What Will Trump Do On Vaccines? The Jury Is Still Out.

By COURTNEY GILDENGIL and LAURA FAHERTY On January 10th, then-President-elect Donald Trump met with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vocal skeptic of vaccine safety. Although the details and implications of the session are still unclear, the meeting and several of Trump’s tweets have raised questions among public health experts who wonder what, if anything, Trump might do on the issue as president. A chorus of celebrities and politicians continue to question vaccine safety and propagate a myth linking vaccines and autism, fueled by a fraudulent 1998 article by Dr. Andrew Wakefield that was later retracted. In 2014, RAND undertook a rigorous and independent systematic review of vaccine safety for all populations, including pregnant women and children. From our review we found that while some vaccines are associated with serious side effects, these events are rare and are far outweighed by the benefits of vaccination. For example, we found evidence that the combined measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine is associated with febrile seizures, which are seizures or convulsions that occur when a child has a high fever. But while these seizures are certainly unpleasant and can be frightening for parents to witness, there is no evidence that they cause any long-term harm to children. We also looked specifically for other associations between vaccines and severe adverse events or outcomes, such as leukemia and multiple sclerosis for which concerns have been raised in the past, but...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs