Beth Marie Mole

@bethmariem.bsky.social

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Senior Health Reporter at Ars Technica. PhD in microbiology. Microbes, infectious diseases, public health, questionable puns. (she/her) beth.mole@arstechnica.com | bethmm_ars.02 (Signal)

Vote 1: CDC engage in more consistent, comprehensive informed consent processes

A tweet from Sen. Bill Cassidy saying: Although the appointees to ACIP have scientific credentials, many do not have significant experience studying microbiology, epidemiology or immunology. In particular, some lack experience studying new technologies such as mRNA vaccines, and may even have a preconceived bias against them. Robust and transparent scientific discussion is important, so long as it is rooted in evidence and understanding. Wednesday's meeting should not proceed with a relatively small panel, and no CDC Director in place to approve the panel's recommendations. The meeting should be delayed until the panel is fully staffed with more robust and balanced representation—as required by law—including those with more direct relevant expertise. Otherwise, ACIP’s recommendations could be viewed with skepticism, which will work against the success of this Administration's efforts.

This is a vertically-stacked image showing increasing probability of a public health impact from bird flu. It moves from the bottom to top starting with: baseline risk of a pandemic (2%), to mass infections in wild birds; mass infections in poultry; spillover to mammals; sustained transmission in mammals; sporadic human cases; lots of sporadic human cases; sustained transmission in pigs; human-to-human spread in cluster; multiple clusters of human-to-human spread; human-to-human spread across countries. We are at the "Lots of sporadic human cases" step.