The rescheduling of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices comes amid fresh leadership upheaval at the CDC as NIH director Jay Bhattacharya replaces Jim O’Neill as acting head of the agency.
A meeting of the CDC’s vaccines advisory committee, originally scheduled to convene February 26–27, has been rescheduled for March 18–19, according to information on the agency’s website.
The postponement of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) followed another leadership shakeup, which saw National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya replace Jim O’Neill as head of the agency. O’Neill had been serving as acting director of the CDC after the ousting of Susan Monarez—the first Senate-confirmed director of the agency—after just 28 days in August last year.
Another domino fell just a few days after O’Neill’s departure, with Principal Deputy Director Ralph Abraham—a vocal vaccine skeptic—stepping down after just three months. Abraham cited “unforeseen family obligations.”
Original study published Feb. 20:
ACIP Meeting Delayed as Turbulence Rocks CDC, US Vaccine Policy
A scheduled meeting of the vaccines advisory group for the CDC has been pushed back to next month amid continued instability to the agency’s leadership and mounting controversy surrounding the country’s immunization policies.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed the delay in a statement to Fierce Pharma, noting that the agency “will not hold the ACIP [Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices] meeting later this month.” The panel had originally been set to convene from Feb. 26 to 27.
Bloomberg News broke the news Thursday, citing an unnamed source familiar with the matter, who said the meeting was now set for mid-March. The HHS spokesperson did not confirm the rescheduled date, telling Fierce, “Further information will be shared as available.”
News of the delay comes just days after HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill, who had also been acting as a temporary director for the CDC, left the agency. Jay Bhattacharya, head of the National Institutes of Health, has since been named as acting director of the CDC.
It also comes amid vaccine drama at the FDA, which this week agreed to review Moderna’s application for its mRNA-based flu vaccine, after last week issuing a surprise refuse-to-file (RTF) letter.
Uncertainty has hung low over the vaccine space since longtime vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed as HHS Secretary just over one year ago, with the ACIP itself serving as a major source of controversy. Kennedy emptied the panel in June last year, claiming that the previous members were acting “as a rubber stamp for industry profit-taking agendas.” The ACIP has since been restacked, with many of its new members sharing Kennedy’s anti-vaccine views.
These views have informed the panel’s immunization recommendations. In December last year, for instance, the ACIP recommended delaying infant hepatitis B vaccination to two months after birth. This change, which will only apply to infants who were born to mothers negative for the virus, upends medical practice that has been in place for nearly three decades. The CDC soon adopted these recommendations.
Last month, the CDC took an even more drastic action against the childhood vaccination schedule, removing recommendations for six of the 17 shots that had been previously given to kids to protect them from several diseases. The removed vaccines include those for flu, COVID-19 and rotavirus.
Many experts have spoken out against these changes to vaccine policy. The American Academy of Pediatrics has even sued Kennedy, the HHS and other health leaders, alleging that their actions expose “vulnerable populations to serious illness with potentially irreversible long-term effects,” according to the July 2025 lawsuit. The case persists after a judge last month denied HHS’ motion to junk the complaint.
