Amid the growing vaccine hesitancy in the United States, the Department of Health and Human Services has made placebo-controlled trials mandatory for all shots.
“Under Secretary Kennedy’s leadership, all new vaccines will undergo safety testing in placebo-controlled trials prior to licensure — a radical departure from past practices,” a Health and Human Services spokesperson said. The department did not provide details on the implementation of the change or the vaccines that would be subject to the testing.
The change would require all new vaccines to undergo placebo testing—a procedure in which some people receive the vaccine while others receive an inert substance— before the results are compared.
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“Secretary Kennedy’s HHS has pledged radical transparency to the American public. This means being honest and straightforward about what we know — and what we don’t know — about medical products, including vaccines,” Andrew Nixon, a spokesman for Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the secretary of Health and Human Services, said.
Health experts warn that this move could delay the availability of vaccines by months, putting vulnerable people at risk.
“I think it is in the interests of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to make vaccines more expensive, less available, and more feared,” Dr. Paul Offit, a University of Pennsylvania vaccine expert, told NPR. “He’s an anti-vaccine activist, a science denialist who is going to do everything possible to tear down the infrastructure in this country of vaccines. Robert F. Kennedy Jr is a dangerous man.”
Kennedy, who became America’s top health official in February, has for decades helped sow doubts regarding the safety and efficacy of vaccines, contributing to a decline in vaccination rates. The latest move comes as America battles one of its worst outbreaks of measles in 25 years. Scientists have cautioned that the nation is on the brink of a resurgence of endemic measles.
