CDC's vaccine panel to take up longtime target of anti-vaccine groups

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s new vaccine advisers meet next week, but their agenda suggests they’ll skip some expected topics.

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s new vaccine advisers meet next week, but their agenda suggests they’ll skip some expected topics — including a vote on Covid shots — while taking up a longtime target of anti-vaccine groups.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices makes recommendations on how to use the nation’s vaccines, setting a schedule for children’s vaccines, as well as advice for adult shots. Last week, Kennedy abruptly dismissed the existing 17-member expert panel and handpicked eight replacements, including several anti-vaccine voices.

The agenda for the new committee’s first meeting, posted Wednesday, shows it will be shorter than expected. Discussion of Covid shots will open the session, but the agenda lists no vote on that. Instead, the committee will vote on fall flu vaccinations, on RSV vaccinations for pregnant women and children and on the use of a preservative named thimerosal that’s in a subset of flu shots.

It’s not clear who wrote the agenda. No committee chairperson has been named and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not comment.

Missing from the agenda are some heavily researched vaccine policy proposals the advisers were supposed to consider this month, including shots against HPV and meningococcal bacteria, said Dr. Susan Kressly, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.