President-elect Donald Trump has praised the polio vaccine as the \u201cgreatest thing,\u201d but a lawyer affiliated with Trump\u2019s pick to lead the country\u2019s top health agency has petitioned the US Food and Drug Administration to revoke approval of the vaccine used in the United States. <\/p>\n
The lawyer, Aaron Siri, filed the petition in 2022 on behalf of the Informed Consent Action Network, or ICAN, a nonprofit that challenges the safety of vaccines and vaccine mandates. Siri has been working closely with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. \u2013 a vaccine skeptic and Trump\u2019s pick to lead the US Department of Health and Human Services \u2013 to choose officials to serve in the incoming administration. He was also Kennedy\u2019s personal lawyer during his own presidential campaign. <\/p>\n
If Kennedy is confirmed as head of HHS, he\u2019ll oversee the FDA and could take the rare step of intervening in its petition review process. In a recent interview, Kennedy told NBC News that he wasn\u2019t going to take away anybody\u2019s vaccines but said, \u201cPeople ought to have a choice, and that choice ought to be informed by the best information.\u201d <\/p>\n
Trump told Time magazine in an interview that was conducted in late November but published this week that more research will get underway and that he would consider getting rid of some vaccines for children, \u201cif I think it\u2019s dangerous, if I think they are not beneficial.\u201d <\/p>\n
But Trump has also praised polio vaccination. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe polio vaccine is the greatest thing. If somebody told me to get rid of the polio vaccine, they\u2019re going to have to work real hard to convince me,\u201d Trump said told NBC\u2019s \u201cMeet the Press\u201d in an interview aired Sunday. <\/p>\n
The petition and Kennedy\u2019s affiliation with the lawyer who filed it were first reported by the New York Times. <\/p>\n
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, himself a polio survivor, issued a warning about the issue Friday that was apparently intended for Kennedy. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe polio vaccine has saved millions of lives and held out the promise of eradicating a terrible disease,\u201d he said in a statement. \u201cEfforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed \u2013 they\u2019re dangerous. Anyone seeking the Senate\u2019s consent to serve in the incoming Administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts.\u201d <\/p>\n
Polio vaccination is considered one of the greatest achievements in global public health. it was once a disease that paralyzed and killed thousands of Americans during outbreaks, but the advent of a vaccine in the 1950s has greatly reduced the incidence around the world, putting the goal of disease eradication on the cusp of becoming a reality. <\/p>\n
In the 1950s, before a vaccine was available, polio killed or paralyzed more than half a million people globally each year, according to the World Health Organization. <\/p>\n
Siri\u2019s petition asks the FDA to withdraw or suspend approval for the inactivated poliomyelitis vaccine until \u201ca properly controlled and properly powered double-blind trial of sufficient duration is conducted to assess the safety of this product.\u201d <\/p>\n
Siri filed the petition the same year health officials in New York stepped up vaccine campaigns against polio after a young unvaccinated adult was paralyzed by the infection and the virus turned up in local wastewater. That case was the first in the US in almost a decade. <\/p>\n
The petition homes in on what sounds like an alarming fact \u2013 that there was no placebo-controlled clinical trial to prove the vaccine\u2019s safety \u2013 and but experts say it distorts reality to make it seem like risks of polio vaccination could outweigh the benefits, which isn\u2019t true. <\/p>\n
In fact, placebo-controlled trials aren\u2019t considered ethical for most vaccines because a portion of the people who participate in them wouldn\u2019t get the shot, leaving them unprotected. Polio isn\u2019t widely circulating, and it wouldn\u2019t be ethical to deliberately infect a healthy person with the virus. There is no cure for polio, and someone who\u2019s unprotected could be left paralyzed for the rest of their life. <\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re substituting a theoretical risk for a real risk,\u201d Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at the Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadephia, told the New York Times. \u201cThe real risks are the diseases.\u201d <\/p>\n
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that no serious adverse events related to the use of inactivated polio vaccine have been documented. Rarely, people can have reactions to the vaccine if they are allergic to certain types of antibiotics, such as streptomycin, polymyxin B or neomycin. <\/p>\n
Siri\u2019s petition focuses on the inactivated polio vaccine, which has been used in the United States for more than two decades. <\/p>\n
The US switched away from the oral vaccine \u2013 which uses a weakened but live version of the virus \u2013 because about once in every 3 million times that it is given, the weak virus can cause paralysis in the vaccine recipient. However, the oral vaccine is still used in some other countries. <\/p>\n
The inactivated polio vaccine used in the United States is given by injection and doesn\u2019t carry that risk, making it even safer for the people who get it. But the injected vaccine doesn\u2019t create so-called mucosal immunity, meaning it doesn\u2019t stop the virus from being able to infect people if it enters the body. <\/p>\n
Rather, the injected vaccine protects people against this worst-case scenario: It helps the immune system recognize the virus and fight it off before it gets to the nervous system. <\/p>\n
It also doesn\u2019t stop transmission of the virus, because people who get it can still be infected and shed the virus in their stool. <\/p>\n
In the United States, however, this hasn\u2019t been problem because \u2013 thanks to vaccination \u2013 poliovirus doesn\u2019t usually circulate. <\/p>\n
Poliovirus is spread from person to person through the fecal-oral route. People infect each other when they get the virus on their hands after using the bathroom and then shake hands or touch surfaces. <\/p>\n
The weakened virus from the oral vaccine can also be shed in stool, and that can become a problem in populations that aren\u2019t adequately vaccinated. If this transmission happens in a population that isn\u2019t well-vaccinated, there\u2019s a chance it could mutate back to a form that can cause paralysis. <\/p>\n
Most of the world\u2019s polio cases are now caused by vaccine-derived virus. In 2023, the number of polio cases caused by vaccine-derived strains was 524, down from 881 in 2022. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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