FDA cancels meeting to select flu strains for next season's shots
A Food and Drug Administration vaccine advisory committee meeting scheduled for March to select the strains to be included in next season’s flu shot has been canceled, a panel member said Wednesday.
A Food and Drug Administration vaccine advisory committee meeting scheduled for March to select the strains to be included in next season’s flu shot has been canceled, a panel member said Wednesday.
Federal health officials notified members of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee of the cancellation in an email Wednesday afternoon, said committee member Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
The email, Offit said, offered no explanation for the scrapped meeting.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the FDA, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The cancellation comes as the United States is in the midst of a particularly severe flu season. So far, 86 children and 19,000 adults have died this season, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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