From The Hill:
He argued that public health is not the “first order” of his group.
Last month, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appointed Milhoan to be chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last month.
Appearing on the podcast “Why Should I Trust You?” — which explores the gap between scientific data and public trust — Milhoan was asked to discuss how he views the efficacy and risk of vaccines like those for polio and measles, mumps and rubella (MMR).
“As you look at polio, we need to not be afraid to consider that we are in a different time now than we were then,” he said. “Our sanitation is different, our risk of disease is different and so that those all play into the evaluation of whether this is worthwhile of taking a risk for a vaccine or not.”
Milhoan said school vaccine requirements are “authoritarian,” but he stopped short of accepting he label of “anti-vaxxer.”
Asked if he agreed that the MMR and polio vaccines are safe with a “proven” history of lowering the rates of these diseases, Milhoan pushed said, “I think that ‘proven’ might be a little bit harsh, a little bit stronger, for what it’s done because of the pre-vaccine decrease in incidence of disease, but I understand what you’re saying.”
“Remember, we’re just an advisory panel. We can’t make any declarations. We can tell you what we believe the evidence shows and we try to do that as transparently and honestly as the data supports and present data,” Milhoan added. “But it’s been very important to us, members of committee, is that what we are doing is returning individual autonomy to the first order, not public health, but individual autonomy to the first order.”
Read more at The Hill
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