CDC Vaccine Advisory Panel Meeting Postponed to March Amid Legal Challenges
The CDC's vaccine advisory committee meeting scheduled for February 25-27 has been canceled and rescheduled for March 18-19, as medical groups challenge the panel's composition and policies under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's vaccine advisory committee is set to meet on March 18 to 19, after its previously scheduled meeting in February was canceled. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which makes recommendations for who should get which vaccines, was originally scheduled to meet from February 25 to 27, but a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed it was canceled.
The postponement comes as U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has stepped up efforts to rewrite national vaccination policy, including dropping broad recommendations for six childhood shots including COVID and hepatitis B, deepening federal support for states' vaccine exemptions, and cutting funding for mRNA-based vaccine research.
The committee's recommendations historically have been used to guide U.S. health insurance coverage, state policies on vaccines needed for schools and how physicians advise parents and patients. The panel faced multiple revamps last year, after Kennedy fired all 17 of its members in June.
The U.S. Department of Justice notified a federal judge in Boston of the postponement, which occurred days after medical groups opposed to Kennedy's vaccine agenda had gone to court asking him to block the panel from meeting. Major U.S. medical groups are suing to challenge policies adopted under Kennedy that they say will lower vaccination rates. They argue the ACIP is dominated by people aligned with Kennedy's anti-vaccine views, in violation of the Federal Advisory Committee Act's mandates that it be fairly balanced and free of inappropriate influence.
When the committee last met in December, it voted to remove the recommendation that all newborns in the U.S. receive a hepatitis B vaccine. The CDC followed that vote in January with its own broad changes to the childhood vaccine schedule, removing the recommendation for rotavirus, influenza, meningococcal disease and hepatitis A. The ACIP did not vote on these changes.
Several state and medical groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics have issued their own vaccine recommendations as an alternative to those issued by the CDC.
Leadership at the CDC is shifting. National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya will step in as acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, replacing current acting director Jim O'Neill. The committee generally meets at least three times a year.