Announcement from the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy, Research and Innovation Office. Representatives from six leading health organizations joined to point out the dangers of the current Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (packed with anti-vaxxers by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedry Jr.) to discontinue the recommendation that all newborns be vaccinated against Hepatitis B on their first day of life.
I would like to like and subscribe. I will smash that like button, even.
And donate my advocacy in whatever way I can.
Whatever gives your voice agency…
You don’t have to be a pediatrician to be a member of the AAP! They have affiliate memberships. And you can always donate to the Friends of AAP. As someone who works directly with them, they really do great work and are a fantastic organization
https://www.aap.org/en/membership-application/join-aap/join-the-aap-enterprise-membership/?form=donate
They are the only professional medical society whose goal is to promote the welfare of their patients, not just their members. And it shows. Couldn’t be more proud of them these last few years.
Unfortunately there is no united front as the AHA and similar are worried about retaliation. Keep sending those membership fees though!
I wish the AMA had half the conviction as the NRA does
I wish the AMA lobbied politicians with millions of dollars too :)
Their PAC spent $2.6M in the 2024 election cycle.
https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/american-medical-assn/C00000422/summary/2024
Nice! Wasn’t enough to prevent the destruction of medicine and science, sadly. Need to get to NRA levels for that to possibly happen ;)
Fewer than 1/4 of current physicians are AMA members. The policies and positions of the organization are actually set by the membership through a very rigorous parliamentary process. In order to have more lobbying power, and general influence the org needs more members and more of those members need to donate to the PAC specifically. This goes for state medical associations, specialty organizations, etc. when contending with literal billionaires lobbying on some issues, physicians need a bigger war chest to make anything happen.
Thanks for that explainer. I always felt like the AMA hasn’t done anything for me so I can understand how others feel the same.
I felt the same way for a long time TBH and only recently changed my mind after becoming involved with my state medical association and then joining my state’s AMA delegation and getting to see the process first hand. It was actually very refreshing to see how many physicians across specialties care so much about such a wide array of topics affecting medicine and I wish they did a better making the average member and non member physician aware of how that all happens and what they are fighting for behind the scenes. At a state level many of our specialty orgs are so small that it’s hard to afford lobbyists to even start being part of the conversation about bills being drafted, and the average doc is so busy seeing patients that it’s hard to take time to drive to the capital to testify when bills do come up.
This is helpful to know and thanks for doing all you can to advocate for us and our profession :) I just have never seen medicine move in a direction that helps Americans since graduating school and other than doing all we can as individual providers, I know profits will always come first as an overarching policy in this country
That's..not a lot of money
100%.
Relatedly: did everyone hear that Milhoan was fired by his medical system? Best news I’ve heard all week.
Never prouder to be Minnesotan.
I'm happy to see CIDRAP make motion. Don't count a horse's teeth and all, but I do think there's a little bit of a danger in decentralizing this advocacy a it too much. To me, this screams a greater incentive to support larger national organizations (and push them to commit to more action) such as the AAP, AAAAI and IDSA.
Sate medical boards should also be examining and considering suspending or revoking the licenses of physicians that participate in this crap (like Prasad). Medical boards should be revoking board certification. I can see how the former might be compromised.
Medical standards, practice and information, sadly, need to be sufficiently removed from a 4 year political cycle.
But we can’t unionize?…
I can’t tell how serious your comment is in only four words and an ellipse. Labor bargaining and a united from against anti-science are entirely different things.