By\u00a0Padmanabhan Ananthan<\/p>\n\n\n\n
May 5 (Reuters) – Officials at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration blocked the \u200bpublication of several studies supporting the safety of widely used \u200cvaccines against COVID-19 and shingles, a Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Andrew Nixon, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the \u200bFDA, said the studies were pulled over concerns about their conclusions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Keep up with the latest medical breakthroughs and healthcare trends with the Reuters Health Rounds newsletter. Sign up here.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n “The \u200bstudies were withdrawn because the authors drew broad conclusions that \u2060were not supported by the underlying data. The FDA acted to \u200bprotect the integrity of its scientific process and ensure that any work associated \u200bwith the agency meets its high standards,” he said in an email to Reuters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The withdrawal of these studies is the latest attempt by the health regulator and the administration \u200bto limit access to vaccines, reflecting broader policy changes under U.S. \u200bHealth Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a staunch critic of vaccines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Trump administration has sharply \u200creduced \u2060funding for vaccine research and raised questions about vaccine safety and effectiveness under the tenure of Kennedy, who has introduced sweeping changes across federal health agencies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In August last year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services \u200bsaid it would wind \u200bdown<\/a> nearly $500 million \u2060in mRNA vaccine development, cancelling 22 federal projects overseen by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a \u200bgovernment-backed funding body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last June, a Centers for Disease Control and \u200bPrevention \u2060panel backed by Kennedy voted to remove mercury-based preservative thimerosal<\/a> from flu shots, despite long-standing clinical evidence of its safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n British drugmaker GSK (GSK.L), opens new tab<\/a> markets Shingrix, a vaccine for \u2060shingles, \u200ba painful viral infection that causes blisters and \u200brashes, while Pfizer (PFE.N), opens new tab<\/a> and Moderna (MRNA.O), opens new tab<\/a> are the leading makers of COVID-19 vaccines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By\u00a0Padmanabhan Ananthan May 5 (Reuters) – Officials at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration blocked the \u200bpublication of several studies supporting the safety of widely used \u200cvaccines against COVID-19 and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15129,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[669,761,337,939,974,607,608],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adenovirus-vector-vaccines","category-concerns","category-mrna","category-safety-studies","category-vaccine-long-term-safety","category-vaccine-news","category-vaccine-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14832"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14957,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14832\/revisions\/14957"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cov19longhaulfoundation.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}