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Dec. 5, 2025, 5:16 PM ESTBy Aria BendixAn anti-vaccine lawyer who has regularly sued federal and state health agencies spoke Friday at a meeting of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory panel — an unheard-of departure for the committee, which for decades was a trusted source for vaccine recommendations.The lawyer, Aaron Siri, has also served as the personal attorney for Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist. Siri delivered a lengthy presentation about the childhood immunization schedule, chronicling what he said were concerning adverse events from routine vaccines and calling particular attention to vaccines for hepatitis B, pneumococcal disease and a combination shot for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough). Previously, Siri has advocated for the Food and Drug Administration to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine.Art Caplan, head of the division of medical ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center, said Siri’s presence at the meeting suggests that the panel, known formally as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, is “trying to use a pre-committed ideology to get where they want to go, which is to get rid of childhood vaccination.” “This is a science issue, and he’s the wrong guy, with the wrong conflicts, with the wrong style, with the wrong information,” Caplan said.Siri also pointed to a supposed link between autism and vaccines given in the first six months of life — a claim that has been widely debunked — arguing that there are no studies to disprove the link. “If you’re going to say vaccines don’t cause autism, have the data to say it,” Siri said.Decades of research, including extensive probes into the safety of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, has found no link between vaccines and autism. A large Danish study from July found no association between aluminum exposure from vaccines during the first two years of life and increased rates of neurodevelopmental disorders. And a massive review in 2021, which evaluated 138 studies, determined that MMR vaccines don’t cause autism.Siri suggested at the meeting that a shortcoming of several childhood vaccines is their failure to prevent transmission, pointing to research on a type of whooping cough vaccine in infant baboons. Public health experts argue that the goal of those shots is to prevent symptomatic disease and death. He further suggested that childhood vaccines weren’t properly evaluated for safety — despite decades of continuous monitoring for side effects.“The concern is that not one of them was licensed based on an inert, a placebo-controlled clinical trial,” Siri said.People who question the safety of vaccines often suggest that trials should be conducted with an inert placebo — meaning some trial participants would receive the new vaccine while others would receive an inactive substance like saline, to compare results.However, public health experts say there’s a legitimate reason not to use a placebo in some cases: It would be unethical to withhold the benefit of a vaccine from study participants, so trials often test new vaccines against older versions.“Siri’s claim that childhood vaccines were ‘never tested against placebo’ is a talking point, not a fact,” Dr. Jake Scott, an infectious diseases specialist at Stanford Medicine, said via text message. “Inert placebo-controlled trials exist for most of the routine childhood vaccines, including large studies using saline or sterile water controls published in major journals.” Scott testified before Congress in September that his research team had documented 398 randomized control trials that evaluate the active ingredients in childhood vaccines and use inert placebos such as saline or sterile water.Dr. Cody Meissner, a pediatrician and the only ACIP member who has previously served on the committee, said Siri’s presentation was “a terrible, terrible distortion of all the facts.”“For you to come here and make these absolutely outrageous statements about safety, it’s a big disappointment to me and I don’t think you should have been invited, I will be completely honest,” Meissner said during the meeting.Siri’s unorthodox presentation followed a day and a half of chaotic proceedings, in which advisory members and presenters made false claims about the safety and efficacy of hepatitis B vaccines and cherry-picked data. The committee voted Friday morning to roll back a long-standing recommendation for all newborns to get a first dose of the hepatitis B vaccine. Instead, the advisers said women who test negative for hepatitis B can consult with a health care provider about whether their baby should get the birth dose.Kennedy fired the previous members of the advisory panel in June over what he claimed were “persistent conflicts of interest,” and replaced them with a group that has largely expressed skepticism of vaccines.Siri disclosed a litany of conflicts at Friday’s meeting, including numerous ongoing lawsuits against the Department of Health and Human Services and its subsidiary agencies. Those include lawsuits over purported Covid vaccine injuries and exemptions to vaccine mandates, he said. Siri previously sued the CDC to compel it to turn over studies demonstrating that vaccines don’t cause autism.Siri said he was asked to speak Friday alongside Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development. Hotez said he declined the request because “ACIP appears to have shifted its mission away from science and evidence-based medicine.” Offit, who has similarly accused the committee of becoming political, said he could not recall receiving an invitation, but would not have attended the meeting regardless.Caplan, the medical ethicist, said such a debate would not have been productive. “We don’t really need to debate evolution again, probably don’t need to debate settled opinion about whether we went to the moon — and we don’t need to debate this,” he said.Aria BendixAria Bendix is the breaking health reporter for NBC News Digital.

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Dec. 6, 2025, 5:15 AM ESTBy Jana Kasperkevic, Lara Horwitz and Melinda YaoA coach bolts on the brink of the playoffs, a city finds hope in the pope’s visit, and the defense secretary is condemned for the “violent” use of a children’s character. Test your knowledge of the week in news, and take the most recent quiz here.Jana KasperkevicWeekend Director of Platforms, NBCLara Horwitz Lara Horwitz is a platforms editor for NBC News.Melinda YaoI am an intern for NBC News’ Data / Graphics team.Jeremy Mikula, Josh Feldman and Nigel Chiwaya contributed.

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November 10, 2025

Nov. 9, 2025, 9:45 AM ESTBy Kaitlin SullivanDrinking caffeinated coffee is safe for people with atrial fibrillation and may help protect against recurrence of the disorder, a new study finds.More than 10 million Americans live with atrial fibrillation, or A-fib, a common heart disorder that causes heart palpitations and can lead to heart failure, blood clots and stroke. Doctors have long tried to understand whether caffeine — which can increase heart rate and blood pressure — appears to trigger episodes that feel like a fluttering or thumping in the chest and cause dizziness or breathlessness.“There is no standard advice for atrial fibrillation and caffeine,” said Dr. Gregory Marcus, a cardiologist and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, who led the DECAF (Does Eliminating Coffee Avoid Fibrillation?) study. “It is very common for me to encounter patients who have stopped drinking caffeinated coffee only because their physician has told them to do so because of their atrial fibrillation.”The results of the DECAF study, a four-year clinical trial examining the effects of drinking coffee in people with a history of irregular heart rhythm that had either resolved or been treated, were presented Sunday at the annual American Heart Association conference in New Orleans and published in JAMA. Marcus is an associate editor of JAMA.The researchers recruited 200 older adults in Australia, Canada and the United States who were regular coffee drinkers at some point in the last five years. The average age was 70 and one-third were women.Over six months, the participants were randomized to two groups: those who cut out caffeine, and those who had at least one cup every day. Everyone self-reported their coffee and caffeinated beverage consumption during telehealth or video check-ins that occurred one, three and six months into the trial.Using data from electrocardiograms, or ECGs, taken in a doctor’s office, wearable heart monitors and implantable cardiac devices, Marcus and his team determined if and when people in each group had their first recurrent episode of A-fib. They included episodes of atrial flutter, a related condition that also causes abnormal contractions in the upper chambers of the heart.Both groups had about the same alcohol habits. Not everyone was a coffee drinker when the study began, but the number of daily coffee drinkers in each group was similar.Before the study began, 60% of people in the coffee-drinking group and 65% in the no-coffee group said that coffee had never triggered an A-fib episode.During the six-month study, 111 people, or 56%, had a recurrent episode of atrial flutter. People in the coffee drinking group were less likely to have a recurrence — 47% compared to 64% of people in the no-coffee group — and went a longer period of time before they had their first episode.(About a third of people in the no-coffee group did admit to drinking at least a cup during the study, while the rest didn’t consume any.)A cup a day ‘perfectly safe’It’s the latest study to show coffee may lower risks of heart problems and other metabolic disease. Previous observational research has suggested that people who drank coffee had less of a risk of A-fib, but the new trial shows a cause-and-effect relationship, said Marcus.“I was somewhat surprised at the magnitude of how protective caffeinated coffee does seem to be to prevent atrial fibrillation,” Marcus said.Dr. Johanna Contreras, a cardiologist at Mount Sinai Fuster Heart Hospital in New York, said the most significant takeaway from the study was that drinking a cup of coffee a day seems to be perfectly safe for people with A-fib, rather than that coffee is protective.“There’s not a hard-and-fast rule. Not everyone has the same reaction to caffeine,” said Contreras, who was not involved with the trial.There are notable limitations in the study, including the effects of caffeinated beverages other than coffee. The trial didn’t track differences in exercise habits or diet. People who drink coffee may also be exercising more, Marcus suggested.The study found that drinking just one cup of coffee per day appeared to have a protective effect, and while some people in the study did drink more than that, it’s unclear if more than a cup of coffee per day could have any effect on A-fib recurrence.Moderation is key, Contreras said.“If people are having six or seven cups of coffee, and then Red Bulls and Celsius, that’s different,” she said.It’s unclear why drinking coffee was linked with a lower risk of irregular heartbeat recurrence. It’s possible that an anti-inflammatory compound in coffee, not specifically caffeine, could have reduced recurrence in the coffee-drinking group, Marcus said.If caffeine is at play, it is possible that stimulating the body’s adrenaline response with caffeine could help stave off A-fib. People often report episodes when they are relaxed, such as while sleeping or after a big meal, when adrenaline is low, Marcus said, when the “rest and digest” part of the nervous system is activated.Also, the trial included only people who were not currently experiencing episodes of A-fib. The findings may not translate to people with the unmanaged disorder.“If someone was in the midst of A-fib, caffeine could certainly increase the pulse rate during that episode and therefore lead to worse symptoms,” he said.For people who are already regular coffee drinkers, “this shows you can have a cup of coffee in the morning and be OK if you have A-fib,” Contreras said.Kaitlin SullivanKaitlin Sullivan is a contributor for NBCNews.com who has worked with NBC News Investigations. She reports on health, science and the environment and is a graduate of the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at City University of New York.

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Nov. 29, 2025, 9:32 AM ESTBy Freddie ClaytonPresident Donald Trump said Saturday morning that Venezuela’s airspace should be considered “closed” as he weighs military action against the South American nation. “To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.There was no immediate response from Venezuela, which maintains authority over its own airspace, to the post. Flight-tracking data appeared to show a handful of planes still above the country on Saturday morning.A number of airlines began rerouting flights away from Venezuela’s airspace earlier this month, and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has issued a warning of “heightened military activity” in the area.On Wednesday, Venezuela’s civil aviation authority stripped take-off and landing rights from six commercial carriers it accused of “joining the actions of state terrorism promoted by the United States government and unilaterally suspending air commercial operations.”On Thursday, Trump said the U.S. could “very soon” begin targeting alleged Venezuelan drug traffickers on land, expanding operations that have so far focused on vessels in the Caribbean Sea.Trump says land strikes in Venezuela could start “very soon”02:03In Thanksgiving remarks to U.S. troops around the world, Trump thanked the Air Force’s 7th Bomb Wing for its work to “deter Venezuelan drug traffickers” and said “it’s about 85% stopped by sea … and we’ll be starting to stop them by land.”“Also, the land is easier, but that’s going to start very soon,” the president added, speaking from his Mar-a-Lago estate.For months, the president has intensified U.S. military presence in the region, ramping up pressure on Venezuela with strikes on alleged drug boats since early September. The military has carried out nearly two dozen known strikes on vessels they said were carrying drugs, killing at least 82 people.The USS Gerald R. Ford, a major aircraft carrier, arrived in the Caribbean last week, rounding out a buildup of U.S. military forces in the region that has not been seen for decades.The U.S. last week also designated the Cartel de los Soles, a group Washington alleges is run by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, as a foreign terrorist organization.Maduro has denied having any ties to the drug trade and has accused the U.S. of “fabricating” a war against him.Freddie ClaytonFreddie Clayton is a freelance journalist based in London. Katherine Doyle contributed.

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