{"id":20974,"date":"2025-01-28T15:09:30","date_gmt":"2025-01-28T16:09:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=20974"},"modified":"2025-01-28T16:23:37","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T16:23:37","slug":"the-8-billion-childrens-vaccine-fund-kennedy-would-oversee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=20974","title":{"rendered":"The $8 Billion Children\u2019s Vaccine Fund Kennedy Would Oversee"},"content":{"rendered":"
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If confirmed by the Senate to be the nation\u2019s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would have vast powers over immunization policies for children and adults.<\/p>\n

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When President Bill Clinton worked with a bipartisan Congress to enact a federal program to guarantee vaccines for poor children, they agreed that the authority over buying shots from drug makers should rest with the health secretary. The bill\u2019s drafters did not consider that an extremely vocal critic of childhood vaccines would emerge as a nominee for the role.<\/p>\n

That critic, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., comes before the Senate for confirmation hearings this week. If confirmed, he would have the power to limit or even cut off contracts with the makers of vaccines for more than half the nation\u2019s children under the $8 billion dollar<\/a> Vaccines for Children program.<\/p>\n

The program has been credited<\/a> with raising national vaccination rates and protects nearly 38 million low-income and working-class children from diseases like polio, measles, whooping cough and chickenpox.<\/p>\n

Mr. Kennedy has said he would not take vaccines away from anyone, but he has a long history of questioning vaccine safety. The far-reaching authority he would wield over vaccine policy has become increasingly worrisome for public health experts, researchers and lawmakers from both parties.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Some architects of the program are trying to persuade senators to oppose his nomination.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s dangerous to children\u2019s health,\u201d Donna E. Shalala, Mr. Clinton\u2019s health secretary and a former Democratic congresswoman, said in an interview. She said she had spoken to Republican senators who expressed uneasiness about Mr. Kennedy, but would not name them.<\/p>\n

Confirmation hearings for Mr. Kennedy will begin on Wednesday before the Senate Finance Committee, and continue on Thursday before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The back-to-back sessions will give senators of both parties an opportunity to ask Mr. Kennedy pointed questions about how he would oversee the nation\u2019s large health agencies and vaccine policies.<\/p>\n

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If confirmed by the Senate to be the nation\u2019s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would have vast powers over immunization policies for children and adults.When President Bill Clinton worked with a bipartisan Congress to enact a federal program to guarantee vaccines for poor children, they agreed that the authority over buying shots from drug makers should rest with the health secretary. The bill\u2019s drafters did not consider that an extremely vocal critic of childhood vaccines would emerge as a nominee for the role.That critic, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., comes before the Senate for confirmation hearings this week. If confirmed, he would have the power to limit or even cut off contracts with the makers of vaccines for more than half the nation\u2019s children under the $8 billion dollar Vaccines for Children program.The program has been credited with raising national vaccination rates and protects nearly 38 million low-income and working-class children from diseases like polio, measles, whooping cough and chickenpox.Mr. Kennedy has said he would not take vaccines away from anyone, but he has a long history of questioning vaccine safety. The far-reaching authority he would wield over vaccine policy has become increasingly worrisome for public health experts, researchers and lawmakers from both parties.Some architects of the program are trying to persuade senators to oppose his nomination.\u201cI think he\u2019s dangerous to children\u2019s health,\u201d Donna E. Shalala, Mr. Clinton\u2019s health secretary and a former Democratic congresswoman, said in an interview. She said she had spoken to Republican senators who expressed uneasiness about Mr. Kennedy, but would not name them.Confirmation hearings for Mr. Kennedy will begin on Wednesday before the Senate Finance Committee, and continue on Thursday before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The back-to-back sessions will give senators of both parties an opportunity to ask Mr. Kennedy pointed questions about how he would oversee the nation\u2019s large health agencies and vaccine policies.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20976,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20974"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20977,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20974\/revisions\/20977"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}