RFK and vaccines, monkeys escape

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Now President-elect Trump says he wants Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in his new administration will ‘let loose’ on healthcare and the quest to eradicate chronic diseases, we look at who could be influential in that mission.

Among the 10 people chronic disease reporter Isa Cueto knows in the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ movement:

• Calley and Casey Means: The sibling duo — one trained as a doctor at Stanford, both entrepreneurs — have recently risen to MAHA fame, as Isa chronicled last month. Casey Means, who dropped out of her residency program to become a functional medicine doctor, is on his short list to lead a national health organization, Kennedy said earlier this year.

• Del Bigtree: If there’s a man behind the MAHA machine, Isa writes, it’s Bigtree, the former communications director of Kennedy’s presidential campaign and CEO of the MAHA Alliance super PAC.

• Vani Hari: Better known as “Food Babe,” the Instagram influencer with more than 2 million followers has railed against companies like Kellogg’s for including ingredients in American foods that aren’t allowed in other countries, and is headquartered company in Battle Creek, Michigan was stormed. She spoke at the Senate roundtable discussion on chronic diseases.

Read on for more MAHA figures, including current members of Congress and other online personalities.

What can Trump and RFK Jr. actually do with vaccines?

Although it is unclear what official role RFK Jr. will play in Trump’s health administration, he and other members of the Trump-affiliated MAHA movement have a history of anti-vaccine advocacy. Trump transition team co-chair Howard Lutnick wondered the safety of vaccines on CNN, just a week before the election.

But what options does the Trump administration have to actually change the way the US regulates and distributes vaccines?

From the makeup of the committee that makes recommendations to the CDC on vaccines, to the power of the courts and the role Congress plays, STAT’s Lizzy Lawrence and Timmy Broderick have a must-read reality check on the potential future of public health in the US.

Girls’ Night Out: Escape the Monkey Facility

Wednesday evening, Yemassee, South Carolina police posted on Facebook: “Several primates have escaped from the Alpha Genesis facility on Castle Hall Rd.”

Police have since confirmed that the escapees were 43 young female rhesus monkeys weighing six to seven pounds. A company spokesperson confirmed that “these animals are too young to carry diseases,” police said.

Alpha Genesis “is currently monitoring the primates and attempting to entice them with food,” police said around noon yesterday.

Alpha Genesis is a biomedical primate research company that breeds monkeys both on and off site in Yemassee South Carolina’s ‘Monkey Island’ the primate colony run by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which contracts out to private companies such as Alpha Genesis for the care of the monkeys.

This isn’t the first time monkeys have escaped from Alpha Genesis in Yemassee – so has the company fined by the USDA in 2018 for offenses between December 2014 and February 2016, including four escapes involving a total of 30 monkeys.

Reactions from scientists and public health experts to a second Trump presidency

Earlier this week we brought you the biotech and pharmaceutical reactions to the presidential election results. A stellar team of STAT reporters now brings you responses from a range of scientists and health experts. A few highlights:

• “This is an opportunity to reform the agencies that have failed the American people, from the NIH to the CDC to the FDA and others within HHS and beyond. From the massive obesity epidemic, to rampant drug overdoses, to lagging life expectancy, these agencies have proven to be inefficient, burdened with bureaucracy, and delivering very little for the American people.” – Ziyad Al-Aly, senior clinical epidemiologist at Washington University
• “It is a sobering reminder that the scientific establishment and higher education and knowledge creation in general are not capturing the imagination of much of the coalition Trump has built… We need to better explain how science works and act on the values that we all embrace, in terms of self-correction and in terms of standing up for the science when it is right.” – Holden Thorp, editor-in-chief of the Science family of journals

Read more from these experts and others here.

The FDA suggests discontinuing the use of ineffective nasal decongestants

Yesterday the FDA suggested removing phenylephrine as an active ingredient that can be used in oral over-the-counter medications for the treatment of nasal congestion. Phenylephrine is used in medications such as Sudafed PE, but an FDA panel found last year that the drug, while safe, is ineffective.

The current order is merely proposed and open to comment; No manufacturer is required to remove products from shelves until the order is completed. Some products use phenylephrine in combination with other active ingredients such as acetaminophen or dextromethorphan, but this does not affect the effectiveness of the other compounds, the agency noted. The agency also said that phenylephrine is used in some nasally administered medications, and this order does not affect those products — only the oral versions.

The FDA has recommended that consumers should always read the “Drug Facts” label on medications to check the active ingredients, especially since phenylephrine is sold under so many names and brands.

Trial to study MPOX vaccines in pregnant/lactating women and infants

Pregnant women are rarely included in clinical trials due to fears that the vaccine will harm their fetuses. But that leaves them and their babies unprotected when it comes to dangerous diseases. STAT’s Helen Branswell wrote about this Catch-22 when pregnant people were denied access to the Ebola vaccine.

Now a new test in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bavarian Scandinavian MVA-BN will test mpox vaccine in pregnant women and children aged two and under in a study starting in early 2025.

In the first phase of the study, pregnant women will receive two doses of the vaccine before or after birth, and blood and breast milk will be collected from the mothers and infants to see if maternal antibodies are passed to the newborns through either route. In the second phase of the study, babies aged 6 to 24 months will receive a full or half dose of the vaccine.

What we read

• A letter from the editor-in-chief: A groundbreaking moment for science journalism, STAT

• Amid the uncertainty, here’s what Trump’s victory could mean for American science: Science

• America has an onion problem The Atlantic Ocean

• How a Newfoundland scientist solved the mystery of the white blobs washing up The globe and the mail

• You may not be able to avoid a vampire bat, New York Times

• Bird flu infections in agricultural workers go unnoticed, according to research, STAT