Latest / 5 minute updates on the latest Trump actions by Prof Christina Pagel / What's happening to the CDC's views on vaccines? | Beyond the headlines

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What's happening to the CDC's views on vaccines? | Beyond the headlines · 5 minute updates on the latest Trump actions by Prof Christina Pagel

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So I've logged 50 authoritarian like actions since the 1st of December.
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And in part one, I covered the populist nationalism agenda.
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But that's not all that's been going on.
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So now in part two, I'm also going to explain
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what's been happening in health policy and civil rights.
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So let's start with vaccinations.
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You may have seen some headlines about the hepatitis B vaccination,
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but let's kind of dig into actually what's happened this week.
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firstly just to set the scene, the centers for Disease Control,
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the CDC convenes the what's called the Advisory
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Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIp.
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And that basically advises, the US government on what vaccines
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should be given to Americans and when.
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And that includes
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the kind of routine vaccinations that people get during childhood.
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So over the summer, the health secretary, RFK junior,
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he sacked all the members of ACIp and replaced them with his own picks,
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including the new chair, Kirk Malone,
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who is who's a known critic of the Covid vaccine.
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So ACIp met last week specifically,
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to discuss the children's vaccine schedule.
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Now, before the meeting, the chair had already said that
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the panel planned to vote to end the universal hepatitis
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B vaccination recommendation at birth.
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So at the moment, the recommendation is
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that all newborns should get the hepatitis
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B vaccination within 24 hours of being born.
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And he also said that the panel wanted to assess
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whether childhood immunisations
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are linked to allergies and auto-immune disorders.
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So basically also trying to, create some doubt
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over the safety and efficacy of the routine vaccines.
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Now, when the panel actually met last week, it included
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a really long presentation.
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So over an hour, which is a really long time
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to give a presentation by prominent anti-vaxxer,
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an ally of RFK junior, a man called Aaron Siri
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So during that presentation, he advocated for a complete
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rethink of the US childhood vaccine schedule.
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So who is he? Right.
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Well, he's not a doctor. He doesn't have a medical background.
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Aaron Siri is a lawyer, and his business
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really involves taking vaccine companies to court.
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And his inclusion as an expert presenter in the panel was denounced
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by health experts and included
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Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, who is a qualified doctor.
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So the upshot is that, sure enough, the panel
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then voted to end the CDC recommendation
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that newborns should receive the hepatitis B vaccination.
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Now, this vaccine
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has been used safely for years and is estimated to prevent thousands
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of cases of hepatitis B in infants a year and hundreds of deaths.
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And independent medical bodies like the American Academy of
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Pediatrics is still strongly recommending that all newborns
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receive the vaccine within 24 hours of birth separately.
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The CDC may recommend vaccines, but it's a different body
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that actually licenses them,
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and that's the food and Drug Administration or the FDA.
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And last week, there was a new appointee
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to the FDA center for Drug Evaluation and Research.
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And that is, a woman called Tracy Hogue.
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Now, she is the fifth director this year for that agency.
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But she is also an extremely controversial Covid vaccine skeptic.
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And in fact, she was the one who did the analysis that I covered
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last week where they, basically linked the Covid vaccine
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to ten children's deaths using a very inappropriate methodology.
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And then the same day that they appointed Tracy Hogue,
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a dozen former leaders of the FDA criticized
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the Trump administration over its changes to vaccine policy
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and basically called it a threat to public safety.
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And they did this in an article published
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in the top medical journal, the New England Journal of Medicine.
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So that is kind of explaining a little bit
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about the continued attacks on vaccination
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and childhood vaccinations that are happening in the US.
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So the next kind of attack on science
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that I want to cover is fuel economy.
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Now bear with me.
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I know that might seem extremely boring,
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but it really does affect every American
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who drives a petrol car, right?
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So what happened is that last week, President Trump proposed
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cutting the fuel
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economy standards that Biden had actually put in last year.
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In 2024.
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And what Trump wants to do is make it easier for carmakers
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to sell gasoline powered cars as part of his, you know, unleash
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American Energy program.
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this is what it breaks down as. Right.
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So Biden had mandated that cars have to get
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to 50 miles a gallon, by 2031, But now, the Trump administration,
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under the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
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so not something that kind of trips off the tongue,
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but they're saying that car makers
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only need to get to 34 miles per gallon by 2031,
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And what that does is it does make cars a bit cheaper,
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but it will ultimately cost Americans a lot more in fuel
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because they'll need to buy more fuel to travel the same distance.
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Right.
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And so Trump's own administration
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have estimated the impacts of this change.
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And they've said,
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okay, well, upfront vehicle costs would be almost $1,000 cheaper.
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So it'll cost you less to buy a car.
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But fuel costs on average will go up by about 800 pounds a year.
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So over the lifetime of the car, it's going to be much more expensive.
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And the move also means because of increased fuel consumption,
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that carbon emissions will go up by about 5%.
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However, and this may give you some hint as to why the,
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the administration is pursuing it.
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This move is estimated to save carmakers billions of dollars,
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because they just don't have to spend the money making their cars
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more fuel efficient.
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there's actually been quite a lot happening
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this week in the whole kind of area of civil rights.
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So the first thing is that the US attorney general, Pam Bondi,
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ordered federal law enforcement to step up investigations
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into anti-fascists or antifa movement and what she called
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similar extremist groups.
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what she did is she asked the FBI to compile a list of entities
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that might be engaged in domestic terrorism.
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And what she specifically wanted them to do
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is to start targeting those entities for tax crimes.
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Now, she hasn't specified who these other groups are.
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Antifa itself is not an organisation.
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And tax prosecution has been a really common
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way for, the US government to target dissent.
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So, for instance, Martin Luther King was targeted
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with prosecution over income tax back in the 1960s.
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And so the worry is with this is that the administration
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is basically just going to brand organisations that oppose it
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as domestic terrorists and start targeting them for investigations.
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The other thing that's happened is that since 2003,
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this is a long time ago, in 2003, the prison rape
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Elimination Act passed unanimously in Congress.
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It was a bipartisan act.
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And what it did is it required people in prison
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to be screened for their risk of facing sexual assault.
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And that includes rape.
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And specifically, they said that that assessment had to determine,
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we'll have to take into account their risk if they were Lgbt+.
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Right.
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Because it was already known that people who were LGBTQ+
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were more at risk of sexual violence in prison.
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And and what it meant is that if you were considered
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to be more at risk, that had to be taken account
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in terms of where, and how you were incarcerated.
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So this is a long standing mitigation.
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But last week, the Department of Justice issued a memo that said
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that the state should explicitly ignore Lgbtq+
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considerations when they audit whether prisons
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are complying with the law.
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So effectively, it significantly weakens the obligations of prisons
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to protect their LGBTQ+ inmates from sexual assault.
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Which to me just seems pretty horrific and regressive.
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And then the kind of the last thing here is it's something
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which I think is incredibly petty and mean.
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Admiral Rachel Levine served as the assistant secretary
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of health under Biden,
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and she was in
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charge of the commission core of the US Public Health Service,
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and she was the first transgender person to win Senate confirmation.
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And her portrait has been displayed
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in the Department of Health and Human Services building since 2021.
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So this week, the department has changed
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the name and her official portrait to her previous male name.
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So what is commonly called dead-Naming someone.
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There's no reason to do that, right?
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But they just did it to,
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I have to assume, to humiliate her.
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So that is the kind of the last thing
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that happened in terms of civil rights.
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so, the the the last thing that happened
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in various ways in which it's become very clear
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that Trump wants to be treated as a king.
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So the first thing like, like populist
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leaders, they love to celebrate themselves.
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And so last week, the National Park Service announced some changes
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to how it, or why it would offer free entry to its national parks.
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Right.
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So the first thing it did is it said it would stop offering
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free entry, on Martin Luther King Junior Day and Juneteenth.
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So Juneteenth is, the 19th of June, and it celebrates
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the end of slavery in the US.
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But it added a new free entry day to its calendar.
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And that day is Donald Trump's birthday.
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The second thing is that, Donald Trump's
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name has been
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added to the sign outside
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the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C.
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it was called
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the US Institute of Peace, and now it's called the Donald J.
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Trump Institute of Peace.
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And the white House spokesman spokesperson said,
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this is both beautifully and aptly named after a President
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who has ended eight wars in less than a year.
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The last thing is that you may know that Trump
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did not win the Nobel Peace Prize this year.
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Mr. Infantino, who is president of FIFA, so
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soccer's, global governing body, kind of quite prominently campaigned
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for Donald Trump to get the Nobel Peace Prize.
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It's also true that the next, soccer World
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Cup is going to be held in the United States.
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So what happened was that FIFA has decided
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to institute its own peace prize called Football Unites the World.
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It was very hastily arranged.
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It surprised several of the body's most senior
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officials, including its board members.
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so that, to the surprise of absolutely no one, Trump was awarded
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the inaugural prize last week, along with a gold medal
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and FIFA has not disclosed its selection process.
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So I think, you know, we saw a slightly quieter
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October and November in the US,
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maybe because of the shutdown or the preoccupation
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with the Epstein files, but it really feels like in December
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that things are starting to really accelerate again.
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So there's just been a lot to cover this week.
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See you next week.
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So if you enjoyed this video then you might also enjoy this video,
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which was about some other actions that you may have missed of
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the Trump administration.