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CDC’s Out of Touch Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices Poised to Undermine Childhood Vaccination Schedule
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is meeting today and Friday to discuss and vote on the hepatitis B vaccine and to consider sweeping changes to the childhood/adolescent immunization schedule, among other matters. Reports suggest that the ACIP will recommend delaying a birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine that has been routinely administered to newborns for years. An independent evidence review released on Tuesday found “no benefit related to vaccine safety or protection of a delayed first dose [of the hepatitis B vaccine] compared with vaccination at birth.” At present, the CDC recommends the first dose of the hepatitis B vaccine at birth, with subsequent doses at one or two months and between six and 18 months of age. Dr. Robert Steinbrook, Health Research Group Director at Public Citizen, issued the following statement:
“Delaying a birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine is a public health tragedy in the making. For 35 years, vaccination at birth has protected millions of newborns against the potentially deadly hepatitis B virus. Although thousands of infants are born each year to women with hepatitis B virus infection, about one in five pregnant women in the U.S. do not receive hepatitis B testing and a third of women who test positive do not receive recommended follow-up care.
“Pushing back the first dose of this safe and effective vaccine means that fewer infants will be vaccinated. Unvaccinated children will be vulnerable to undiagnosed infection in their mothers and exposure to the virus after birth, and some will develop chronic hepatitis B infection and life-threatening liver disease.
“Undermining the childhood immunization schedule because of unfounded beliefs about the safety of vaccines is a senseless assault on public health that will only lead to entirely preventable disease outbreaks in the years ahead.”
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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'Are We Really Living in a Democracy?' Asks Sanders After Musk Drops $10 Million on US Senate Race
"Billionaires can’t be allowed to buy elections."
Jan 19, 2026
After flirting last year with forming his own political party, far-right billionaire Elon Musk is funding Republican political candidates once again.
Axios reported on Monday that Musk recently made a massive $10 million donation to bolster Nate Morris, a MAGA candidate who is vying to replace retiring US Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
Axios described the massive donation, the largest Musk has ever given to a Senate candidate, as "the biggest sign yet that Musk plans to spend big in the 2026 midterms, giving Republicans a formidable weapon in the expensive battle to keep their congressional majorities."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) reacted with disgust to the news, and said that Musk's enormous donation was indicative of a broken campaign finance system.
"Are we really living in a democracy when the richest man on earth can spend as much as he wants to elect his candidates?" Sanders asked in a social media post.
"The most important thing our nation can do is end Citizens United and move to public funding of elections," he added, referring to the 2010 Supreme Court decision that cleared the way for unlimited spending on elections by corporations. "Billionaires can’t be allowed to buy elections."
Democratic Maine State Auditor Matt Dunlap, currently running to represent Maine's second congressional district, also denounced Musk for throwing his weight around to buy politicians.
"Billionaires buy our elections, rig the tax code, and undermine our democracy," wrote Dunlap. "Working people deserve a government that works for them—not for billionaires like Elon Musk."
Musk is no stranger to spending big to help elect Republicans, having spent more than $250 million in 2024 to help secure President Donald Trump's victory.
However, his riches are no guarantee of a GOP win. Last year, for example, Musk spent millions to elect former Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel to a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, only to wind up losing the race by 10 points.
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Investigation Demanded as ICE Reports Third Death at Texas Detention Center in 44 Days
"This is the third person who has died in the $1.24 billion privately-run facility that focuses on profits instead of meeting basic standards," said one lawmaker.
Jan 19, 2026
Officials in both Texas and Minnesota are calling for accountability and a full investigation into conditions at Camp East Montana, the sprawling detention complex at Fort Bliss in El Paso, Texas, following the third reported death at the facility in less than two months.
Victor Manuel Diaz, 36, was detained by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Minneapolis, where ICE has been carrying out violent immigration arrests, cracking down on dissent, and where one officer fatally shot a legal observer earlier this month.
He was one of roughly 2,903 detainees being held at Camp East Montana at Fort Bliss US Army base, one of the largest ICE detention centers in the country, on January 14 when contract security workers found him “unconscious and unresponsive” in his cell.
He was later pronounced dead and ICE released a statement saying he had died of "presumed suicide," but officials arre still investigating his cause of death.
Diaz's death comes days after it was reported that a medical examiner in Texas was planning to classify another death reported at Camp East Montana—that of Geraldo Lunas Campos—as a homicide.
A doctor said Lunas Campos' preliminary cause of death in early January was "asphyxia due to neck and chest compression." An eyewitness said he had seen several guards in a struggle with the 55-year-old Cuban immigrant and then saw guards choking Lunas Campos.
A month prior of Lunas Campos' death, 49-year-old Guatemalan immigrant Francisco Gaspar-Andres died at a nearby hospital; he was a detainee at Camp East Montana. ICE said medical staff attributed his death to "natural liver and kidney failure.”
Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan called for a "complete and transparent investigation" into what happened to Diaz after his death was announced Sunday.
"We deserve answers," said Flanagan.
US Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), who last year expressed concern about the US government's deal with a small private business, Acquisition Logistics LLC, to run Camp East Montana, said the detention center "must be shut down immediately," warning that "two deaths in one month means conditions are worsening."
After the administration awarded a $1.2 billion contract to Acquisition Logistics to build and operate the camp, lawmakers and legal experts raised questions about the decision, considering the small company had no listed experience running detention centers, its headquarters was listed as a Virginia residential address, and the president and CEO of the company did not respond to media inquiries.
"It's far too easy for standards to slip," Escobar told PBS Newshour after touring the facility. "Private facilities far too frequently operate with a profit margin in mind as opposed to a governmental facility."
In September, ICE's own inspectors found at least 60 violations of federal standards, with employees failing to treat and monitor detainees' medical conditions and the center lacking safety procedures and methods for detainees to contact their lawyers.
Across all of ICE's detention facilities, 2025 was the deadliest year for immigrant detainees in more than two decades, with 32 people dying in the agency's centers.
After Diaz's death was reported Sunday, former National Nurses United communications adviser Charles Idelson said that "ICE detention centers are functioning like death camps."
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'What Climate Breakdown Looks Like': 50,000+ Flee Wildfires as Chile Declares 'State of Catastrophe'
"The first priority, as you know, in these emergencies is always to fight and extinguish the fire. But we cannot forget, at any time, that there are human tragedies here," said the country's president.
Jan 19, 2026
On the heels of another historically hot year for Earth, disasters tied to the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency have yet again turned deadly, with wildfires in Chile's Ñuble and Biobío regions killing at least 18 people—a figure that Chilean President Gabriel Boric said he expects to rise.
The South American leader on Sunday declared a "state of catastrophe" in the two regions, where ongoing wildfires have also forced more than 50,000 people to evacuate. The Associated Press reported that during a Sunday press conference in Concepción, Boric estimated that "certainly more than a thousand" homes had already been impacted in just Biobío.
"The first priority, as you know, in these emergencies is always to fight and extinguish the fire. But we cannot forget, at any time, that there are human tragedies here, families who are suffering," the president said. "These are difficult times."
According to the BBC, "The bulk of the evacuations were carried out in the cities of Penco and Lirquen, just north of Concepción, which have a combined population of 60,000."
Some Penco residents told the AP that they were surprised by the fire overnight.
"Many people didn't evacuate. They stayed in their houses because they thought the fire would stop at the edge of the forest," 55-year-old John Guzmán told the outlet. "It was completely out of control. No one expected it."
Chile's National Forest Corporation (CONAF) said that as of late Monday morning, crews were fighting 26 fires across the regions.
As Reuters detailed:
Authorities say adverse conditions like strong winds and high temperatures helped wildfires spread and complicated firefighters' abilities to control the fires. Much of Chile was under extreme heat alerts, with temperatures expected to reach up to 38ºC (100ºF) from Santiago to Biobío on Sunday and Monday.
Both Chile and Argentina have experienced extreme temperatures and heatwaves since the beginning of the year, with devastating wildfires breaking out in Argentina's Patagonia earlier this month.
Scientists have warned and research continues to show that, as one Australian expert who led a relevant 2024 study put it to the Guardian, "the fingerprints of climate change are all over" the world's rise in extreme wildfires.
"We've long seen model projections of how fire weather is increasing with climate change," Calum Cunningham of Australia's University of Tasmania said when that study was released. "But now we're at the point where the wildfires themselves, the manifestation of climate change, are occurring in front of our eyes. This is the effect of what we're doing to the atmosphere, so action is urgent."
Sharing the Guardian's report on the current fires in Chile, British climate scientist Bill McGuire declared: "This is what climate breakdown looks like. But this is just the beginning..."
The most recent United Nations Climate Change Conference, where world leaders aim to coordinate a global response to the planetary crisis, was held in another South American nation that has faced devastating wildfires—and those intentionally set by various industries—in recent years: Brazil. COP30 concluded in November with a deal that doesn't even include the words "fossil fuels."
"This is an empty deal," Nikki Reisch of the Center for International Environmental Law said at the time. "COP30 provides a stark reminder that the answers to the climate crisis do not lie inside the climate talks—they lie with the people and movements leading the way toward a just, equitable, fossil-free future. The science is settled and the law is clear: We must keep fossil fuels in the ground and make polluters pay."
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