The meeting offered a glimpse into how the new Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will operate — and how federal vaccine policy is beginning to reflect Kennedy’s personal views.
ATLANTA — The first meeting of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s handpicked vaccine advisers concluded Thursday — setting the stage to change the childhood vaccine schedule and voting to stop recommending flu shots with an additive that has long been a target of the anti-vaccine movement.
The meeting offered a glimpse into how the new Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will operate — and how federal vaccine policy is beginning to reflect Kennedy’s personal views. Earlier this month, he fired 17 members of the panel and replaced them with eight members, several of whom have histories of vaccine skepticism. One resigned before the meeting began, leaving seven members.
HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon told reporters that “the members of the committee are respected experts who take their responsibility to public health seriously” and who “deliver recommendations rooted in data and medical integrity.”
Here are the takeaways from the two-day meeting at CDC headquarters in Atlanta:
Its agenda was Kennedy’s
The panel voted Thursday to stop recommending that anyone get a flu vaccine that contains thimerosal, a preservative that Kennedy has long wanted gone.
Kennedy, in 2014, wrote a book about thimerosal, arguing that it likely causes autism and should be banned.
But many public health agencies have long considered it to be safe — including the CDC, according to its website. “Scientists have been studying the use of thimerosal in vaccines for many years. They haven’t found any evidence that thimerosal causes harm,” the website reads.
The CDC director usually needs to endorse the recommendations before they are official. But Kennedy will likely be the one to endorse these recommendations because there is currently no CDC director or acting director.