By The Defender Staff
Slashing of U.S. Vaccine Schedule Creates New Uncertainty on Manufacturers’ Legal Protections
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s allies are hopeful that his agency’s move this week to reduce the number of recommended pediatric vaccines opens the door to stripping vaccine makers of the liability shields afforded to them by a landmark 40-year-old law.
Doing so would achieve a longtime aim of Kennedy’s and other vaccine critics who claim the protections disincentivize manufacturers from making vaccines safe and limit the ability of people who claim injuries from vaccines to pursue damages.
Some legal experts aren’t so sure that there’s an immediate opening to strip away liability shields, but see the changes by Kennedy and his aides as a step in that direction, making it easier to sue vaccine manufacturers over injuries believed to be caused by the shots.
Merck Could Lose up to $630 Million in Revenue After CDC Changes HPV Vaccine Recommendation
Merck could lose up to $630 million in Gardasil revenue this year now that the U.S. no longer recommends three doses of the HPV shot in the childhood vaccine schedule, according to Jefferies analysts.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday announced sweeping changes to the childhood vaccine schedule. The health agency no longer recommends that all children get seven of the 18 previously recommended immunizations, and it now says that children should get one dose of the HPV vaccine instead of the two to three doses recommended on the label.
People Regained Weight, Worsened Heart Health After Stopping Weight Loss Drugs: Review
When people who are overweight and obese stopped taking their weight-loss medications they regained weight faster than those who stopped a diet or exercise program, a new review has found. Weight loss medications containing semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy, have taken off in popularity.
But about half of people with obesity on this class of medications, called glucagon-like peptide agonists or GLP-1s, stop taking it within a year. Studies suggest that most people discontinue their use due to the high cost and adverse gastrointestinal side-effects. The authors of a review published in Wednesday’s issue of BMJ say it is important to understand weight regain given the risks of diabetes and heart disease from carrying extra pounds.
To shed light on these questions, Sam West, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford and his co-authors reviewed randomized trials and observational studies on more than 6,000 adults who were overweight or obese and took GLP-1s or older weight-loss medications compared with 3,000 others in behavioral weight management programs. “What we found particularly shocking was just how fast weight was regained after people stopped taking medication,” West said in an interview.
People who went off weight-loss medications regained weight almost four times faster than those who stopped exercising or didn’t stick to their diets.
Wegovy Lots Recalled After Hair Detected in a Prefilled Syringe
Santa Clarita Valley Signal reported:
Multiple lots of weight-loss medication Wegovy were recalled by pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk because hair was found in a prefilled syringe, according to two notices published by the Food and Drug Administration last week.
The recall entails lots of four Wegovy, or semaglutide, single-dose prefilled pens in 0.5 mg/0.5 mL doses, according to an FDA notice issued on Wednesday. The other notice, published on the same day, said that four Wegovy single-dose prefilled pens at 1 mg/0.5 mL doses are also under recall.
The recall is due to the “presence of particulate matter” in which “hair was found in a prefilled syringe,” the notices say. The company voluntarily initiated the recall and sent a letter, according to the FDA. The notices did not say how many units or lots of the drug are under recall.
California Ends Medicaid Coverage of Weight Loss Drugs Despite TrumpRx Plan
Many low-income Californians prescribed wildly popular weight loss drugs lost their coverage for the medications at the start of the new year. Health officials are recommending diet and exercise as alternatives to heavily advertised weight loss drugs like Wegovy and Zepbound, advice experts say is unrealistic.
“Of course he tried eating well and everything, but now with the medications, it’s better — a 100% change,” said Wilmer Cardenas of Santa Clara, who said his husband lost about 100 pounds over about two years using GLP-1s covered by Medi-Cal, California’s version of Medicaid.
California joined several other states in restricting an option they say is no longer affordable as they confront soaring pharmaceutical costs and steep Medicaid cuts under the Trump administration, among other financial pressures. Despite negotiated price reductions announced in November that the White House said would make the drugs available at a “dramatically lower cost to taxpayers” and enable Medicaid to cover them, states are going ahead with the cuts, which providers say may undermine patients’ health.
“It will be quite negative for our patients” because data shows people typically regain weight after stopping the drugs, said Diana Thiara, medical director of the University of California-San Francisco Weight Management Program.
Trump Has Announced Deals With Drugmakers to Cut Costs. Will They Save People Money?
President Donald Trump’s deals with pharmaceutical companies are likely to have only a limited impact on Americans’ drug spending, experts say. Since Sept. 30, the Trump administration has struck deals with 14 drugmakers in exchange for tariff relief, according to the White House.
The agreements — which haven’t gone into effect yet — adopt a “most favored nation” pricing model. They tie U.S. prices to those paid in other wealthy countries, lowering what Medicaid pays for the drugs, as well as offer discounts for people paying in cash through TrumpRx, a new self-pay platform.
Most of the deals, however, don’t affect what people with private insurance or Medicare pay for the drugs. People with Medicaid — who typically have minimal or no copays for prescriptions — already pay very little.
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IPAK-EDU is grateful to The Defender as this piece was originally published there and is included in this news feed with mutual agreement. Read More
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