Federal Health Panel Votes on Vaccine Policy Revisions

WASHINGTON — A federal health advisory panel voted Thursday to recommend removing a preservative from flu shots in a victory for vaccine skeptics.

The panel chosen by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reflects many of his suspicions about vaccines, despite medical experts who warned of dangerous consequences if their role in disease prevention is downplayed.

Thimerosal, a chemical preservative, has been largely eliminated from flu shots in previous years as methods for refrigeration and faster administration to patients improved.

Anti-vaccine activists said it was linked to autism. Medical experts said there was no proof thimerosal caused autism.

It still is used in some remote areas where quick dispensing of flu shots is not practical.

Cody Meissner, the only member of the seven-person Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to vote against removing thimerosal from flu shots, said the costs and availability of the vaccines is likely to decrease.

“The risk from influenza is so much greater than the nonexistent, as far as I know, risk from thimerosal,” he said.

The first day of voting by the panel that sets the basis for many government and industry policies on vaccines is raising concerns that Kennedy might use his authority irresponsibly.

Fiona Havers, an infectious disease doctor who resigned from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in protest of Kennedy’s policies, said the health secretary is “now using government power to limit access to vaccines.”

She added in an interview with CNN, “We’re going to see a return to preventable diseases.”

The concerns were denied by a Department of Health and Human Services spokesman.

“The fearmongering and speculation by the mainstream media that this committee would cast doubt on vaccines to promote hesitancy were not just wrong, they were reckless and defamatory,” said HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon. “The members of this committee are respected experts who take their responsibility to public health seriously. What they did today is what Secretary Kennedy appointed them to do, which is review the evidence, debate it with scientific rigor, and deliver recommendations rooted in data and medical integrity.”

In a second vote, the ACIP approved a recommendation for a new vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus, a respiratory illness that leads to frequent hospitalizations and deaths for infants. It’s produced by Merck and already has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

The ACIP is a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Outside the CDC headquarters, current and former staff members staged a protest. They said the vaccine skepticism of the Kennedy appointees will jeopardize the lives of people who could be saved from preventable diseases.

ACIP recommendations have the effect of setting policy for how vaccines are deployed throughout the U.S. health system. The recommendations become the standard for vaccine delivery systems, insurance coverage and directives to doctors on how to use them.

The recommendations also guide state and federal government purchases of vaccines.

The new seven-member board replaced a panel of 17 medical experts. They were dismissed by Kennedy two weeks ago.

He called the ACIP appointees from the Biden administration a “rubber stamp for industry profit-taking agendas.”

Kennedy has given mixed messages on his feelings toward vaccines. He said while he was running for president that he is not against vaccines but wants them to be more thoroughly tested and investigated.

Among the critics of Kennedy’s ACIP is Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La. He accused some of Kennedy’s appointees of lacking adequate experience for their jobs and coming into the situation with preconceived biases.

“Although the appointees to ACIP have scientific credentials, many do not have significant experience studying microbiology, epidemiology or immunology,” Cassidy wrote on X.

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