My colleague and friend Neale Mahoney writes in favor of price and rent controls in the Sunday New York Times, with Bharat Ramamurti.

Neale is also the director of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, of which I am a part. While SIEPR does not have “house views” and its fellows may write what they wish, as I do now, when the boss writes a New York Times oped in favor of price and rent controls, that inevitably tells you something about the strategic direction of the organization.

When even the Times, who chooses the title, has to start with “Economists Hate This Idea,” and your own oped acknowledges “this may terrify many economists, who have long dismissed price controls as failed policy,” maybe you should stop and think twice?

While Mahoney and Ramamurti pay lip service to standard objections, they miss the glaring elephant-in-the-room Econ 101 issue: Budget constraints. Every dollar of “relief” for one party is a dollar of “burden” for another, plus the inefficiencies of redistribution.

Sure, “sharply rising rents and utility bills wreak havoc on family budgets,” if the families don’t follow the screaming market signal to move. (Which is not painless, for sure. Incentives never are.) But the money comes from somewhere. Rent controls and energy price caps wreak havoc on landlord end electric utility budgets. The money must come from somewhere.

A rent control is the same as a tax on landlords used to subsidize the rents of current tenants. You may picture a giant corporation, but many landlords are sympathetic individuals who worked hard and saved and use the apartment to fund their retirement. Corporations are owned by the 401(k) plans of sympathetic workers too. But economists should know better than to tug on your heartstrings for who should get resources forcibly taken from who else. If you ask “what’s the optimal way to tax people in general in order to lower housing costs for a politically attractive group (current tenants)” the screaming answer is not “let’s tax the people who currently own the buildings.” Sure, “tax the rich.” If you want to go down this route, it’s a lot more efficient to tax all the rich. If you ask “what’s the optimal way to help families who just got stuck with higher rents,” the screaming answers is “send them a check, but then let them move to the apartment that best fits their needs.”

A rent control only makes rental “affordable” for the lucky recipient. It does not make rental housing more “affordable” for society as a whole. It does not increase the number of people who have housing. Indeed it reduces that number. It just changes who gets it. It does not even make housing more “affordable” on average. For those who want it must now pay with time, and inconvenience, or pay by foregoing the great opportunities that moving to the city provided.

The biggest losers of rent control are the young, the mobile, the ambitious, immigrants, and people without a lot of cash. If you want to move from Fresno to take a job in San Francisco and move up, and you don’t have millions lying around to buy, you need rentals. Rent control means they are not available. Income inequality, opportunity, equity, all get worse.

There is no blob of “government” money, or “policy” that can make something affordable for one without making something else less affordable for another.

Mahoney and Ramamurti pay lip service to the standard economic objections, and the long history of price-control failure:

They [price controls] jam the signal that high prices send to companies to enter markets or expand production, which can help lower costs over the long run. As any economist will tell you, capping prices below production costs causes shortages and rationing… Even caps that sit above current costs can deter maintenance and investment….

They offer similar half-acknowledgment of some of the correct response

For decades, the textbook policy response to high prices has been to increase supply, such as by offering tax incentives or reducing regulatory barriers to housing construction and energy production. But these solutions can take years to have an effect.

and of the standard policy response:

Demand-side fixes, such as subsidies or tax credits to offset the cost of expensive items, can sometimes provide short-term help. But in practice, these subsidies often create more demand chasing still constrained supply, pushing prices up and transferring most of the value of the subsidy to landlords or utility companies instead of the people who need it.

Absolutely. But instead of dismissing complaints — sometimes “textbook” is right — take them a bit more seriously. Supply does not need “tax incentives,” which are usually specific to a project and negotiated between developers and politicians. This is showy stadium construction finance, which does little for broader prosperity. Supply needs “get out of the way,” starting with reducing the taxes we have now. The problem with “regulatory barriers” is not that on removal it takes years to build housing, it’s that it takes decades to remove regulatory barriers. Remove the barriers tomorrow — zoning, planning, density and height restrictions, dozens of separate permits, labor restrictions (unions, high minimum wages), and so on — and you could get actual new housing before the next presidential election.

Everyone is focused on building, but “supply” is so much more than building. There is tremendous supply in using more efficiently what we have now. Most cities have laws against renting parts of single family homes, or sharing larger homes. Think how many spare bedrooms are empty every night. There is plenty of housing supply in the US, it’s just not in places where people want to move. Others moving out is “supply,” and greatly impeded. Older people stay in too-big houses and apartments, in locations close to work and school opportunities that young families desire, but the older people no longer need. Why? If they sell, they are taxed on capital gains, even just due to inflation. They lose property tax exemptions, and, of course, rent control protection. Each older person who cashes in, downsizes, or moves to a more neighborhood more suited to them, supplies a house or apartment. The non-portable fixed rate 30 year mortgage, an invention of our federal housing subsidy regime, leads people to stay where they are rather than move to where they want to go, and free up a scarce house or condo for someone else. Strong apparently “consumer protection” laws in rental contracts dry up the supply, especially to the marginalized. If you can’t kick people out, you’re much more careful who you let in. Limits on short term rentals limit rentals. Remove rent controls, permanently, and houses and condos can be rented. Many houses and apartments need rehab, not new construction, which can happen very quickly once owners know they will not be robbed of their investment. Even “affordable” housing leads people to stay where they are, rather than move to better opportunities for them and free up an apartment for someone else, because it’s rationed with long waiting lists.

When Javier Milei ended rent control in Buenos Aires, rent went down. Instantly. Nothing had to get built. It can happen in Manhattan.

Nothing rings more true of our government than restrict supply, subsidize demand, and watch prices skyrocket. Universities and health care are poster children along with housing and energy. “Landlords” and “utility companies” are not, in fact, making a killing here. Land owners benefit. Energy faces rising costs like anything else. AI, not corporate apartment companies, electric utilities, and oil companies, are the hot stocks of the moment.

Contra Mahoney and Ramamurti’s assertion that price or rent controls are alternative to demand subsidies, they are exactly the same thing as a tax on suppliers used to fund demand subsidies. With a fixed supply, the number of people who have houses is fixed. The only effect of rent controls or demand subsidies is to change who gets the houses.

Because “sharply rising rents and utility bills wreak havoc on family budgets,” despite the well known issues, Mahoney and Ramamurti opine

there is a case for temporary, targeted price controls that hold down costs, paired with supply-side reforms that encourage new production. Rent caps focused on existing units, combined with government investment in new housing and reforms to zoning, permitting and other land-use regulations, can protect tenants from rent spikes, while encouraging new construction to build the three to four million homes

Oh, please. New York put in “temporary” rent controls in WWII. 80 years ago. Congress passed “temporary” Obamacare subsidies during the pandemic, and we just shut down the government for a month and a half over that. “Rent caps on existing units” have been tried by every single failed rent control regime in history. Tax away the hard-earned investment of existing landlords. But apartments need maintenance and even the Times (can’t find the link) runs stories of apartments vacant in Brooklyn because it’s not worth it for landlords to fix them, since they were built before the last “existing unit” freeze in 1974. Plus, every investor knows that what can be done “just this once” can be done again. “Government investment in new housing?” California specializes in that, featuring $1 million one bedroom units for homeless people. Come tour the ruins of Chicago’s housing projects. And once again, just where is this endless pot of money? Let’s see, 3 million homes at $500,000 per home is $1,500,000,000,000 yes one point five trillion if I got my zeros right. Not exactly couch change on the government budget.

But just maybe…. If Neale can get the “reforms to zoning, permitting and other land-use regulations” in place first, I might listen. Taking landlord’s hard-earned property with promises to someday reform is a lot more likely. We got where we are for a reason.

Similarly, a freeze on electric bills paired with government investments that expand solar, wind and other clean-energy production and transmission can shield household budgets until more power comes online.

You must live in quite a bubble not to know about the trillions of “government investment” in solar panels and windmills we already have. California leads the way. And also has the highest gas and electric prices in the nation. And you must have forgotten a lot of economics to not recognize that “household budgets” also have to pay the taxes that pay for these “investments.” California’s electric utilities and refiners are barely scraping by, rather than being effective pots of tax money, so that “shielding” of some household’s budgets will come from other households.

Energy prices have if anything more incentive effects than housing, and are more elastic in the short run. If gas prices go up, you can car pool, take transit, bike, or just drive less. Or move closer to work. Except rent controls mean you can’t. Energy is a smaller component of income. Another textbook rule of economics: don’t mess with price signals, especially of elastically demanded goods that are a small component of budgets, in order to transfer income. Energy subsidies do the opposite.

Oh, yes,

Policymakers should step in if there are signs of price controls becoming permanent or spreading to other parts of the market. Once enacted, price caps tend to stick, as interest groups mobilize to preserve them. Tenants who did not receive relief initially may argue for an expansion on fairness grounds.

Policymakers can reduce these risks by inserting sunset clauses, targeting controls to well-defined groups — such as existing tenants and low-income households — and backing long-term supply efforts with specific timelines and funding. But no government can fully bind its future self, and we may need to accept some trade-off between immediate relief and weaker long-run investment.

I hate the word “policymaker.” It’s every leftwing economists’ dream, I guess, to be installed as an aristocrat and “make policy.” This is politics, not policy, redistribution in the name of electoral gain, as Mahoney and Ramamurti make clear. There is no “policy.” There is politics. This is redistribution by force. For better or worse, but don’t sugar coat what you’re doing.

“Step in if there are signs of price controls becoming permanent or spreading to other parts of the market.” Hello? 80 years is not permanent enough? Are not “policymakers” like the new mayor of New York “stepping in” precisely to extend and expand controls? Sunset clauses are sunrise clauses. “Targeting controls to well-defined groups — such as existing tenants and low-income households.” After “budget constraint” lesson 2 of Econ 101 is “incentives.” When existing tenants get a big break, they have a big incentive to remain existing tenants, see above. When households experiencing low incomes (I refuse to use “low-income” as an immutable characteristic) receive benefits they have a big incentive to remain low income.

Well at least they are honest enough to say “accept some trade-off between immediate relief and weaker long-run investment.” Yes, existing renters got relief in 1942. We are stuck with the long run.

The final paragraph

In a cost-of-living crisis, the question isn’t whether to intervene, but how to do so in a way that delivers relief today without creating new problems tomorrow.

The last directly contradicts the grudging admission that indeed we will “accept some trade-off between immediate relief and weaker long-run investment.”

Leaving aside “crisis,” that is not the question. The question is what should economists offer when it is plainly clear that there is no way to deliver “relief” to everybody — that any relief to A comes out of the pockets of B, with a sieve along the way, and that as the article just admitted any attempt to transfer from B to A will create new problems tomorrow — just as today’s problems are completely the effect of yesterday’s price, building, and rental controls.

Why would two excellent economists pander in this way, selling obvious fantasies to justify price controls that have been tried since Diocletian (300AD) and failed every single time? Well

In New York, the democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani ran for mayor on a simple promise to “freeze the rent,”..

like it or not, voters are demanding short-term price relief, and temporary price controls may be the only viable way to provide it.

The insufficiencies of this policy playbook have helped create what we call the affordability conundrum: Voters want immediate cost relief, but standard policy tools can’t always provide it.

Apparently, when voters want something and politicians want to promise it, our jobs as economists is to offer somewhat fantastical “policy tools” to justify it.

I do not know Mahoney and Ramamurti’s motivation, and I make it a rule never to speculate on motivations. But I can warn against the motivations many feel to go down this kind of rabbit hole.

We all have partisan sympathies. It is tempting to buck up our team, right or wrong, especially against attacks by the “other side” which today each side views as an existential threat to the nation. We all want to be influential. It is tempting to offer what politicians want to hear, to become the darling of the moment, the adviser whispering into the ear of the powerful.

Republican economists are in a similar quandary regarding tariffs. If you want a job in the current Administration, or just influence in today’s dominant Republican circles, you better have written nothing critical of tariffs that Google can find.

If you want influence it’s better to pledge allegiance. It is tempting to write “economists hate the idea,” and “textbooks say it doesn’t work,” but then bemoan “the insufficiencies of this policy playbook” to deal with “China’s economic aggression,” or “hollowed out manufacturing,” and so forth. Dissemble, advocate that “policymakers” “insert.. sunset clauses, targeting controls,’’ or tie tariffs to specific pie in the sky promises, ignoring just how permanent, corrupt, and temporary tariffs have been in the past. I would expect a review of such a proposal from Mahoney and Ramamurti every bit as savage as what I have just offered.

You can, at least keep your mouth shut, and salvage your own reputation.

Better, we economists can do a lot better by patiently holding out, even for our own team, on what works, in time-tested cause-and-effect ways, and what does not. Many rent or price controls in the 1,700 years (and likely more) on this earth have promised to be temporary, targeted, combined with structural reforms. I cannot think of a single one that ever has done so. If you want Mamdani to succeed politically, you will do a lot better to advise him against self-delusion not to pander to his ill-informed instincts.

A last thought. Mamdani, if he does follow through on his policies, will indeed make Manhattan much more “affordable.” Chase away all the wealthy people, all the businesses and business owners, and apartments will be cheap. Detroit is affordable too. Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

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Bill Ackerman suggests that opener as a way for men to meet women, and notes it worked for him when he was younger and unmarried.  Like this: “I would ask: “May I meet you?” before engaging further in a conversation. I almost never got a No. It inevitably enabled the opportunity for a further conversation. I met a lot of really interesting people this way. I think the combination of proper grammar and politeness was the key to its effectiveness. You might give it a try.”

In response, a bunch of people have shrieked that he is a billionaire (he was not then, though perhaps he had Aristotelian billionaire potentiality?), that he is six foot three (he probably was tall back then too), and that he is good looking.  Or perhaps effective meeting and dating strategies have changed?

I readily admit I am well below average in this and all related areas concerning either meeting strangers or chatting up women, whether it concerns knowledge or praxis.  But I have an opinion nonetheless.

I observe that so many young men these days just do not make much effort at all.  They do not approach women with any sort of opening line, whether in person or through apps.  If this gets them off the zero point, it is almost certainly a good thing.  Maybe it is bad tactics for some people, if only because you are too nerdy and cannot deliver the words with the right charming tone.  So be it.  The young men with that problem can then adjust and try it some other way.  It is still a plus to get them thinking about opening lines at all, and to think about meeting women at all.  So I am fully on board with Bill’s suggestion.  He never said that is all you should be doing, or to make that your main thing.  It is unlikely that his suggestion is the best thing you could be doing, think of it simply as pressing the “activation button” on seeking a partner.

It is a bit like my advice on writing.  Your big enemy is not “I did not get enough written today.”  Rather it is “I did not write today at all.”  That point applies to so many different aspects of life.  Discrete choice econometrics!

Addendum: Bill adds that it works better when you are moving.  Let’s avoid this equilibrium.

The post “May I meet you?” appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

Over the past several months, I have been fighting a suburban Chicago library that has attempted to censor a local newsletter that I launched.

In fact, back in July, the Freedom of the Press Foundation's U.S. Press Freedom Tracker logged what was happening as an incident in Illinois.

This fight has distracted me from the work that I typically do on press freedom, whistleblowers, and government secrecy. Now, I am finally able to sit down and share this story with international readers of The Dissenter. 

The United States is filled with news deserts, which are defined as communities, “either rural or urban, with limited access to the sort of credible and comprehensive news and information that feeds democracy at the grassroots level.”

One of those communities is the West Chicago suburb where I live, which is known as Elmwood Park. Its population is around 24,000. The village has a newspaper, the Elm Leaves, but it is a prime example of the impact media consolidation has had on local journalism. 

The Elm Leaves is owned by the Pioneer Press, which is owned by Nexstar Media—a media corporation that merged with the Tribune Media Group in 2019. It rarely includes reporting on Elmwood Park. Instead, the newspaper features syndicated coverage of various Chicago suburbs that is written by a handful of reporters. 

Recognizing the lack of a reliable source for news and information in Elmwood Park, I joined with several residents and launched the Elmwood Park Advocate. 

We also reserved a library meeting room to host monthly “Community Conversations,” where residents were invited to talk with us about their shared experiences in the village. Through engagement, we believed our reporting and writing would better reflect life in the neighborhood.

After two “Community Conversations” in June and July, Library Director Michael Consiglio informed the Elmwood Park Advocate that seven or eight people objected to the “process and rationale behind hosting your meetings at the Library.” He then insisted after their opposition that we needed to pay $100 each time that we reserved a meeting room. 

The library director maintained that the library’s meeting room policy said only nonprofits with proof of 501c designation from the IRS are eligible to use the room free of charge. However, I obtained records through the Illinois Freedom of Information of Act that show the library never charged “any meeting room use fees since the adoption of the Library’s current Meeting Room Policy and reservation system in 2023.”

Library Director Seeks Power To Police Journalism And Speech

A public body is not allowed to infringe upon or bar a group from broadly exercising their First Amendment rights just because a very small group of hecklers do not like the idea of that group exercising their rights. This is the rule against the “heckler’s veto.” 

We met with the library director at the end of July. It was conveyed to us that the opposition to using the meeting room stemmed from our perceived association with individuals who had run for library board trustee positions and lost in April. However, the meeting was cordial, and the library director even said no resident should have to pay for a meeting room because we all pay property taxes. So, we were led to believe we could still use the meeting room in August and September for free.

Stunningly, on September 8, the library director unveiled a new meeting room policy. It was presented at a library board policy committee meeting that would have granted him the authority to police speech—not just inside but also outside of the library. 

For example:   

This is blatantly unconstitutional. As the American Library Association has outlined, “To restrict speech, a library must show that (1) it has a compelling state interest and (2) the speech restrictions are narrowly drawn to achieve that end.” 

The library had no public safety or health reason for trying to restrict speech nor was this provision narrowly drawn. It would have applied to “digital” communications, like articles published by my newsletter.

Attorneys for the library advised the library director to make substantial revisions, and I obtained a draft of the policy before it was revised. The report, which I published on September 30, led a number of residents to write to the library director.

“Didn't we just see this free speech fight play out 2 weeks ago with Jimmy Kimmel? Disney, ABC and their affiliates reversed course quickly once they realized that Americans truly believe and honor free speech as a constitutional right,” one resident wrote to the library director.

The same resident declared, “Free speech is the bedrock of our democracy and politicians, village officials and other community leaders need to uphold it at every chance. That includes allowing community groups the right to use legitimate public facilities, like library rooms, free of charge and without recourse to what they may or may not say during their meetings.”

Faced with a bit of a backlash, the library director disingenuously acted like he had never pursued a new meeting room policy. He told multiple residents, “There is no plan to change the current approved policy.” (Which was false. I obtained a copy of the proposed policy through FOIA and reported on it.) 

Another Attempt To Force Us To Pay A Fee (With A Bizarre Twist)

We were allowed to hold our fourth “Community Conversation” on September 20. It had the highest attendance yet, and we discussed immigration. 

But on September 29, Library Director Michael Consiglio informed the Elmwood Park Advocate that the library’s attorneys had reviewed the meeting room policy. Only Elmwood Park government agencies and Elmwood Park-based organizations that are recognized by the IRS as 501c nonprofits are “exempt from paying fees.” 

“This rule applies to all community clubs, cultural organizations, informal advocacy groups, and booster clubs that are not formally registered as nonprofits,” Consiglio added. We would have to pay $100 if we wished to use the meeting room for another “Community Conversation.”

Bizarrely, on October 2, the library director emailed the newsletter and said, “[I]n the interest of maintaining open communication and making sure that your planned meeting can proceed without disruption, I will personally cover the $100 meeting room fee until the Library Board convenes to review the policy and consider any necessary revisions.”

We neither accepted nor rejected the offer. In my opinion, there was an intimidating coerciveness behind this offer: accept my personal generosity or else your newsletter will not be able to use the library’s main meeting room.

Also, it seemed like if we did not accept the offer the library director and library board president could paint us as difficult and unreasonable. But no one involved or associated with the newsletter was responsible for the combination of developments, which led to the library director suddenly insisting that the library must charge meeting room fees. 

The library director “paid” the fee, and we held a fifth “Community Conversation” on October 11. At this gathering, we specifically addressed the fear and anxiety that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations had generated among residents. 

A Plea To Respect Our First Amendment Rights

Everything finally came to a head on October 26. After we reserved a room for November 15, Library Director Michael Consiglio denied the newsletter’s request for a room unless we paid $100. The newsletter appealed the decision. 

On November 10, I stood before the library board policy committee and presented our appeal. 

I urged trustees to interpret “the meeting room policy in a manner that supports the library’s mission and the principle for meeting room use in the Library Bill of Rights.”

The ALA’s Library Bill of Rights, which is part of the policy, says, “Libraries shall make meeting rooms available to groups regardless of the beliefs and affiliations of the group requesting their use or their members.”

Jack Bentley, a community lawyer, submitted a statement on our behalf. “The First Amendment to the Constitution does not only protect the freedom to view, hear, and read library materials. It also protects the freedom for residents to assemble in a meeting room, regardless of their beliefs, affiliations, or speech. That includes the freedom to publish articles about the library without fear of retaliation.”

“To charge the newsletter or any group of residents $100 for meeting room reservations with no apparent budgetary or policy concern backing up that fee is patently violative of your residents’ right to free expression as guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” Bentley further stated.

Our case was compounded by the fact that Library Board President Chris Pesko proposed changing the language of the policy so it was much more clear that the library would charge any group or organization without 501c nonprofit status. Even if our appeal was granted, library board trustees could have immediately nullified the decision.

However, something unexpected happened while the library board was discussing the appeal. Library Board Trustee Peter Fosco urged the trustees to spend some more time considering the fees and comparing the fee structure in the policy to other area libraries. He motioned for a “moratorium” on meeting room fees, and the committee temporarily suspended the fee. (An hour later, the full library board voted to suspend the fee, too.)

By suspending the fee, it allowed the library board to avoid a decision that would have added to brewing resentment over how the library has treated our newsletter. It also meant that our appeal was paused, and that we could host our final “Community Conversation of the year on November 15.

I have no idea where this battle goes next, but it has renewed my sense of purpose as a journalist. Each day I spend several hours drafting articles, collaborating with volunteer staff, submitting FOIA requests, challenging FOIA denials, defending our newsletter, etc.

When the Elmwood Park Advocate launched in late May, it had less than 10 views per day. In September and October, we’ve hit 1,500 views and 2,000 views in a day. Our traffic is up over 26,000 percent in the past 180 days, and the number of subscribers that we have has grown by over 3,000 percent during the same time.

For well over a decade, I have written about press freedom, free speech, censorship, secrecy, and even government accountability. I was part of a groundswell of opposition that helped free WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

One might think I would stay focused on the national and international issues that were integral to their cases (and I am still committed to these issues). But this has rekindled my passion for journalism. I see traffic spikes on articles and engage with readers in a way that simply does not happen with The Dissenter anymore.

Leading a local newsletter feels incredibly important and impactful, like we're on the frontlines of a fight for access to news and information that every community should be waging right now.

With the government reopening, the dubious panel of vaccine advisors selected by anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy is wasting no time getting back to dismantling the federal childhood vaccine schedule.

A meeting that was scheduled for October but put on hold during the shutdown has already been rescheduled for December 4 and 5. A Federal Register notice Thursday said that the meeting will “include discussions on vaccine safety, the childhood and adolescent immunization schedule, and hepatitis B vaccines.” The announcement was light on information beyond that but indicated that there would be a vote on hepatitis B vaccines.

The panel—the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—is typically composed of preeminent, extensively vetted vaccine experts. But, in June, Kennedy summarily fired all 17 experts on the panel and installed 12 new members, almost all of whom are questionably qualified and espouse anti-vaccine views.

In the most recent meeting in September, the panel had planned to vote on altering the current recommendations for hepatitis B vaccinations but then abruptly abandoned the plan after they realized that the proposed recommendation made no sense and was not based on data.

First try

Hepatitis B vaccines are administered in three doses: the first on the day of birth, the second at 1 to 2 months, and the third between 6 and 18 months. The vaccine protects against a serious liver infection that, when acquired early in life, almost always becomes chronic, leading to liver disease and cancers. With a dose at birth, doctors close any window in which babies are vulnerable to the highly infectious virus, which can be spread from people who don’t know they have it. About 2.4 million people in the US are infected, and about 50 percent aren’t aware of their infection.

Adam Langer, acting principal deputy director of the CDC’s National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention, presented a ream of data at the September meeting. He noted that there are no significant safety concerns about the vaccine, including the birth dose.

Nevertheless, Kennedy’s ACIP members planned to push the first dose back a month. A vote was prepared to recommend not giving a birth dose unless there was “individual based decision-making.” While at first the panel seemed poised to vote in favor of the change, the plan collapsed with basic questioning.

Voting ACIP member Joseph Hibbeln, a psychiatrist, noted: “I’m unclear if we’ve been presented with any safety or data comparing before one month to after one month,” he said. They had not.

“And,” Hibbeln continued, “I’m wondering why one month was selected as our time point and if there are data to help to inform us if there’s greater risk of adverse effects before one month or after one month at all.”

There is no data suggesting that such a move would be more or less safe.

The discussion quickly spiraled from there with an eventual vote of 11-1 to table voting on the vaccine recommendation. According to the Federal Register notice, ACIP will try to take up the topic again. They could revive the vote or attack some other aspect of vaccine recommendations.

Pediatricians fight back

Health experts have blasted Kennedy’s lineup and their attacks on childhood vaccines, including the hepatitis B vaccination schedule. The current schedule “remains the best protection against serious health problems like liver disease and cancer,” the American Academy of Pediatrics emphasized to Ars.

With ACIP’s standing tarnished under Kennedy, AAP has put forth its own evidence-based vaccine schedule for pediatricians to trust. They’ve also been a prominent opponent among medical organizations to Kennedy’s efforts. For instance, in a revised federal lawsuit, the AAP along with other medical organizations is seeking to overturn all decisions made by Kennedy’s ACIP and replace the entire panel with actual experts.

Kennedy’s appointees “lack the credentials and experience required of their role,” and all their votes should be declared “null and void,” the organization said.

AAP President Susan Kressly said that pediatricians are already seeing the effects of having an anti-vaccine activist as the US health secretary, namely “fear, decreased vaccine confidence, and barriers for families to access vaccines.”

“The nation’s children are already paying the price in avoidable illnesses and hospitalizations,” Kressly said. “We urge federal leaders to restore the science-based deliberative process that has made the United States a global leader in public health. Urgent action is needed.”

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