Iran Keeps Hormuz Shut Pending U.S. Concessions/Trump Orders Cuts to Childhood Vaccine Schedule

 

Iran Keeps Hormuz Shut Pending U.S. Concessions

Iranian officials said Monday Tehran would not reopen the Strait of Hormuz until Washington agrees to lift its blockade of Iranian ports, end economic sanctions, release Iran’s frozen assets, and pay compensation for damage caused by the war. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei claimed that Iran’s talks with Oman were focused on finding a safe shipping route, but that this was separate from reopening the strait. Only six vessels transited the strait on Monday, down from a 10-day average of about 11 and far below the 130 to 140 ships that passed through daily before the war, according to Kpler data.

President Donald Trump responded to Iran’s new demands for reparations by saying he wants compensation for the Americans Iran has killed and wounded, as well as for “the damages and death caused to the people of Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Gaza.” In the post, Trump claimed he wants compensation from Iran for the October 2000 bombing of the guided-missile destroyer USS Cole at a Yemeni port. The FBI attributes the attack, which killed 17 sailors, to al-Qaeda, though a federal judge ruled in 2015 that Iran was liable for helping build the network behind the attack. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve’s crude oil stockpile fell below 300 million barrels last week, the lowest level since 1983.

Trump Orders Cuts to Childhood Vaccine Schedule

Trump signed an executive order Monday that would—if found legal—cut the number of diseases American children are recommended to be vaccinated against from 18 to 11 and call for the combined measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine to be split into three separate shots. No single-disease measles, mumps, or rubella vaccines are licensed in the U.S. The 11 universally recommended immunizations cover measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, Hib, pneumococcal disease, HPV, and chickenpox, while vaccines for hepatitis A and B, rotavirus, meningococcal disease, the flu, and COVID-19 shift to case-by-case “shared clinical decision-making” between doctors and parents. Other immunizations, including RSV antibodies and the dengue vaccine, are now recommended only for high-risk groups. The order gives a Department of Health and Human Services task force 90 days to present plans for making single-disease measles, mumps, and rubella shots available. A White House official said the downgraded shots remain recommendations that the administration assumes insurers will continue to cover.

The order revives a reduction in the vaccine schedule that HHS attempted to put in place in January but a federal judge blocked in March, and its legal force is unclear: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issues vaccine recommendations on the advice of its expert panel, and states set school-entry requirements. The CDC says no published evidence shows any benefit to splitting the combined vaccine, in use since 1971, and that doing so would mean six injections instead of two. Speaking in the Oval Office, Trump tied vaccines to rising autism diagnoses and said—without evidence—that the combined MMR shot could be “quite lethal.” The CDC largely attributes the rise in autism diagnoses to broader diagnostic criteria and screening, and dozens of studies have failed to find a link between vaccines and autism.   -The Morning Dispatch