Le Journal

Brad Lander, the outgoing comptroller of New York City, announced Wednesday that he is running for Congress, challenging U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman in a Democratic primary for a liberal district in lower Manhattan and northwest Brooklyn. Lander, a progressive ally of Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, launched his campaign in a video and social media posts, promising to offer “courageous leadership in the face of Donald Trump’s attacks on New Yorkers.” “At a moment of dark oppression, we can shine by fighting back together,” he said. “While the oligarchy drives an affordability crisis, they shouldn’t be able to buy a seat in Congress. While our immigrant neighbors are being demonized and attacked, we can put our bodies on the line to protect them,” said Lander in the video. Lander has been eyeing a challenge to Goldman since he lost the Democratic mayoral primary to Mamdani this summer. Both Lander and Goldman have been vocal critics of the federal government’s deportation agenda, appearing at a high-profile immigration court in Manhattan to observe proceedings over the last several months. Lander was arrested there twice and faces a misdemeanor obstruction charge stemming from one of the incidents. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders endorsed Lander. “Brad Lander is a relentless fighter for working people,” said Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats. “He’s spent the past two decades taking on big corporations, winning better wages and fair working conditions for New Yorkers, including major victories for fast food workers, delivery workers, and tenants.” Goldman, a two-term congressman and heir to the Levi Strauss denim fortune, is a former federal prosecutor who was lead counsel for Trump’s first impeachment. He is considered a moderate Democrat, though he has supported raising taxes on wealthy people as well as the Green New Deal climate change proposal. An email seeking comment was sent to Goldman’s campaign. Lander, who is also a former city council member, will leave office as comptroller next year after deciding not to seek reelection. Lander and Mamdani endorsed one another during the mayoral primary in an effort, as part of the city’s ranked choice voting system, to join forces against former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who at the time was the front-runner. The partnership appeared to help them both. Mamdani’s support boosted Lander among the progressive base, while the backing of a high-profile Jewish candidate helped Mamdani as he faced attacks over his criticism of the Israeli government’s military actions in Gaza.

Doctors, hospitals and public health departments are scrambling to ensure proper care for pregnant women and their babies following a controversial vote from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisors that reversed decades of standard medical practice giving newborns the hepatitis B vaccine. “We don’t really know just yet how individual hospitals and clinicians will handle this,” said Dr. Brenna Hughes, interim chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. “It’s creating fear and distrust.” Last Friday, the CDC’s vaccine panel advised that only babies born to women who test positive for hepatitis B should get the first dose within 24 hours of delivery. The decision rolled back decadeslong guidance that all newborns should be protected against the lifelong, incurable infection that can lead to liver disease and cancer. Many babies in the U.S., however, are born to women who never have the chance to be tested. A March of Dimes report published in November found that nearly a quarter of pregnant women aren’t under a doctor’s care during their first trimester, when most women are tested for hepatitis B. Dr. Steven Fleishman, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said the hepatitis B vaccine given to newborns acts as a safety net. “If there is someone who gets exposed to hepatitis B later in pregnancy, or develops an infection later on,” Fleishman said, “the baby is protected by that vaccine.” The virus can pass from mom to baby during delivery. As of Tuesday, acting CDC director Jim O’Neill hadn’t yet signed off on the committee’s recommendation. The agency isn’t required to follow the panel’s advice, but usually does. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dec 5 CDC advisory panel rolls back universal hepatitis B vaccine recommendation Health Sep 9 Hepatitis B vaccine has sharply cut infections in children. Why are some against it? The CDC doesn’t mandate vaccination. It recommends a schedule for children to be protected against infectious diseases. The vaccine panel regularly reviews data and makes changes to the schedule based on guidance by doctors or scientists with expertise in the subject matter. But experts said the advisory panel, stacked with members handpicked in June by Health Sec. Robert F. Kennedy Jr, failed to provide the kind of scientific evidence historically associated with the CDC to back up its reasoning. The group “has not followed the standard and transparent process that had made the advisory committee a bastion of good evidence-based decision making,” said Dr. Jason Goldman, an internal medicine doctor and president of the American College of Physicians. “Their information and decisions cannot be trusted.” The panel recommended that women who test negative for hepatitis B can decide in consultation with a health care provider whether their baby should get the birth dose. The panel’s vote to hold off the hepatitis B vaccine for babies until at least 2 months of age for the first dose if the vaccine is not given at birth was totally out of line with decades of evidence proving the shot’s safety and effectiveness, experts say. The birth dose, implemented for all babies in the early 1990s, has driven down cases of acute hepatitis B infections in children by 99%. During a call with reporters Tuesday, Dr. Aaron Milstone, a pediatrician at Johns Hopkins Medicine and member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ committee on infectious diseases said the fallout is “chaos and confusion” among public health experts trying to counsel clinicians on best practices, as well as doctors in exam rooms faced with worried parents. “Many physicians are working across our country in fear that doing the best thing for their patient is now at odds with information coming from what were previously trusted resources,” Dr. Sarah Nosal, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians, said during the same call. “If you have to…