Plus: The danger of RFK Jr.'s new vaccine committee |
In this week’s edition of InnovationRx, we look at the dangers of RFK Jr.’s vaccine advisory committee, how Trump’s visa ban bars foreign doctors, the first FDA-approved transcontinental telesurgery and more. (Did someone forward this to you? To get it in your inbox, subscribe here.)
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s remaking of the vaccine advisory committee represents a clear and present danger to public health.Last week, RFK Jr. disbanded the entire 17-member Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, known as ACIP. He then replaced the ousted members with eight people of his own choosing. The new members include Robert Malone, a former mRNA researcher who parlayed conspiracy theories about Covid-19 vaccines during the pandemic and has promoted unproven, alternative treatments for both Covid and measles. Other advisors include Martin Kulldorff, also an opponent of Covid shots and co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, which advocated a herd immunity approach to the pandemic. The speed at which these new members were chosen raised red flags among experts. Until now, potential ACIP appointees were often vetted in a lengthy process that took more than a year to ensure they were qualified and didn’t face any potential conflicts of interest. However, several of the new ACIP members don’t have any expertise in vaccines or infectious disease, and two of them served as paid experts in a lawsuit against Merck involving its HPV vaccine. The new members are expected to convene at a scheduled ACIP meeting in Atlanta next week. The committee has been giving advice to doctors and patients on vaccination for 60 years. That advice is used by local governments for help in developing policies for schools that keep children safe and by health insurers to determine which vaccines they’ll pay for and which they won’t. The stakes of this advice is high because vaccination saves lives. Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that giving routine vaccinations to children saved 1.1 million lives between 1994 and 2023. The shots also prevented about 508 million illnesses and 32 million hospitalizations in that time period. |
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 | | This past March, 6,653 foreign citizens, educated at foreign medical schools, matched to internships at American hospitals, according to data from the NRMP. Getty Images |
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| Hasiba Karimi was supposed to be seeing patients at a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania hospital in just a few weeks. She is one of 144 foreign-born international medical school graduates who were slated to start their first year of residency in Pennsylvania this year, and are part of a solution to the critical shortage of doctors in the United States. But she won’t be stateside anytime soon. That’s because Karimi, who lives in Canada and got her medical education in Turkey, was born in Afghanistan. She was scheduled for an H-1B visa appointment on June 9, the same day President Donald Trump’s executive order barring individuals from 19 specific countries from entering the United States took effect. While the order outlines some exceptions—including for diplomatic visas; athletes, coaches and relatives traveling for competitions; and for ethnic and religious minorities “facing persecution in Iran”—it does not carve out an exception for doctors. So now Karimi, who spent years building her experience and resume to win this internship, can only wait and hope. “One in four pediatric residents in the USA are international medical school graduates, and they are filling those spots in the most underserved communities that American graduates are not even applying to,” says Sebastian Arruarana, a resident physician at the Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, and an advocate for international medical graduates. “If this is not solved, who will take care of our children?” Read more here. |
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| A gene editing therapy for severe hemophilia B showed promising results in a new study published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine. Between 2010 and 2012, 10 patients who had severe hemophilia B caused by a defect in their DNA that prevented their bodies from making Factor IX, a key blood clotting agent, received the therapy manufactured by St. Jude Research. The treatment they received included the correct gene. Prior to treatment, the patients required regular injections of Factor IX in order to prevent bleeding episodes. The NEJM study found that more than a decade later, the patients who received this gene therapy were still producing Factor IX. Seven of the patients were able to discontinue injections while the others were able to significantly reduce the amount needed. All reported far fewer bleeding incidents with no significant side effects from the medication. Because gene therapies are so expensive (often in the millions of dollars) a big question is whether a single administration can last without the need for additional doses. This study’s findings show that it’s possible for a treatment to remain durable for more than a decade, which is an encouraging finding for this class of medicine. Plus: 23andMe founder Anne Wojcicki will buy back the assets of the company from bankruptcy. She beat out Regeneron Pharmaceuticals with a $305 million bid. And Caris Life Sciences went public on Wednesday, raising $494 million at an expected valuation of more than $5 billion. |
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| Digital health startup Sword Health raised $40 million led by General Catalyst at a valuation of $4 billion. The company said it plans to use the new capital to expand its services to mental health care. It announced the launch of a new product, called Mind, that it said would combine an AI “therapist” with human professionals. |
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| On Sunday, a patient in Angola received surgery for his prostate cancer. The team that performed the operation, meanwhile, was in Orlando, Florida–about 7,000 miles away. This was the first intercontinental operation of its kind to be approved by the FDA for a clinical trial of remote robotic surgery. The purpose of the test was to see if robotic surgery of this type could be performed at that distance using fiberoptic cables. The procedure was a success, which could pave the way for more remote procedures, increasing healthcare access in countries lacking in doctors and other resources. |
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| PUBLIC HEALTH + HOSPITALS |
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| The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a Tennessee ban on transgender care for minors. The justices voted 6-to-3 that limiting access to treatments such as puberty blockers for those under the age of 18 was not sex discrimination. The ruling, written by Justice John Roberts, comes as the Trump Administration has attacked transgender rights and could have an effect on two dozen other states with similar laws on the books. Leading medical groups endorse treatments for gender dysphoria. |
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