Updated Covid vaccines for the fall may be in jeopardy under Kennedy's new rules

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: NBC News

May 1, 2025, 5:48 PM EDT
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The anticipated rollout of updated Covid vaccines this fall might be at risk after a change by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in how vaccines are tested, experts say.

Under the change by Kennedy, according to an HHS spokesperson, all new vaccines will need to go through placebo-controlled clinical trials — where some people get the actual shot and others get something inactive, like a saline shot — to compare the results. Running trials that include a placebo group is already routine for most new vaccines.

The original Covid vaccines, from Pfizer and Moderna, approved in late 2020, went through placebo-controlled trials. But as the virus continued to mutate and the vaccines needed to be updated to match the circulating strain, drugmakers moved to a flu vaccine-like model — using smaller studies to test how well the updated shots triggered an immune response against the variant in question.

Like the annual flu shot, the updated Covid vaccines weren’t treated as entirely new products, since they still used the same formula, with just a tweak to what strain the vaccine would be targeting. The mRNA Covid vaccines were designed so that this change would be particularly easy to make, in the event the shots needed to be quickly updated.

Read more: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/updated-covid-vaccines-fall-may-jeopardy-rfk-jrs-new-rules-rcna204242

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What an idiot. As noted, it's generally standard practice for clinical trials to have one group with the actual pharmaceutical and another group receiving the placebo.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. This is insane.

Anybody can get Covid, presumably less likely with a vaccine.

Sam Greenfield just died of pneumonia from Covid yesterday. He was in a rehab center for physical/occupational therapy for many many weeks. Cut off from the "outside". Meaning he caught Covid from the Center, visitors, roommates, therapists, staff, etc.

You just aren't safe anywhere.

[Irish_Dem]

3. RFKjr's goal is to kill as many Americans as possible.

The GOP wants to cull the heard of the sick, weak, infirm.

[OldBaldy1701E]

6. Yup.

And, if a few thousand healthy people die along with us... meh, acceptable losses.

[no_hypocrisy]

10. Is he just insane or is this a vendetta against American Society

for allowing his father to be assassinated?

[LisaL]

14. Ask the brainworm.

NT

[Irish_Dem]

2. Covid vaccines have already been in randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled studies.

This means that participants are randomly assigned to receive either
the experimental vaccine or a placebo.

A placebo is an inactive injection that mimics the real experience to the patient.

The covid vaccines receive yearly updates to reflect the mutating viruses each year.
These vaccines have already been tested thoroughly as stated above.
But the yearly updates are not placebo studies because it is unethical to withhold
a needed preventive medication. They do undergo randomized and double blind studies.

RFKjr has no idea how research is conducted. Researchers make excellent research protocols
but they must be done ethically.

[yardwork]

12. The disinformation I'm seeing on DU is mind boggling.

Thanks for posting this.

[Irish_Dem]

15. I keep posting the truth about Covid medical research design.

Most people do not have PhDs and do not know how research protocols are designed.

[yardwork]

17. You have a lot more patience than me.

I don't have a PhD either. I have had the privilege of working adjacent to research scientists, so I know a little about how it works.

However, my anger about this goes much deeper - all the way back to being teased in middle school for being a "smart kid."

I look at Trump and his followers and I see the meanest kids from middle school. When I look at pictures of J6 I see a horde of the worst people I've ever known.

And when I read disinformation on DU I see the mealy-mouthed "nice" kids making excuses or getting confused by the bullies. (I note that both Jesus Christ and MLK, Jr. famously spoke out against the mealy mouthed moderates. It must be a human trait to be more enraged by the "nice" people who make excuses for bullies than by the bullies themselves.)

It's definitely my personal issue! I'm guessing that many Americans, feeling the extreme stress of this situation, have regressed a little bit to childhood traumas and poor coping strategies.

Your example is helpful. I'll try to be more patient.

[Irish_Dem]

20. My buttons are getting pushed on some other current issues too.

The research protocol issue doesn't bother me.
People just don't understand how research is conducted.
I will make an OP about it.

But I have a wild hair up my ass about all the disgusting posts where people are making
excuses for American judges.

Yes the stress of losing our democracy, our way of life, our income, etc is causing
reactivation of old issues and causing new ones.

We will all need to be in therapy before this is over.

[AZ8theist]

21. You say it would "unethical" to without a needed medication....

....as if "ethics" was a thing this wanna-be dictatorship gave a crap about.....

[Irish_Dem]

22. RFKjr appears to want to kill as many Americans as he can.

Ethics and the law are not concepts he is concerned about.

[mdbl]

5. Get out your light stix and horse de-wormers

You're gonna need em'

[Javaman]

7. they'll be recommending shots of bleach. nt

[Javaman]

8. here comes round two of covid :( nt

[truthisfreedom]

9. Won't be long and he'll be out cruising with his buddies

And dumping our bodies in Central Park because we’re too rotten to eat.

[NNadir]

11. As usual, the Trump cult is killing Americans with impunity.

[LisaL]

13. And if they apply the same rule to flu vaccines,

we won't get flu vaccines either.

[BootinUp]

16. We will have to see

what happens.

But in the long run they will lose these fights.

[mainer]

18. If only there were some way to opt out of the placebo group

And request to be in the vaccine group.

[PurgedVoter]

19. Bets that the placebo is given to places that voted blue.

That would help disguise how bad red counties do when a disease is spreading.