Category: COVID-19 vaccines

Another Silly Bill in the Iowa Legislature

I saw a story in the Iowa Capital Dispatch by Robin Opsahl today that there’s a bill in the Iowa legislature which seeks to make the drugs ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine over-the-counter (OTC) in Iowa. It doesn’t actually specify the reason why but it’s probably because some Iowans want the drugs available to treat Covid-19. I think the motivation sounds similar to the bills introduced in March of 2025 which were designed to make it illegal to get mRNA vaccines for Covid-19 in Iowa. They both died in funnel week last year.

The bill was discussed yesterday and, while there were 3 commenters in favor of it, there are several reasons to be suspicious of whether it would be a good thing for Iowans. Both ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine were studied for evidence of efficacy for Covid-19 and the studies failed to show that.

The FDA has made it clear that it doesn’t recommend either ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine for treatment of Covid-19.

However, the Iowa bill HF 2056 seeks to make both available OTC and require pharmacies not only make it available but protect the pharmacist from legal or criminal liability for any harms that might result from its use.

While you can find news stories saying simply that 4 states (Tennessee, Idaho, Arkansas, and Idaho) have adopted similar laws, there is at least one recent follow up news story indicating that the pharmacists still have some reservations.

A Boise, Idaho pharmacist says he’ll dispense ivermectin to callers—as long as they have a doctor’s note. Most callers don’t have a parasitic infection. The pharmacist points out that, while the Idaho law says he can dispense ivermectin without a prescription, the FDA hasn’t approved it to be used this way. “It’s not designed or packaged for retail sale,” according to the pharmacist. It’s not made for OTC use.

There’s also a hitch when it comes to health insurance coverage for OTC drugs, implying you might have to pay out of pocket. Arkansas and Tennessee pharmacists say that, despite the law change allowing OTC sale of ivermectin in their states, they won’t sell it that way.

I hope their example will be followed by the other states who seem to be going the same way as Iowa. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure there might be plenty of conscientious objectors in Iowa who might slow down the legal push to get either hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin OTC.

Just because lawmakers put in a lot of language in a bill in an effort to persuade pharmacists that they won’t get sued or go to jail if they always give the customers what they want doesn’t mean they’ll obey a law based on misinformation and which makes them disobey their principles. I don’t understand how the legislative machinery works but I’m hoping the fate for this bill will be the same as what happened to those from last year.

CDC ACIP Highlights on Covid 19 Vaccine

There was a lot to digest in today’s CDC ACIP meeting on Covid-19 vaccines. I missed the morning sessions but managed to see a few of the afternoon presentations.

The presentation by Dr. Retsef Levi, PhD, MIT, ACIP Work Group Chair, the Covid -19 Vaccine Discussion Framing Work Group (WG) was basically pretty critical of the Covid-19 vaccines in general.

The opposing reply to this (favorable to vaccines) was put together by University of Iowa’s Dr. Stanley Perlman, Dr. H. Bernstein, and Dr. M. Miglis, Additional Workgroup Considerations in Covid-19 Vaccination Policy and Practice.

For a change, I listened to the Public Comment section. I usually have not paid attention to them because most of the speakers were opposed to vaccines. Today was different. All of them were strongly supportive of vaccines.

There is a bottom line to this. I watched the voting session, which was very interesting. There were 4 voting questions. I had to take pictures of them because they were not included in the on-line schedule. It was easily the most interesting session of the afternoon, at least for me.

Voting question 1: all but one member voted “yes,” the committee chair Kulldorff voted “no.”

Voting question 2: one member suggested striking this one, but they voted anyway. What’s worrisome is that it was split between the yes and no votes; only the chair, Kulldorff, could break it and he voted “no.” Looks like common sense won; otherwise it would have made access very difficult.

Voting question 3: The video lost audio for a long time, but eventually it turned out that the votes were “yes” unanimously on the assumption that pharmacists counted as “health care providers.”

Voting question 4: The votes were all “yes,” mainly because they decided that pharmacists could make this work. One member questioned the wording which suggested that you needed to talk to your doctor about getting the vaccine because of the wording “shared clinical decision-making.” They glossed over it.

It looks like access to the Covid-19 vaccine will remain mostly open for now.

Public Comments on Upcoming CDC ACIP Meeting Posted

I have just noticed that there are over 5,000 comments posted on the comments section of regulations.gov in the section entitled Meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices-September 2025.

The link to the comment section is on the CDC ACIP meeting announcement web page, “Written Public Comments.”

This is the first time I’ve seen a written comment section like this for the meetings. I think it gives people a sense of what health care professionals and others think about how things are going with the current approach to preventive medicine at the CDC.

Upcoming CDC ACIP September Meeting on MMVR & Covid-19 Vaccines

The upcoming meeting on the MMVR and Covid-19 vaccines will include voting on the MMVR and Covid-19 vaccines. Usually, the committee posts the actual voting questions, which so far I have not seen on the meeting agenda. I’ll be looking for them in the next couple of days.

Here is the link to the Center for Infectious Disease and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota article which bears directly on the meeting topics.

CDC ACIP Meeting Agenda Posted

I just noticed that the CDC ACIP draft agenda for upcoming meeting on September 18th and 19th has been posted. There will be votes on the MMRV, Hepatitis B, and Covid-19 vaccines.

Got Vaccines Today!

Sena and I got our latest updated seasonal Covid-19 and flu vaccines today. Manpower was low at Walgreens so we ended up sitting for about an hour, but otherwise this was a routine trip. We’re thankful.

We noticed there were a few people waiting—mostly our age. No word up yet on the CDC ACIP site about the Sept. 18-19 meeting as far as an agenda, speakers, or slides.

Upcoming CDC Advisory Committee Meeting in September 2025-Or Not?

I’ve been checking the Centers for Advisory Committee schedule on their website for weeks and the only way I found out there is an upcoming meeting is on the Federal Register schedule. Sena found it in a news outlet story. As of this morning around 9 a.m., there was no announcement on the CDC website yet. That may change later today.

According to the Federal Register, the CDC ACIP will hold a meeting on September 18, 2025, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., EDT, and September 19, 2025, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., EDT.

Under Supplementary Information:

“The agenda will include discussions on COVID-19 vaccines; Hepatitis B vaccine; measles, mumps, rubella, varicella (MMRV) vaccine; and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV). The agenda will include updates on ACIP Workgroups. Recommendation votes may be scheduled for COVID-19 vaccines, Hepatitis B vaccine, MMRV vaccine, and RSV. Vaccines for Children (VFC) may be scheduled for COVID-19 vaccines, Hepatitis B vaccine, MMRV vaccine, and RSV. Agenda items are subject to change as priorities dictate. For more information on the meeting agenda, visit https://www.cdc.gov/​acip/​meetings/​index.html.”

However, I also noticed a news article posted by the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) indicating that the meeting might be postponed because of the recent upheaval around vaccine policy and personnel.

This meeting’s actual timing and schedule items could be moving targets.

CDC ACIP Meeting Today on Covid-19 Vaccine

We watched the Covid-19 vaccine part of today’s meeting this morning. I thought it got off to sort of a rough start, mainly with technical difficulties. I can’t recall any other meetings in which the camera flipped back and forth oddly between speakers and their slides. I thought that was distracting.

The question-and-answer periods ran too long which put them behind schedule. One member of the original 8 committee members, Dr. Michael Ross, was missing from the CDC roster. There were news articles about his withdrawing after a review of financial holdings.

While most of the Covid-19 presentation was review, I thought it was too bad that ACIP Chair Dr. Martin Kulldorff announced there would be no vote on the Covid-19 vaccine today. He also said that the ACIP committee would look forward to the missing Evidence to Recommendations (EtR) material in the fall. Dr. Adam MacNeil, the presenter of the Covid-19 vaccine review, admitted that the EtR was not finished. I was not clear on why.

I didn’t really see the point of Dr. Kulldorff’s giving a rather long speech about why he was fired from Harvard after he refused to get the Covid-19 vaccine. I would much rather have heard him give details about his emphasis on the importance of conducting controlled trials (I think he meant placebo-controlled?) and posing this as a question to Dr. MacNeil. I think this is what led to Dr. MacNeil’s response which implied that they would take too long to produce actionable results (I might be putting words in his mouth but that’s my interpretation)—which could lead to saving more lives. It looked like a rather awkward moment.

Dr. MacNeil reviewed the FDA approval of using a JN.1 lineage vaccine at the VRBPAC meeting in May and also mentioned the FDA leadership preference for the LP.8.1 variant. I noticed the CDC variant genomic tracker today shows that the new kid on the block, NB.1.8.1, is now just as prevalent or more prevalent as LP.8.1. They’re both from the JN.1 lineage.

Some of the questions from the newly appointed committee members were over my head. But in all fairness, one of the members asked a question which not only I didn’t get but that Dr. MacNeil said he didn’t quite understand either.

So far, we’re planning to watch the influenza vaccine presentation tomorrow morning. I’m not sure why there’s a vote on thimerosal in the flu vaccine tomorrow but there was no vote on the Covid-19 vaccine today.

CDC Advisory Committee Meeting on Vaccines Starts Tomorrow

The CDC ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON IMMUNIZATION PRACTICES (ACIP) is scheduled to begin their meeting tomorrow at 10:00 AM ET despite US Senator Bill Cassidy’s recommendation that it be postponed due to concerns about the lack of experience of the committee members and because there is not yet confirmation of a new CDC Director.

In fact, the CDC Director nominee, Dr. Susan Monarez, of Wisconsin, is scheduled for her confirmation hearing at the same time as the start of the CDC ACIP meeting tomorrow morning at 10:00 AM ET. Dr. Monarez would be the first CDC director “…in decades…” (according to a report posted in The Hill in May) who has neither previously worked at the CDC “…nor obtained a Doctor of Medicine degree…”

As of this morning around 10:00 AM, the meeting agenda has not yet been finalized. So far, it looks like there will be no vote on the Covid-19 vaccine update, although there will be a vote on Thimerosal in flu vaccines about which the FDA has previously published an extensive summary.