (Attenuvax) is licensed in the US but not currently manufactured here.

Andrew Noymer @andrewnoymer.bsky.social · 16h

Merck already makes a monovalent measles vaccine, Attenuvax®.

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Ed Belongia MD @belongia.bsky.social · 17h

CDCs demand to break up MMR vax into separate monovalent shots is public health malpractice.
These vax are widely used worldwide. The 2 manufacturers (Merck & GSK) could easily decide to abandon the US market rather than take a big financial risk on clinical development & licensure of separate shots

HELLody SchreiBOO @melodyschreiber.com · 22h

Andrew Wakefield claimed without evidence in a retracted study that there was a link between autism and the combination MMR vaccine -- but not separate shots.

Wakefield filed a patent for his own separate shots the year before the study was published.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Alarm as CDC calls for separate MMR vaccines despite measles outbreak

Concerns that three separate shots would be more costly and time-consuming, and keep kids from being vaccinated

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Ed Belongia MD

🎃 public HELLth guy 🎃 @publichealthguy1.bsky.social · 3d

they just slapped a surgeons general warning on RFK like he’s a pack of cigarettes

Dan Diamond @ddiamond.bsky.social · 3d

“Secretary Kennedy is entitled to his views. But he is not entitled to put people’s health at risk.”

Six former surgeons general condemn RFK Jr.

Opinion | Six surgeons general: RFK Jr. is a threat to the health of Americans

It was our duty in office to warn of dangers when we found them. We’re doing that again today.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Ed Belongia MD @belongia.bsky.social · 5d

CDC is being run by politicians now.

"there are few experienced leaders left at the CDC; some 80% of..center leaders were laid off or terminated, or have [left]. Houry was the only permanent career official in CDC's office of the director... there were 10 political appointees remaining, she said."

🎃 public HELLth guy 🎃 @publichealthguy1.bsky.social · 5d

a respected senior CDC official telling the public that the federal agency has undergone a hostile takeover and it barely makes the news because that’s the state of the world today

Prof Sheena Cruickshank @sheencr.bsky.social · 5d

This is another damning picture of Kennedy refusing to meet with senior scientists and get advice about infections or vaccines whilst he spreads disinformation #healthpolicy

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Reposted by Ed Belongia MD

Madhu Pai, MD, PhD @madhupai.bsky.social · 7d

PubMed is in trouble

This is beyond bad for medical research

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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Ed Belongia MD @belongia.bsky.social · 5d

No training in stats or climate models is needed to understand this is bad news for the planet 👇

Zack Labe @zacklabe.com · 6d

Record warm ocean temperatures continued in September across the North Pacific Ocean, with a number of consequential impacts (including on downstream weather patterns).

This graph shows the average for a band across the midlatitudes for every September from 1854-2025 using @noaa.gov ERSSTv5 data.

Green line graph time series of average sea surface temperature anomalies for each September from 1850 through 2025 for only the midlatitude region of the North Pacific Ocean. There is large interannual variability, but an overall long-term increasing trend. Anomalies are computed relative to a 1981-2010 baseline. 2025 is a record high.

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Ed Belongia MD @belongia.bsky.social · 10d

“If you add the conspicuous absence of pro-vaccination messages to the glut of misleading statements from top health officials about vaccine safety and effectiveness, the federal government’s effort this year looks more like a proactive campaign to discourage vaccination.”
👇

CIDRAP @cidrap.bsky.social · 10d

Viewpoint: What we don’t see about #vaccines COULD hurt us

The Vaccine Integrity Project staff and advisors note the conspicuous absence of US health agency vaccine campaigns and annual vaccination reminders ahead of respiratory virus season.

www.cidrap.umn.edu/c...

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Ed Belongia MD @belongia.bsky.social · 13d

281 US children died from the flu in the 2024-25 season. Vaccination saves lives. 👇

Dr. Tom Frieden @drtomfrieden.bsky.social · 13d

More kids died from flu last season than in any non-pandemic season since monitored began 20 years ago. Almost 90% were unvaccinated. Parents: talk to your doctor about getting your kids vaccinated. www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes...

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Ed Belongia MD @belongia.bsky.social · 14d

Great 🧵 and published review on COVID and flu vax effectiveness & evidence supporting a policy of universal flu & COVID-19 vaccination. 👇👇

Dr. Dawn Bowdish @msmacrophage.bsky.social · 15d

I'm excited to share our review "Rationalizing recommendations for influenza and COVID-19 vaccines", which we feel makes a strong case for universal influenza and COVID-19 vaccination policies. With almost 500 references & 8 supplementary tables it's a beast so let me break it down for you....1/n

Rationalizing recommendations for influenza and COVID-19 vaccines

Influenza vaccination saves lives, reduces short-term and long-term health consequences, decreases healthcare utilization, and improves pregnancy outc…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Ed Belongia MD @belongia.bsky.social · 14d

Thank you!🙏

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Ed Belongia MD @belongia.bsky.social · 17d

"So ACIP will say the risk of febrile seizures [after MMR] is intolerably high, it cannot be reduced without the supposedly dangerous autism pill, & the only solution is to withhold a vaccine that has...protected America’s children..." @angierasmussen.bsky.social

open.substack.com/pub/rasmusse...

The Poison Pill to End the MMR is Tylenol

If you think Tylenol is bad for babies, wait until you hear about rubella virus

open.substack.com

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Ed Belongia MD @belongia.bsky.social · 17d

👇 Timely 🧵 on public health news from @ylepidemiologist.bsky.social

Your Local Epidemiologist @ylepidemiologist.bsky.social · 17d

1/ It’s Monday, which means a brand-new edition of The Dose. This week we're looking at the messy #vaccine headlines after last week's ACIP meeting, falls among older adults, loneliness among young people, and a top question on Covid shots at pharmacies. Here’s what you need to know 👇

Reposted by Ed Belongia MD

Prasad Jallepalli, MD, PhD @prasad.bsky.social · 17d

statement by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

ACOG @acog.org · 17d

ACOG reaffirms that acetaminophen is safe for managing pain and fever during pregnancy. No reputable studies support suggestions like those in HHS’s recent announcement linking acetaminophen use in pregnancy to autism; in fact, high-quality studies show no such risk. https://bit.ly/47Wxc59

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Reposted by Ed Belongia MD

Prof Gavin Yamey @gavinyamey.bsky.social · 17d

Medical ethicist Arthur Kaplan, quoted in the NYT:

“The announcement on autism was the saddest display of a lack of evidence, rumors, recyling old myths, lousy advice, outright lies & dangerous advice I have ever witnessed by anyone in authority in the world claiming to know anything about science”

Prof Gavin Yamey @gavinyamey.bsky.social · 17d

This MAGA/MAHA/Trump/RFK Jr/Dr Oz/Dr Bhattacharya press conference right now is quite possibly the worst press conference—from the viewpoints of medicine, public health, & medical ethics—that I’ve ever seen. These men are so shameless & deeply irresponsible. Wherever happened to science & evidence?

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Ed Belongia MD @belongia.bsky.social · 18d

This large Swedish study found no association between acetaminophen & autism using matched sibling controls. Also no dose-response effect. Ppl who use acetaminophen while pregnant differ in many ways from those who do not, & using sibling controls was a great way to reduce unmeasured confounding

Discussion

Sibling control analyses found no evidence that acetaminophen use during pregnancy was associated with children’s risk of autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability. This suggests that the small increase in children’s risk of neurodevelopmental disorders associated with acetaminophen use observed in statistical models without sibling control may have been due to unmeasured confounding. In addition, sibling control analyses did not identify a dose-response association between acetaminophen and neurodevelopmental disorders.

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Reposted by Ed Belongia MD

Peter Gleick @petergleick.bsky.social · 22d

🚨🚨
If I could just summarize 1 sentence from the new National Academy of Sciences study on climate, boldface, flashing red, it would be:

"the evidence for current and future harm to human health and welfare created by human-caused GHGs is beyond scientific dispute."

BEYOND SCIENTIFIC DISPUTE
🚨🚨

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Ed Belongia MD @belongia.bsky.social · 18d

💯. Expertise is a liability on the new ACIP.

Reposted by Ed Belongia MD

Demetre Daskalakis @drdemetre.bsky.social · 20d

4) COVID vaccine was made “shared clinical decision making” (SCDM). Which means different barriers in different states. Some will require a prescription. Some won’t… ACIP had been moving away from SCDM because of the barriers. Doublespeak jargon about individual choice means nothing.

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Reposted by Ed Belongia MD

Peter Daszak @peterdaszak.bsky.social · 19d

Well worth the read. Reiss calmly & unemotionally lays out the case as to how & why RFK is a serious threat to our children’s health. He’s “paring down public health agencies” by firing staff, replacing w/ “political appointees judged more by loyalty than expertise”. www.wsws.org/en/articles/...

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Ed Belongia MD @belongia.bsky.social · 19d

We need multiple different vaccine platforms during a pandemic, and non-mRNA vaccines played an important role in many countries. Weissman was responding to the false and misleading information on mRNA vax that was presented at the CDC ACIP mtg.

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Ed Belongia MD @belongia.bsky.social · 20d

"No vaccine was tested more extensively than the RNA vaccines, and no vaccine was given to more people than the mRNA vaccines, & they were found to be incredibly safe...and effective. They saved 20 million lives, & they stopped a pandemic that was shutting down the world."
-Drew Weissman

Matthew Herper @matthewherper.bsky.social · 20d

Winner of mRNA Nobel Prize says ACIP member’s claim that Covid vaccines persist is “absolutely impossible”

In Q&A, Drew Weissman says vast literature shows Covid shots are safe, refutes claims from Retsef Levi
www.statnews.com/2025/09/20/d...

Winner of mRNA Nobel Prize says ACIP member’s claim that Covid vaccines persist is “absolutely impossible”

In a Q&A with STAT, Nobel winner Drew Weissman addressed concerns raised about Covid shots at a recent meeting of federal vaccine advisers.

www.statnews.com

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Ed Belongia MD @belongia.bsky.social · 20d

👇👇

Edward Nirenberg @enirenberg.bsky.social · 20d

The incompetence is staggering. To have 4 votes and not even legal experts can figure out what the recommendations are is wild (I’m not positive either- the meeting was profoundly incoherent)

Maggie Astor @maggieastor.bsky.social · 20d

Okay. ACIP meeting is over. Here are the four things they voted on with regard to Covid vaccines. Votes 1, 3 and 4 passed. Vote 2 (the call for a prescription requirement) did NOT pass.

The language is so unclear that two legal experts I've consulted so far don't know what this means for access.

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