A recent study by the CDC showed how to prevent the most common cause of hospitalizations in babies. Why haven’t we heard about it?
| Paul Offit (thanks to Ed. M) |
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the most common cause of hospitalizations among U.S. infants, with those 0-2 months of age at greatest risk. The virus causes intense inflammation in the small breathing tubes (bronchioles) inside the lungs. Every year in the U.S., RSV causes 58,000-80,000 hospitalizations and 100-300 deaths in children less than 5 years of age. Worldwide, RSV causes 3.6 million hospitalizations and 100,000 deaths every year in children. Because children less than 2 months of age are at greatest risk, strategies to prevent the disease are based on providing antibodies either through the placenta by maternal vaccination or directly to the baby with a long-acting monoclonal antibody (nirsevimab). The maternal RSV vaccine is given between 32 to 36 weeks’ gestation. The monoclonal antibody is recommended for all infants 0-7 months of age and infants 8-19 months of age at greatest risk.
Recently, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a study examining the impact of these two strategies to prevent RSV. They compared the incidence of hospitalizations in children less than 5 years old in the 2024-2025 RSV season—when both the RSV maternal vaccine and monoclonal antibody were available—with hospitalizations in the 2018-2020 seasons, when neither were available. In one surveillance system, they found that hospitalizations decreased by 43%. The largest rate reduction, 52%, was found in children 0-2 months of age. Indeed, the availability of the vaccine and antibody likely caused the drop in the U.S. infant mortality rate this year. Currently, only 33% of pregnant women receive the RSV vaccine and 45% of babies receive nirsevimab. With wider use, hospitalizations will continue to decrease, and the infant mortality rate will likely continue to drop.
So why haven’t we heard about this? Why didn’t this story dominate the news when the results appeared in a medical journal? Normally, the CDC embargoes copies of these high-impact studies the day before publication along with a press kit that includes talking points and other details. Press outlets may then request interviews from the authors or submit questions, which are answered by the CDC. Never happened. The Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who for two decades has been an anti-vaccine activist and science denialist, has now paused any communications from the CDC that aren’t public health emergencies. He has restricted CDC attendance at scientific conferences, eliminated presentations to large audiences, and limited updates on CDC websites. In other words, he has muzzled the CDC.
It isn’t surprising, then, that Kevin Griffis, the director of the CDC’s Office of Communications since 2022, quit at the end of March 2025. “Public health communications should be about empowering people with reliable, science-based information,” said Griffis. “Unfortunately, we can’t count on Kennedy’s HHS for that anymore.”
When RFK Jr. was running for president, he said that, if elected, he would “give infectious diseases a break for about eight years.” As Secretary of HHS, this has meant 1) largely ignoring a measles outbreak that has killed two young children, the first measles deaths in children in the United States since 2003; 2) ignoring a pertussis outbreak that has exceeded 9,000 cases and is spreading twice as fast as last year; and 3) ignoring the 216 children who have died this year from influenza, the most since the swine flu pandemic of 2009. Now we learn that not only is RFK Jr. largely ignoring children dying unnecessarily from vaccine-preventable diseases, he’s also prohibiting the CDC from educating the public, the press, and the medical community about a new, life-saving strategy to prevent a viral infection that was previously unpreventable.
RFK Jr. ushered in his administration with the phrase “radical transparency.” Whereas, the previous administration, according to him, hadn’t been honest with the American public, his administration would be. This transparency doesn’t apparently extend to information that counters his fixed, immutable, science-resistant belief that “no vaccines are safe and effective.” If RFK Jr. really wants to Make America Healthy Again, he should step down as head of HHS.