The postponed ACIP meeting comes barely a week after Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services, despite controversy regarding his anti-vaccine history.
The first meeting of the year of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory board, originally scheduled for next week, has been postponed, according to several media reports on Thursday.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) was supposed to convene on Feb. 27—its first meeting since vocal vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Serivces. As per a draft agenda published last month, the advisors were scheduled to discuss updated immunization recommendations for 10 infectious diseases, including COVID-19, Mpox and influenza.
Among the vaccines up for deliberation include GSK’s new pentavalent meningococcal shot Penmenvy, which was approved last week, and Moderna’s new mRNA shot for COVID-19. The panel will also decide on the use of GSK and Moderna’s respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccines in adults.
In a note to investors on Thursday, and in reaction to the postponed ACIP meeting, analysts at Jefferies posed a question: “Welcome to the RFK era?”
In a statement to NBC News, Andrew Nixon, senior spokesperson at the Department of Health and Human Services, said that pushing back the ACIP panel would “accommodate public comment in advance of the meeting.” Nixon did not say when exactly the meeting will be rescheduled to.
The ACIP convenes three times every year to discuss potential updates to or incorporate newly approved products into vaccination guidelines. The next meeting will be on June 25 to 26.
Kennedy secured the HHS Secretary seat last week, despite concerns over his long history of anti-vaccine rhetoric. Kennedy is one of the founders of Children’s Health Defense, a nonprofit that theoretically focuses on preventing childhood epidemics by targeting certain toxic environmental exposures. In practice, the organization campaigns against vaccines, making unsubstantiated links between jabs and complications such as autism and developmental delays.
In confirmatory hearings before the senate finance and health committees, several lawmakers criticized Kennedy for his stance on vaccines. “There is no reason that any of us should believe that you have reversed the anti-vaccine views that you have promoted for 25 years,” Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH) told Kennedy, as per SeekingAlpha.
Similarly, Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a licensed physician, raised concerns about Kennedy’s anti-vaccine history, noting that it could pose serious risk to patients with vaccine-preventable diseases.
Ultimately—and despite his doubts—Cassidy voted to confirm Kennedy, saying in a floor speech earlier this month that Kennedy and his team reassured the senator “regarding their commitment to protecting the public health benefit of vaccination.”
“If confirmed, he will maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices without changes,” Cassidy added.
