With RFK Jr. On Their Side, Parents Feel Emboldened to Question Vaccines + More
Source: Children’s Health Defense
With RFK Jr. On Their Side, Parents Feel Emboldened to Question Vaccines
The Wall Street Journal reported:
For roughly seven years, Kaylee Abbott has often quietly confronted the impact of her decision to forgo routine vaccinations for her two children. It has prompted her to switch pediatricians on numerous occasions and at times made her feel like a pariah upon disclosing her children’s vaccination status.
But since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was placed at the helm of U.S. health institutions, Abbott, 46 years old, feels as though she can finally be more open about her skepticism toward vaccines.
“Before, when you said you were unvaccinated, you were judged right off the bat,” said Abbott, a former emergency medical technician who now stays at home with her children in Gadsden, Ala. “Now, people are a little bit more open-minded. We can freely talk about it a little more.”
Almost Half of American Voters Support Reevaluating CDC’s Childhood Vaccine Schedule
A recent poll of 1,006 national voters shows that 49% support reevaluating the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Childhood and Adolescent Immunization Schedule, while only 30% do not, leaving 21% undecided. Additionally, parents with young children show even stronger support for reviewing the schedule (60%).
Children’s Health Defense commissioned the online national survey, conducted on June 24 and 25 by Zogby Strategies. The overall margin of sampling error is +/- 3.2 percentage points, with subgroups having higher margins.
As the newly appointed CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) held its first meeting and created a new workgroup to review the cumulative effects of the government’s recommended vaccine schedule, this poll shows that both conservative and liberal voters support this action.
The poll shows the public is nearly evenly divided on requiring vaccination for public school students. 43% of Americans support public schools mandating the CDC vaccine schedule for attendance. Meanwhile, 39% believe that students should have access to free public education regardless of their vaccine status.
Most US Kids Hospitalized for COVID Had Chronic Illnesses; Less Than 4% Were Vaccinated
Nearly 6 of 10 vaccine-eligible U.S. children hospitalized for COVID-19 from 2022 to 2024 had at least one underlying medical condition, and less than 4% were current with their vaccinations, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)-led researchers reported late last week in Pediatrics.
The team analyzed data from the COVID-19–Associated Hospitalization Surveillance Network, or COVID-NET, from October 2022 to April 2024 on demographic factors, underlying illnesses, COVID-19 vaccination status, and clinical outcomes of children ages six months to 17 years admitted to more than 275 hospitals in 12 states.
The studied outcomes were intensive care unit admission, need for mechanical ventilation, use of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, and in-hospital death. “Although most SARS-CoV-2 infections in children are mild, children can have severe outcomes from COVID-19,” the researchers wrote. “Virus variants and population immunity have changed over time; thus, it is important to understand risk factors for severe disease.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: America Had This Kind Of ‘Beef Jerky Toughness’ That Allowed Us to Conquer the Frontier, We’ve Gone Soft
The U.S Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared on “The Story with Martha MacCallum,” where he defended the Presidential Fitness Test and praised the spirit of American ruggedness that helped conquer the Western frontier.
“The purpose of this is to make sure that kids get outdoors, make sure the kids have physical activity,” Kennedy said. Everybody wants our kids to get up… the sedentary lifestyle is contributing to the malaise, the spiritual malaise that we have in this country. The emotional and depressive state that so many of our kids are in, you need to get out, do competitive sports, work with teamwork, work with other kids, try to make it exciting for everybody and try to make it enjoyable.”
“We need our kids up. Move a muscle, change a thought. If you want to get out of a bad mood, go out and do something physical,” Kennedy advised.
These Students Cut Air Pollution Near Their Schools – by Taking Aim at Their Parents’ Idling Cars
At the start and end of every school day, many Australian children head to the carpark or street to get picked up. While they’re waiting, they will be breathing in a mix of toxic gases and particle pollution.
Why? Because many parents leave their car engines idling while parked. The practice leads to noticeable spikes in pollutants which can trigger asthma attacks and harm student health.
Idling is a surprisingly high cause of carbon emissions, too. Previous research suggests Australian drivers leave their cars idling up to 20% of their total travel time, producing as much as 8% of a trip’s emissions.
Study to Test if Mothers’ Diet Prevents Early Sign of Food Allergy in Babies
The National Institutes of Health reported:
A National Institutes of Health (NIH)-sponsored clinical trial testing whether maternal consumption of peanuts and eggs during pregnancy and breastfeeding prevents babies from developing an early sign of allergies to these foods began today. Food allergy affects about 8% of children in the U.S. and sometimes causes severe or life-threatening reactions. Peanut and egg are two of the most common early-childhood food allergens.
The study will enroll pregnant mothers who are not allergic to peanut or egg but whose babies are at high risk for food allergy because the mother has a parent, sibling or child with allergic disease. NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) is funding the trial.
“Introducing food allergens such as peanut and egg into infants’ diets around four to six months of age has proven to be an important element of food allergy prevention, but this intervention comes too late for some children,” said Alkis Togias, chief of NIAID’s Allergy, Asthma, and Airway Biology Branch. “We need additional, earlier strategies to help prevent the development of food allergies in children at high risk for them.”
