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particles were causing the problem in these children, and I was surprised that O’Leary withdrew
his assertions.
I then called O’Leary on the phone and asked him why he was doing this. There was a very long
pregnant pause. He then said that it had taken him many years to get to the place where he was
in the scientific community, and after another pause, he said he had four small children at
home. I had small children at home myself at the time and I understood what he was saying. If
he didn’t do it, he was going to be fired. He was going to be ruined.
British officials were not satisfied with just getting the journal to withdraw the article and
getting Dr. O’Leary to withdraw his claims. They then decided to begin proceedings to take away
Dr. Wakefield’s medical license and one of his lead co-authors. Wakefield by this time had
moved to the United States and to defend himself in court would have cost him hundreds of
thousands of dollars so he let them take his license away. But his lead co-author Dr. Simon
Murch was still practicing medicine in England and decided to defend himself in court, and the
government lost and they were not able to take his license away. If Wakefield had the money to
defend himself, he would never have lost his license. The court documents clearly show that
Wakefield and his co-authors had not done anything unethical or inappropriate and their work
was possibly valid.
But that was all big Pharma needed. They could go around, saying it and feeding it to the media
that the research had been withdrawn and Wakefield lost his license. But I looked at the
micrographs and it sure looked to me like there was vaccine strain measles particles infecting
the bowels of these kids.
The CDC was charged with the responsibility of repeating to Wakefield research and showing
that the measles vaccine was safe, but they never did it the right way. They decided to de
epidemiologic studies instead of a clinical study. Again, as in the mercury study there were
claims made that indicators that there was a problem with MMR were there. CDC was accused
again of changing the protocol and data analysis until the association went away.
Ironically, I talked with Wakefield after all of this was over. He agreed with me that we have to
vaccinate our kids for measles. He thought the solution was to give the vaccine at a slightly
older age, like they do in many European countries. Or we might be able to do research and
figure out why some kids have a bad reaction to the MMR. Clearly, big Pharma didn’t want me
in the CDC investigating any of this.
There are a lot of additional ironies in all of this. I believe the CDC is mostly made up of really
good people who really care about public health for our nation, though its credibility has been
seriously tarnished because of the failures in the way the COVID-19 crisis was managed. 40% of
Democrats and 80% of Republicans, don’t trust the CDC. Many don’t trust Pharma as well. I
really wanted to try to make the CDC a better more respected agency and killing my nomination
may have the opposite effect. Distrust may worsen.

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It is the first time the Senate has been called upon to confirm a C.D.C. director. Dr. Dave Weldon has close ties to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the new health secretary.Dr. Dave Weldon, a former Republican representative and President Trump’s pick to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, will appear before the Senate health committee on Thursday, the first time an agency director has been subject to the confirmation process.Dr. Weldon, 71, is perhaps the least known of the men nominated to lead major agencies at the Department of Health and Human Services. But he is the one aligned most closely with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s new health secretary.Dr. Weldon, like Mr. Kennedy, has long questioned the safety of certain vaccines, and the two have maintained a 25-year relationship. The health secretary has cited Dr. Weldon’s criticisms of the C.D.C. along with his own.Dr. Weldon served in Congress for 14 years, from 1995 to 2009. His signature legislative accomplishment was the Weldon Amendment, which bars health agencies from discriminating against hospitals or health insurance plans that choose not to provide or pay for abortions.He also argued that abstinence is the most effective way to curb sexually transmitted infections. Cases have soared in recent years and only began to level out in 2023.Dr. Weldon’s hearing takes place amid significant measles outbreaks in Texas and New Mexico, which have infected more than 250 people and claimed two lives; a flu season that led to record numbers of hospitalizations; and the potential for a bird flu epidemic.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

7 hours ago

The requirement for a High Court judge to approve assisted dying applications has been dropped by the committee considering the bill.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has already closed offices and could see staff numbers reduced by 50 percent.Every day, Dora Dantzler-Wright and her colleagues distribute overdose reversal drugs on the streets of Chicago. They hold training sessions on using them and help people in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction return to their jobs and families.They work closely with the federal government through an agency that monitors their productivity, connects them with other like-minded groups and dispenses critical funds that keep their work going.But over the last few weeks, Ms. Wright’s phone calls and emails to Washington have gone unanswered. Federal advisers from the agency’s local office — who supervise her group, the Chicago Recovering Communities Coalition, as well as addiction programs throughout six Midwestern states and 34 tribes — are gone.“We just continue to do the work without any updates from the feds at all,” Ms. Wright said. “But we’re lost.”By the end of this week, the staff of the agency, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, could be cut by 50 percent, according to senior staff members at the agency and congressional aides who attended briefings by Trump officials.With just under 900 employees and a budget of $7.2 billion for large state grants and individual nonprofits that address addiction and mental illness, SAMHSA (pronounced SAM-sah) is relatively small. But it addresses two of the nation’s most urgent health problems and has generally had bipartisan support.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Prescription drugs like lorazepam — used to treat anxiety, panic attacks and sleep disorders — play a role in popular TV shows like ‘The White Lotus’ and ‘The Pitt.’Victoria Ratliff, the wealthy financier’s wife on season 3 of HBO’s “The White Lotus,” has a problem: She keeps popping pills.And her drug of choice, the anti-anxiety medication lorazepam, has left her a little loopy.In the show, which follows guests vacationing at a fictional resort, Victoria pairs her medication with wine, which leads her to nod off at the dinner table. Sometimes she slurs her words.When she notices that her pill supply is mysteriously dwindling, she asks her children if they’re stealing them.“You don’t have enough lorazepam to get through one week at a wellness spa?” her daughter, Piper, asks.“The White Lotus” is not the only show to recently feature these drugs. The new Max series “The Pitt,” which takes place in an emergency department, includes a story line about a benzodiazepine called Librium.This isn’t a case of Hollywood taking dramatic liberties. Benzodiazepines such as lorzepam and chlordiazepoxide are notorious for having the potential to be highly addictive. They may also come with difficult — sometimes fatal — withdrawal symptoms.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.