CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz said the combined MMR vaccine is “not a lethal vaccine,” responding to President Donald Trump’s concerns about the three-in-one shot as the administration moves to give parents the option of receiving separate measles, mumps and rubella vaccines.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, publicly rejected the characterization of the measles, mumps and rubella combination vaccine as lethal Sunday while supporting the Trump administration’s effort to expand parental choice over how children receive immunizations against the three diseases.
“The MMR vaccine is not a lethal vaccine,” Oz said during an Aug. 23 appearance on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.”
His comments came after President Donald Trump raised concerns earlier in August about administering all three vaccine components together and said he was moving to make separate shots available.
Trump told reporters he was signing an executive order calling for the measles, mumps and rubella components to be separated because “together, there could be a possibility they’re quite lethal.”
The president later elaborated on his reasoning.
“What I’ve heard is that there are some people that say it is that way and I say, well, let’s say there’s a five percent chance of it, let’s split it up,” Trump said.
The White House subsequently framed the policy as an effort to expand options rather than discourage vaccination against measles, mumps or rubella.
“President Trump is one of countless parents who have voiced questions and concerns about the combined MMR vaccine. The Administration’s push to develop separate vaccinations for all three diseases will give parents more options on timing and frequency for their children, which ultimately will increase vaccination rates for all three diseases,” White House spokesman Kush Desai told The Epoch Times by email.
Asked about Trump’s comments on CBS, Oz distinguished between concerns about the combined formulation and the broader question of whether people should receive protection against the three diseases.
After stating that the MMR vaccine is not lethal, Oz noted that some countries make standalone vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella available separately.
“We want patients to get the treatments that their doctors are recommending to them, but we also want parents to have the autonomy to decide what their kids receive,” Oz said.
The debate comes amid differing interpretations of vaccine-safety data, particularly reports submitted to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS.
VAERS accepts reports of health events occurring after vaccination from health professionals, patients, family members and others. A report to the system does not by itself establish that a vaccine caused the reported illness or death, because events can be submitted based on their timing after vaccination and require additional investigation to determine whether a causal relationship exists.
Deaths occurring after MMR vaccination have been reported to VAERS.
Researchers who have publicly raised concerns about vaccine safety, including cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough, said in a preprint paper released in February that they identified 299 U.S. deaths reported to VAERS in association with measles vaccination.
According to the researchers, 120 of those reported deaths occurred within seven days of vaccination.
They characterized the findings as a “serious mortality safety signal” involving the MMR vaccine and another combination vaccine that contains measles, mumps and rubella components along with varicella, or chickenpox, vaccine.
The paper was released as a preprint, meaning it had not yet completed the full peer-review process associated with publication in a scientific journal.
The researchers’ analysis also identifies reports occurring after vaccination rather than independently establishing that the vaccines caused each reported death.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention helps operate VAERS and investigates safety reports, including reports of deaths.
According to the material reviewed, the CDC did not respond to an inquiry asking whether the agency had concluded that any of the reported deaths identified in connection with MMR or measles vaccination were possibly or definitively caused by the vaccines.
Current CDC guidance recommends that most children receive two doses of a measles-containing vaccine, with the first generally administered around a child’s first birthday.
The Infectious Diseases Society of America, an independent medical organization that has criticized some vaccine-policy decisions made during the Trump administration, maintains that deaths attributable to MMR vaccination have not been demonstrated among healthy recipients.
“There have been no deaths shown to be related to the MMR vaccine in healthy people,” the organization states on its website. “There have been rare cases of deaths from vaccine side effects among children who are immune compromised, which is why it is recommended that they don’t get the vaccine.”
The society recommends MMR vaccination for virtually everyone else who is eligible.
The dispute therefore involves several separate questions: the established safety profile of the combined MMR vaccine, how adverse-event reports should be interpreted, whether administering the three components separately provides meaningful safety advantages and how much discretion parents should have over the timing and format of childhood vaccination.
Trump has focused his public comments primarily on the possibility that separating the vaccines could address parental concerns even if the potential risk from administering them together were small.
Oz, meanwhile, made clear Sunday that he does not consider the existing combination vaccine lethal while also endorsing a policy that allows parents and physicians greater flexibility.
“We want patients to get the treatments that their doctors are recommending to them,” Oz said, “but we also want parents to have the autonomy to decide what their kids receive.”
Original article
Comments