The Trump administration has declared war on "woke" science, installing a prominent vaccine skeptic as the new head of the Department of Health and Human Services, banning a long list of research terminology from government websites, and sacking huge number of researchers at the National Science Foundation.

After expunging all that liberal bias, a pair of new scientific papers flagged by Ars Technica — one of them by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, another agency targeted by Trump — has revealed what COVID-19 vaccinations actually do to children and teens.

Shockingly, they both show that annual shots not only greatly lower the risk of developing long COVID, but that they aren't linked to sudden cardiac death in young people, as many conspiracy theories have claimed. In short, it's even more evidence demonstrating the importance of COVID vaccines, not just for adults, but for kids as well.

It's an extremely important topic now that the Trump administration is systematically trying to defund scientific research — a bizarre change of tune, considering Trump was behind a concerted effort called Operation Warp Speed in the early days of the pandemic to speed up the development of COVID vaccines.

As detailed in one of the two studies, published this week in the journal JAMA Network Open, a team of US-based pediatricians and CDC researchers found that COVID-19 vaccinations were associated with a 57 percent drop in the odds of developing one or more post-COVID condition symptoms.

In other words, the mRNA-based vaccines that have become commonplace since the global pandemic are highly effective at warding off long COVID in children aged five to 17 years.

And that effectiveness is as relevant as it was during the pandemic.

"Our findings suggest that children should stay up to date with current COVID-19 vaccination recommendations as vaccination not only protects against severe COVID-19 illness but also protects against [long COVID]," the researchers wrote in their paper.

A separate cohort study, also published this week in the same journal, found that "concerns that young athletes with COVID-19 would be at increased risk of myocarditis and sudden cardiac arrest" were unfounded.

The international team of researchers compared instances of cardiac deaths that occurred before and during the pandemic, and found "no increase" in either of these conditions after it struck.

The study builds on existing evidence that there's no link between the disease and cardiac death in young people. In early 2023, the media was awash with reports of young athletes reportedly suffering cardiac arrest as a result of a COVID infection, lingering rumors that persisted despite sustained efforts to debunk them.

It's an especially pertinent topic now that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has taken over as Trump's health secretary. Kennedy has previously questioned the scientific consensus that childhood vaccines don't cause autism and has denied that COVID vaccines have saved millions of lives.

As the Guardian reported last month, Kennedy's non-profit, the Children's Health Defense, reportedly tried to block new COVID vaccinations from being rolled out during the height of the pandemic.

Where his staunchly anti-vaccine stance will leave the future role of vaccinations in the United States remains unclear at best. His appointment has already proven highly controversial. Kennedy clashed with Democrats during his Senate confirmation hearing in January after making contradictory statements regarding the effectiveness of vaccines.

Meanwhile, Trump has announced a new so-called "Make America Healthy Again" Commission, to be led by Kennedy. The new body is set to take aim at the alleged overprescription of drugs for the treatment of ADHD and the prevalence of autism and asthma in children.

Experts have also warned that Kennedy's vaccine cynicism could greatly undermine US efforts to eradicate polio.

It's an unfortunate prognosis for the future of public health. With the Trump administration declaring war on lifesaving scientific research and Kennedy vowing to probe the safety of childhood vaccines, very few, if any, lessons appear to have been learned following the COVID-19 pandemic.

https://www.amazon.com/Africircle-AfriPrime/dp/B0D2M3F2JT