An October meeting of a key federal vaccine advisory committee has been canceled without explanation, saving the evidence-based childhood vaccination program from further erosion — at least for now.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention planned to meet on October 22 and 23, which would have been the committee's fourth meeting this year. But the meeting schedule was updated this past week to remove those dates and replace them with “2025 Meeting, TBA.”
Ars Technica contacted the Department of Health and Human Services to ask why the meeting was canceled. HHS press secretary Emily Hilliard provided no explanation, saying only that the “official meeting dates and agenda items will be posted on the website as soon as they are finalized.”
ACIP is tasked with publicly reviewing and evaluating the wealth of safety and efficacy data on vaccines and then making evidence-based recommendations for their use. Once the committee's recommendations are adopted by the CDC, they will establish national vaccination standards for children and determine which vaccinations federal programs and private insurance companies must fully cover.
In the past, the committee consisted of highly regarded, thoroughly vetted medical experts, who carried out their somewhat esoteric work on immunization policy diligently and with little fanfare. That changed when fiery anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. became Minister of Health. In June, Kennedy abruptly and unilaterally fired all seventeen ACIP members, falsely accusing them of conflicts of interest. He then installed his own carefully selected members. With the exception of one advisor — pediatrician and veteran ACIP member Cody Meissner — the members are poorly qualified, have undergone little vetting, and embrace the same anti-vaccination and dangerous fringe ideas as Kennedy.
Corrupt committee
So far this year, Kennedy's advisers have met twice, resulting in chaotic meetings in which members revealed a clear lack of understanding of the available data and the process of crafting vaccine recommendations, while at the same time establishing policy decisions that anti-vaccine activists have long sought. At the first meeting, in June, seven members selected by Kennedy were present. At that meeting, the committee withdrew its recommendation for flu vaccines containing a preservative called thimerosal, based on false claims by anti-vaccine groups that it causes autism. The panel also ominously said it would re-evaluate the entire childhood vaccination schedule, putting life-saving vaccinations at risk.
