TORONTO — Canadian doctors and scientists say Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s firing of an immunization advisory committee south of the border is worrisome.
On Monday, the U.S. health and human services secretary — a longtime anti-vaccine advocate — said he will appoint new members to the scientific group that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about vaccination.
Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan, said Tuesday that the move will foster more false anti-vaccine beliefs, not only in the U.S. but also in Canada.
“It creates a culture in which anti-vaxx beliefs are more accepted and challenged a lot less. And also it creates an environment where there’s an alternative to an evidence-based recommendation framework,” she said.
Even though Kennedy’s new appointments will make vaccine recommendations specific to the United States, any disinformation could also feed vaccine hesitancy among Canadians, Rasmussen said.
“We have a lot of the same anti-vaxx sentiment up here. Certainly this will at the very least empower (that),” she said.
She said Canada could also experience some fallout if the new committee pulls back vaccination recommendations, because manufacturers may cut back on production and that could lead to shortages.
“There’s a lot of potential for really, really damaging vaccine access throughout the U.S. and potentially around the world because the U.S. market has a big impact on what vaccine manufacturers are actually going to make and manufacture,” she said.
“There’s so many ways that this can end up really badly for vaccination in general. And it really causes me a lot of concern.”
Rasmussen said the firing of the advisory committee members is just the latest in a series of anti-public health actions Kennedy has taken.
“It’s a death by a thousand cuts,” said Rasmussen, who is American and moved to Canada during the pandemic to work at the University of Saskatchewan’s Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has already cut billions of dollars in research grants at the National Institutes of Health.
“It just seems that there is a top-down approach that views mRNA vaccines in particular — vaccination in general, but mRNA vaccines in particular — with distrust and is trying to dismantle that particular avenue of medical research,” said Dr. Jesse Papenburg, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist at Montreal Children’s Hospital.
Papenburg, who is a member of Canada’s National Advisory Committee on Immunization but was not speaking on its behalf, said although the Moderna contract cancellation and the firing of the U.S. vaccine advisory committee members are two separate actions, they’re both concerning as Canada tries to prepare for potential human-to-human transmission of H5N1.
“Both are potentially very dangerous when it comes to America’s and the world’s ability to respond to emerging infectious diseases for which vaccines could be a useful medical countermeasure,” he said.
— With files from The Associated Press
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