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Washington Post
2 days ago
- Health
- Washington Post
New CDC advisers will skip some expected topics and explore a target of antivaccine activists
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-19 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-19 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. Instead, the committee is talking about subjects 'which are settled science,' she said. 'Every American should be asking themselves how and why did we get here, where leaders are promoting their own agenda instead of protecting our people and our communities,' she said. She worried it's 'part of a purposeful agenda to insert dangerous and harmful and unnecessary fear regarding vaccines into the process.' The committee makes recommendations on how vaccines that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration should be used. The recommendations traditionally go to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director. Historically, nearly all are accepted and then used by insurance companies in deciding what vaccines to cover. But the CDC has no director and the committee's recommendations have been going to Kennedy. Thimerosal was added to certain vaccines in the early 20th century to make them safer and more accessible by preventing bacterial contamination in multi-dose vials. It's a tiny amount, but because it's a form of mercury, it began raising questions in the 1990s. Kennedy — a leading voice in an antivaccine movement before he became President Donald Trump's health secretary — has long held there was a tie between thimerosal and autism, and also accused the government of hiding the danger. Study after study has found no evidence that thimerosal causes autism. But since 2001, all vaccines manufactured for the U.S. market and routinely recommended for children 6 years or younger have contained no thimerosal or only trace amounts, with the exception of inactivated influenza vaccine. Thimerosal now only appears in multidose flu shot vials, not the single-shot packaging of most of today's flu shots. Targeting thimerosal would likely force manufacturers to switch to single-dose vials, which would make the shots 'more expensive, less available and more feared,' said Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Last week, 30 organizations called on insurers to continue paying for COVID-19 vaccines for pregnant women after Kennedy said the shots would no longer be routinely recommended for that group. Doctors' groups also opposed Kennedy's changes to the vaccine committee. The new members he picked include a scientist who researched mRNA vaccine technology and became a conservative darling for his criticisms of COVID-19 vaccines, a top critic of pandemic-era lockdowns and a leader of a group that has been widely considered to be a source of vaccine misinformation. The American Academy of Pediatrics has long put out its own immunization recommendations. In recent decades it has matched what the government recommended. But asked if they might soon diverge, depending on potential changes in the government's vaccination recommendations, Kressly said; 'Nothing's off the table.' 'We will do whatever is necessary to make sure that every child in every community gets the vaccines that they deserve to stay healthy and safe,' she said. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
CNN
2 days ago
- Health
- CNN
CDC vaccine advisers to vote on thimerosal in flu shots at first meeting of new panel
A newly posted agenda for next week's meeting of the just-appointed group of outside vaccine advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention includes a discussion and vote on thimerosal in flu vaccines, a preservative tied to debunked claims from decades ago of links to autism. The meeting, scheduled to start June 25 and run for two days, is the first for a newly installed group of eight Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices members. US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dismissed the previous group of 17 experts last week, claiming that they had conflicts of interest. A number of the new panelists, though, have raised concerns from the public health world for their positions on vaccines, including serving as expert witnesses in lawsuits against vaccine makers and suggesting without evidence that Covid-19 vaccines kill young people and should immediately be removed from the market. It's not clear what the discussion and vote at next week's meeting on thimerosal in flu vaccines will entail, and the presenter of the information at the meeting is listed on the agenda as 'TBD.' A spokesperson for HHS directed questions about the nature of the discussion and vote back to the posted agenda. Thimerosal is a mercury-based compound used to prevent bacteria and fungus from growing in vaccines, and the CDC says data from multiple studies 'show no evidence of harm caused by the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines.' Nonetheless, the use of thimerosal in vaccines has declined significantly since the US Food and Drug Administration in 1999 asked vaccine manufacturers to detail plans to remove it; the FDA now says 'all vaccines routinely recommended for children 6 years of age and younger in the U.S. are available in formulations that do not contain thimerosal.' The preservative is still used in some multidose vials of seasonal flu vaccines. Since thimerosal was largely removed from pediatric vaccines, autism rates have continued to rise, which the CDC notes 'is the opposite of what would be expected if thimerosal caused autism.' Thimerosal has long been a focus of Kennedy, who published a book in 2014 called 'Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak,' referring to it as 'mercury, a known neurotoxin.' The CDC points out, however, that there are two kinds of mercury – methylmercury and ethylmercury – and high levels of the first can be toxic to people. Thimerosal contains ethylmercury, the agency says, 'which is cleared from the human body more quickly than methylmercury, and is therefore less likely to cause any harm.' The fact that thimerosal is now on the agenda of Kennedy's newly appointed vaccine advisers suggests they may publicly claim, against evidence, that the preservative is dangerous, said Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine scientist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and an outside vaccine adviser to the FDA. 'All that's going to do is make it so that those vaccines will become less available and more expensive,' Offit told CNN. 'It certainly won't make them safer.' Offit pointed out that reformulating those vaccines couldn't be done quickly by manufacturers, so it would 'most likely just lead to vaccine shortages and make the vaccines more expensive.' Also new to the agenda is a discussion and proposed recommendations for the measles, mump, rubella and varicella (or chickenpox) vaccine for children under 5. It's not clear what the nature of that discussion will be either, and its presenters are also listed as 'TBD.' The combination vaccine, known as MMRV, has been approved in the US as ProQuad since 2005, and the CDC notes that while the combination vaccine has one fewer injection than the individual shots, it's associated with a higher risk for fever and febrile seizures five to 12 days after the first dose among children between 1 and 2 years old. Administering the varicella vaccine separately from the MMR vaccine avoids this increased risk, which the CDC points out is 'very low for both options.' Although it's not clear whether that will be the focus of the presentation and recommendations, Offit noted that vaccine advisers have already had that discussion, so 'I'm not sure what's going to be added here.' The meeting had been scheduled to take place over three days, according to a June 9 posting in the Federal Register, and now has been shortened to two. It still includes votes on RSV immunization for pregnant women and children and in the Vaccines for Children program, as well as planned discussions on Covid-19, chikungunya and anthrax vaccines, but the topic list has been significantly slimmed down. No longer included are discussions on cytomegalovirus vaccine, human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, Lyme disease vaccine, meningococcal vaccine and pneumococcal vaccines. At an internal meeting Tuesday among CDC employees, a member of leadership told staffers that some agenda items for the upcoming ACIP meeting might not be included because they were still bringing new members up to speed, according to a CDC employee who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal. The employee called that reasoning 'a transparent lie; they wouldn't have had to bring all these new people up to speed if they hadn't fired the old ones.' The agenda also includes a number of 'TBD' listings for presenters, including on the safety of Covid-19 vaccines and RSV immunizations. At previous meetings, those presentations on Covid-19 have been made by Dr. Fiona Havers and Dr. Lakshmi Panagiotakopoulos, who both resigned in the past few weeks, citing concerns about changes to the CDC's vaccine processes under Kennedy. 'My career in public health and vaccinology started with a deep-seated desire to help the most vulnerable members of our population,' Panagiotakopoulos wrote in an email to former ACIP members, obtained by CNN, 'and that is not something I am able to continue doing in this role.'
Associated Press
2 days ago
- Health
- Associated Press
New CDC advisers will skip some expected topics and explore a target of antivaccine activists
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-19 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-19 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. Committee won't take up HPV or meningococcal vaccines 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. Instead, the committee is talking about subjects 'which are settled science,' she said. 'Every American should be asking themselves how and why did we get here, where leaders are promoting their own agenda instead of protecting our people and our communities,' she said. She worried it's 'part of a purposeful agenda to insert dangerous and harmful and unnecessary fear regarding vaccines into the process.' The committee makes recommendations on how vaccines that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration should be used. The recommendations traditionally go to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director. Historically, nearly all are accepted and then used by insurance companies in deciding what vaccines to cover. But the CDC has no director and the committee's recommendations have been going to Kennedy. Thimerosal is a longtime target of antivaccine activists Thimerosal was added to certain vaccines in the early 20th century to make them safer and more accessible by preventing bacterial contamination in multi-dose vials. It's a tiny amount, but because it's a form of mercury, it began raising questions in the 1990s. Kennedy — a leading voice in an antivaccine movement before he became President Donald Trump's health secretary — has long held there was a tie between thimerosal and autism, and also accused the government of hiding the danger. Study after study has found no evidence that thimerosal causes autism. But since 2001, all vaccines manufactured for the U.S. market and routinely recommended for children 6 years or younger have contained no thimerosal or only trace amounts, with the exception of inactivated influenza vaccine. Thimerosal now only appears in multidose flu shot vials, not the single-shot packaging of most of today's flu shots. Targeting thimerosal would likely force manufacturers to switch to single-dose vials, which would make the shots 'more expensive, less available and more feared,' said Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Doctors' groups have opposed Kennedy's vaccine moves Last week, 30 organizations called on insurers to continue paying for COVID-19 vaccines for pregnant women after Kennedy said the shots would no longer be routinely recommended for that group. Doctors' groups also opposed Kennedy's changes to the vaccine committee. The new members he picked include a scientist who researched mRNA vaccine technology and became a conservative darling for his criticisms of COVID-19 vaccines, a top critic of pandemic-era lockdowns and a leader of a group that has been widely considered to be a source of vaccine misinformation. The American Academy of Pediatrics has long put out its own immunization recommendations. In recent decades it has matched what the government recommended. But asked if they might soon diverge, depending on potential changes in the government's vaccination recommendations, Kressly said; 'Nothing's off the table.' 'We will do whatever is necessary to make sure that every child in every community gets the vaccines that they deserve to stay healthy and safe,' she said. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
CNN
2 days ago
- Health
- CNN
CDC vaccine advisers to vote on thimerosal in flu shots at first meeting of new panel
Vaccines Federal agencies Respiratory viruses Disability issuesFacebookTweetLink Follow A newly posted agenda for next week's meeting of the just-appointed group of outside vaccine advisers to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention includes a discussion and vote on thimerosal in flu vaccines, a preservative tied to debunked claims from decades ago of links to autism. The meeting, scheduled to start Wednesday and run for two days, is the first for a newly installed group of eight Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices members. US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dismissed the previous group of 17 experts last week, claiming that they had conflicts of interest. A number of the new panelists, though, have raised concerns from the public health world for their positions on vaccines, including serving as expert witnesses in lawsuits against vaccine makers and suggesting without evidence that Covid-19 vaccines kill young people and should immediately be removed from the market. It's not clear what the discussion and vote at next week's meeting on thimerosal in flu vaccines will entail, and the presenter of the information at the meeting is listed on the agenda as 'TBD.' A spokesperson for HHS directed questions about the nature of the discussion and vote back to the posted agenda. Thimerosal is a mercury-based compound used to prevent bacteria and fungus from growing in vaccines, and the CDC says data from multiple studies 'show no evidence of harm caused by the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines.' Nonetheless, the use of thimerosal in vaccines has declined significantly since the US Food and Drug Administration in 1999 asked vaccine manufacturers to detail plans to remove it; the FDA now says 'all vaccines routinely recommended for children 6 years of age and younger in the U.S. are available in formulations that do not contain thimerosal.' The preservative is still used in some multidose vials of seasonal flu vaccines. Since thimerosal was largely removed from pediatric vaccines, autism rates have continued to rise, which the CDC notes 'is the opposite of what would be expected if thimerosal caused autism.' Thimerosal has long been a focus of Kennedy, who published a book in 2014 called 'Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak,' referring to it as 'mercury, a known neurotoxin.' The CDC points out, however, that there are two kinds of mercury – methylmercury and ethylmercury – and high levels of the first can be toxic to people. Thimerosal contains ethylmercury, the agency says, 'which is cleared from the human body more quickly than methylmercury, and is therefore less likely to cause any harm.' The agenda for next week's meeting also says the advisers will discuss the combination measles, mumps, rubella and varicella vaccine for children younger than 5 and will vote on RSV immunization for pregnant women and children and in the Vaccines for Children program.
Bloomberg
3 days ago
- Health
- Bloomberg
RFK Jr.'s Vaccine Panel to Vote on Flu Shots With Mercury
A panel of key government advisers appointed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will weigh in on an infrequently used vaccine preservative that has been wrongly linked to autism in the past. Members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, will hear a presentation about thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative that is used in some adult flu vaccines, at a planned meeting next week. The group will later vote on 'thimerosal-containing vaccine recommendations,' according to a draft agenda posted Wednesday.
