ATLANTA (AP) — The Trump administration’s new vaccine advisers on Thursday endorsed this fall’s flu vaccinations for just about every American — but only if they use certain shots free of an ingredient antivaccine groups have falsely tied to autism.

What is normally a routine step in preparing for the upcoming flu season drew intense scrutiny after U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. abruptly fired the influential 17-member Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and handpicked replacements that include several vaccine skeptics.

The seven-member panel bucked another norm Thursday as it discussed the safety of a preservative used in less than 5% of U.S. flu vaccinations: It deliberated based only on a presentation from an antivaccine group’s former leader — without allowing the usual public airing of scientific data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The preservative, thimerosal, has long been used in certain vaccines that come in multi-dose vials, to prevent contamination as each dose is withdrawn. But it has been controversial because it contains a small amount of a particular form of mercury.

Study after study has found no evidence that thimerosal causes autism or other harm. Yet since 2001, all vaccines routinely used for U.S. children age 6 years or younger have come in thimerosal-free formulas — including single-dose flu shots that account for the vast majority of influenza vaccinations.

The advisory panel first voted, with one abstention, to back the usual U.S. recommendation that nearly everyone age 6 months and older get an annual flu vaccination. Then the advisers decided people should only be given thimerosal-free single-dose formulations, voting 5-1 with one abstention.

That would include single-dose shots that already are the most common type of flu vaccination, as well as the nasal spray FluMist. It would rule out the subset of flu vaccine dispensed in multi-dose vials.

“There is still no demonstrable evidence of harm,” one panelist, Dr. Joseph Hibbeln, a psychiatrist formerly with the National Institutes of Health, said in acknowledging the committee wasn’t following its usual practice of acting on evidence.

But he added that “whether the actual molecule is a risk or not, we have to respect the fear of mercury” that might dissuade some people from getting vaccinated.

The ACIP helps the CDC determine who should be vaccinated against a long list of diseases, and when. Those recommendations have a big impact on whether insurance covers vaccinations and where they’re available.

Normally the CDC’s director would decide whether to accept ACIP’s recommendation, but the Senate has not yet confirmed nominee Susan Monarez. Administration officials said Kennedy would make that decision.

Medical groups decried the panel’s lack of transparency in blocking a CDC analysis of thimerosal that concluded there was no link between the preservative and neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism. The data had been posted on the committee’s website Tuesday, but was later removed — because, according to ACIP member Dr. Robert Malone, the report hadn’t been authorized by Kennedy’s office. Panel members said they had read it.

While Thursday’s debate involved only a small fraction of flu vaccines, some public health experts contend the discussion unnecessarily raised doubt about vaccine safety. Already, fewer than half of Americans get their yearly flu vaccinations, and mistrust in vaccines overall is growing.

“Selective use of data and omission of established science undermines public trust and fuels misinformation,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary of the American Academy of Pediatrics. He said of the new panelists, “Nothing about their recent actions have been science-based or transparent.”

The flu votes marked the final step of a two-day meeting that alarmed pediatricians and other doctors’ groups, who pointed to new panelists’ lack of expertise in how to properly track vaccine safety — and a shift in focus to some longtime messages of antivaccine groups.

“What should have been a rigorous, evidence-based discussion on the national vaccine schedule instead appeared to be a predetermined exercise orchestrated to undermine the well-established safety and efficacy of vaccines and fundamental basics of science,” said Dr. Jason Goldman of the American College of Physicians.

Of special concern was the announcement by panel chairman Martin Kulldorff to reevaluate the “cumulative effect” of the children’s vaccine schedule — the list of immunizations given at different times throughout childhood. That reflects the scientifically debunked notion that children today get too many vaccinations, somehow overwhelming their immune system.

Doctors say improved vaccine technology means kids today are exposed to fewer antigens — substances that the immune system reacts to — than their grandparents despite getting more doses.

U.S. Rep. Kim Schrier, a pediatrician and Democrat from Washington state, told reporters Thursday that children are exposed to more antigens “in one day of day care” than in all their vaccinations.

Also at the ACIP meeting:

— The panel backed a new option to protect infants against RSV, a virus especially dangerous to babies. It voted 5-2 that a newly approved antibody shot from Merck could be used alongside two existing options.

— Kulldorff said the panel may look into whether hepatitis B vaccination of newborns is appropriate if the mother doesn’t carry the liver-destroying virus. Pediatricians counter that babies can catch the virus in other ways, such as from other caregivers who don’t know they’re infected.

— Kennedy already sidestepped the advisory group and announced the COVID-19 vaccine will no longer be recommended for healthy children or pregnant women. But CDC scientists told the panel that vaccination is “the best protection” during pregnancy and that most children hospitalized for COVID-19 over the past year were unvaccinated. Some advisers questioned if the CDC’s extensive tracking of vaccine safety is trustworthy.

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Neergaard reported from Washington.

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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.

The Trump administration’s new vaccine advisers on Thursday endorsed this fall’s flu vaccinations for just about every American — but only if they use certain shots free of an ingredient antivaccine groups have falsely tied to autism.

What is normally a routine step in preparing for the upcoming flu season drew intense scrutiny after U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. abruptly fired the influential 17-member Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and handpicked replacements that include several vaccine skeptics.

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The seven-member panel bucked another norm Thursday as it discussed the safety of a preservative used in less than 5% of U.S. flu vaccinations: It deliberated based only on a presentation from an antivaccine group’s former leader — without allowing the usual public airing of scientific data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The preservative, thimerosal, has long been used in certain vaccines that come in multi-dose vials, to prevent contamination as each dose is withdrawn. But it has been controversial because it contains a small amount of a particular form of mercury.

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Study after study has found no evidence that thimerosal causes autism or other harm. Yet since 2001, all vaccines routinely used for U.S. children age 6 years or younger have come in thimerosal-free formulas — including single-dose flu shots that account for the vast majority of influenza vaccinations.

The advisory panel first voted, with one abstention, to back the usual U.S. recommendation that nearly everyone age 6 months and older get an annual flu vaccination. Then the advisers decided people should only be given thimerosal-free single-dose formulations, voting 5-1 with one abstention.

That would include single-dose shots that already are the most common type of flu vaccination, as well as the nasal spray FluMist. It would rule out the subset of flu vaccine dispensed in multi-dose vials.

“There is still no demonstrable evidence of harm,” one panelist, Dr. Joseph Hibbeln, a psychiatrist formerly with the National Institutes of Health, said in acknowledging the committee wasn’t following its usual practice of acting on evidence.

But he added that “whether the actual molecule is a risk or not, we have to respect the fear of mercury” that might dissuade some people from getting vaccinated.

The ACIP helps the CDC determine who should be vaccinated against a long list of diseases, and when. Those recommendations have a big impact on whether insurance covers vaccinations and where they’re available.

Normally the CDC’s director would decide whether to accept ACIP’s recommendation, but the Senate has not yet confirmed nominee Susan Monarez. Administration officials said Kennedy would make that decision.

Medical groups decried the panel’s lack of transparency in blocking a CDC analysis of thimerosal that concluded there was no link between the preservative and neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism. The data had been posted on the committee’s website Tuesday, but was later removed — because, according to ACIP member Dr. Robert Malone, the report hadn’t been authorized by Kennedy’s office. Panel members said they had read it.

While Thursday’s debate involved only a small fraction of flu vaccines, some public health experts contend the discussion unnecessarily raised doubt about vaccine safety. Already, fewer than half of Americans get their yearly flu vaccinations, and mistrust in vaccines overall is growing.

“Selective use of data and omission of established science undermines public trust and fuels misinformation,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary of the American Academy of Pediatrics. He said of the new panelists, “Nothing about their recent actions have been science-based or transparent.”

The flu votes marked the final step of a two-day meeting that alarmed pediatricians and other doctors’ groups, who pointed to new panelists’ lack of expertise in how to properly track vaccine safety — and a shift in focus to some longtime messages of antivaccine groups.

“What should have been a rigorous, evidence-based discussion on the national vaccine schedule instead appeared to be a predetermined exercise orchestrated to undermine the well-established safety and efficacy of vaccines and fundamental basics of science,” said Dr. Jason Goldman of the American College of Physicians.

Of special concern was the announcement by panel chairman Martin Kulldorff to reevaluate the “cumulative effect” of the children’s vaccine schedule — the list of immunizations given at different times throughout childhood. That reflects the scientifically debunked notion that children today get too many vaccinations, somehow overwhelming their immune system.

Doctors say improved vaccine technology means kids today are exposed to fewer antigens — substances that the immune system reacts to — than their grandparents despite getting more doses.

U.S. Rep. Kim Schrier, a pediatrician and Democrat from Washington state, told reporters Thursday that children are exposed to more antigens “in one day of day care” than in all their vaccinations.

Also at the ACIP meeting:

— The panel backed a new option to protect infants against RSV, a virus especially dangerous to babies. It voted 5-2 that a newly approved antibody shot from Merck could be used alongside two existing options.

— Kulldorff said the panel may look into whether hepatitis B vaccination of newborns is appropriate if the mother doesn’t carry the liver-destroying virus. Pediatricians counter that babies can catch the virus in other ways, such as from other caregivers who don’t know they’re infected.

— Kennedy already sidestepped the advisory group and announced the COVID-19 vaccine will no longer be recommended for healthy children or pregnant women. But CDC scientists told the panel that vaccination is “the best protection” during pregnancy and that most children hospitalized for COVID-19 over the past year were unvaccinated. Some advisers questioned if the CDC’s extensive tracking of vaccine safety is trustworthy.

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Neergaard reported from Washington.

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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.

During a congressional budget hearing Wednesday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. deflected questions about his position on vaccines. The Health and Human Services secretary has been a longtime proponent of false vaccine conspiracies.

RFK Jr.’s vaccine advisers raise disproven fears about the preservative thimerosal

toggle caption Ben Hendren/Bloomberg/Getty Images

An influential committee that shapes U.S. vaccine policy – a flashpoint under the leadership of Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – has recommended that adults and children no longer receive flu vaccines containing trace amounts of a preservative that’s rarely used anymore.

The discussion of thimerosal, a form of mercury that’s sometimes added to vaccines for sterilization, dominated much of Thursday’s public meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP. The committee guides the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the vaccine schedule for children and adults.

The two-day meeting at CDC headquarters in Atlanta was unusually high-profile, given Kennedy’s recent decision to boot the entire committee of experts a few weeks ago and replace them with his own hand-picked roster, which included some members with a history of making inaccurate claims about the safety of vaccines.

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While ACIP typically includes 17 voting members, Kennedy’s overhauled panel only included seven of them, following a last-minute decision by one of them to step down.

On Thursday, a majority of the panel voted to reaffirm the existing CDC recommendations that anyone over six months receive the annual flu shot. They also voted 5-2 in favor of a monoclonal antibody shot made by Merck that offers protection against respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, for infants younger than 8 months.

But in three separate votes the committee voted to recommend children, pregnant women and all adults receive single-dose flu immunizations with vaccines that don’t have thimerosal.

Theories that the chemical could cause autism in children have long been disproven. Even so, manufacturers voluntarily removed it from childhood vaccines. While it’s used in some multi-dose vials in several products, there are no vaccines on the pediatric vaccine schedule that contain thimerosal.

The ACIP votes could effectively ban use of the preservative, despite a preponderance of evidence that it is safe.

Dr. Cody Meissner, a professor of pediatrics at Dartmouth College, was the only ACIP member who voted against those recommendations.

“Of all the issues that ACIP needs to focus on, this is not a big issue,” he said. “The risk from influenza is so much greater than the non-existent, as far as we know, risk from thimerosal.”

He added: “There is no scientific evidence that thimerosal has caused a problem.”

Meissner’s comments came in response to a lengthy presentation on the preservative from Lyn Redwood, a nurse and former president of Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine advocacy group that Kennedy founded and led for many years.

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“Removing a known neurotoxin from being injected into our most vulnerable population is a good place to start with making America healthy again,” she told the committee.

Much of what Redwood said about thimerosal was undercut by a CDC document that had been originally posted with the meeting materials — and then without explanation removed ahead of the meeting. It detailed peer-reviewed literature showing “no association between prenatal exposure to thimerosal-containing vaccinations and autism spectrum disorder in children.”

In response to a question about why the document had been taken down, Dr. Robert Malone, an ACIP member, said his understanding was that it had not been “authorized by the Office of the Secretary.”

Members of the committee questioned the analyses provided by CDC, and wondered whether they were ignoring data on adverse events that showed up in relation to the studies they presented, even after the staff explained they had parsed the data thoroughly.

Prominent medical groups welcomed the recommendations on flu and RSV, but expressed concern about the overall tone of the meeting.

Dr. Sean O’Leary, who chairs the Committee on Infectious Diseases for the American Academy of Pediatrics, said the ACIP discussion on influenza and RSV “confirmed that this is an orchestrated effort to sow distrust in immunizations and the vaccine approval process.”

While the person serving as CDC director would typically sign off on ACIP recommendations, there is no one in the role currently, so the responsibility for signing off on these recommendations go to Health Secretary Kennedy.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s panel of vaccine advisers voted Thursday in their first official move after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired the committee’s previous experts and replaced them with his own picks.

A majority of the committee approved updated recommendations for a new shot for respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, and voted to urge Americans to avoid a small number of flu vaccines that use the preservative thimerosal despite evidence of its safety.

Votes by the panel are closely watched by health authorities because they are tied to federal policies and programs that enable access to vaccines, including requirements for insurance coverage and funding to provide shots for uninsured children.

Other vaccines were also being discussed by the panel, but not voted on, including those for COVID-19, measles, chikungunya and anthrax.

Kennedy’s new committee also announced Wednesday that it would start a renewed review of all recommended pediatric vaccines, over fears about the “cumulative effect” that the shots could be having on children. That includes weighing changes to recommendations for hepatitis B and measles vaccines given early in life.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, or AAP, denounced the move as sowing distrust in safe and effective immunizations, and warned Wednesday against curbing hepatitis B recommendations.

“Secretary Kennedy has given this committee a clear mandate to use evidence-based medicine when making vaccine recommendations, and that is what we will do. Vaccines are not all good or bad,” Dr. Martin Kulldorff, the panel’s chair, said Wednesday.

Flu vaccines and thimerosal

The panel’s majority vote to recommend against flu vaccines with thimerosal is unlikely to impact many Americans, since the mercury-based preservative is already rarely used in the shots. During the 2024-2025 season, 96% of all influenza vaccines in the U.S. were thimerosal-free, according to the CDC.

“If we want to have confidence in vaccines, and we want to promote people taking vaccines, we should remove this mercury-containing preservative from the seasonal influenza,” said Kulldorff.

One of the panel’s advisers, Dr. Cody Meissner of Dartmouth University, questioned why the committee was reopening an old issue that had previously been addressed by health authorities, potentially undermining a heavily studied vaccine ingredient.

“The ACIP makes recommendations based on scientific evidence, as much as possible, and there is no scientific evidence that thimerasol has caused a problem,” Meissner said, who was the only panelist to vote against the change.

Thimerosal has been added to vaccines since the 1930s to help prevent bacteria in multi-dose vials of vaccine. It contains a form of mercury called ethylmercury, which is different from the methylmercury found in some seafood.

“Ethylmercury is excreted much more quickly from the body. It is not associated with the high neurotoxicity that methylmercury is,” Meissner said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration states that a “robust body of peer-reviewed scientific studies conducted in the U.S. and other countries support the safety of thimerosal-containing vaccines.”

Anti-vaccine groups have falsely tied thimerosal to autism. However, well-designed studies have found no evidence that thimerosal causes autism.

CDC officials told CBS News they saw the meeting as an early test case demonstrating how Kennedy has tightened his grip over the federal vaccine recommendations process and eroded its credibility.

Multiple liaison members of the panel, representing outside groups, objected to the committee bypassing the rigorous, usually monthslong CDC systemic review process that studies evidence on the need, impact and feasibility of new recommendations. Some worried re-debating settled science could contribute to unnecessary fears or doubts around vaccines that have long been considered safe.

“This selective use of data and omission of established science undermines public trust and fuels misinformation. The science on thimerosal is settled, and the rhetoric being used to suggest otherwise is misleading and harmful,” Dr. Sean O’Leary, head of the AAP’s infectious diseases committee, said in a statement.

Instead, the vote was based mainly on a presentation by Lyn Redwood, the former head of a group founded by Kennedy that has lobbied against vaccine authorizations and requirements. Redwood has been hired to work in the agency’s vaccine safety office, though she said Thursday she was speaking only as a private citizen.

“I think it’s inappropriate to dismiss a presentation, just because the person does not have a PhD or an MD. There are a lot of knowledgeable people who we would like to hear from, and we want to hear from a variety of viewpoints,” Kulldorff said.

Ahead of the meeting, the CDC removed a review the agency previously posted on its website that debunked claims about how the preservative could cause autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders.

“My understanding is that article was not authorized by the Office of the Secretary, and has been removed consequent. I’m sure that the Office of the Secretary will make note of your comment,” panelist Dr. Robert Malone said.

Malone was responding to a question from Phyllis Arthur of Bio, a trade group that represents vaccinemakers, who had called for the CDC’s evidence review to be restored to the website.

Molly Howell of the Association of Immunization Managers worried the move could also impact plans for a potential pandemic influenza vaccine, which currently rely on the potential use of the preservative.

“Future meetings of ACIP and CDC will have to consider those things,” Kulldorff said.

RSV shot

An RSV vaccine during pregnancy and another antibody shot called clesrovimab that can be given to newborns have previously been approved by the Food and Drug Administration and recommended by the CDC to prevent the disease.

The committee Thursday voted by a majority — five in favor, two against — to recommend a shot for newborns, branded as Enflonsia by Merck, adding another option to the already approved immunizations.

Two of the panel’s new members — Retsef Levi, an operations management professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Vicki Pebsworth, the research director of a group focused on preventing vaccine injuries and deaths — voted against recommendations for the shot.

Pebsworth said she worried about coadministration of the shot with other childhood vaccines, despite data presented by the CDC’s Vaccine Safety Datalink showing that RSV antibody shots being given alongside other vaccines are not resulting in a safety risk.

Levi said that he was uncomfortable with clinical trial data he claimed suggested that deaths could be more frequent after use of the shots. He cited his experience as a parent, saying that “as a father, I can feel that I would be concerned.”

“I don’t feel this is ready to be administered to all healthy babies. I think we should take a more precautionary approach to this,” Levi said.

That was at odds with reviews by the CDC and FDA, which did not turn up evidence of this risk. An FDA official told the panel that the death rates — 0.3% after the shot versus 0.2% without — were not significant, and that careful reviews of the deaths concluded that their causes were not related to the drug.

Meissner disagreed with Levi, warning that 80% of children hospitalized with RSV are healthy with no underlying conditions.

Meissner had previously participated in the deliberations of the committee’s work group as an outside adviser, before Kennedy purged its voting members.

“The work group has spent an enormous amount of time, the FDA has spent an enormous effort looking at safety and efficacy, and it is simply not an issue here,” he said.

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s new vaccine advisers began their first meeting Wednesday under intense scrutiny from medical experts worried about Americans’ access to lifesaving shots. And it’s become a critical time for vaccine advocates across the U.S. and the world.

Dr. Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and one of the foremost experts on infectious disease in the U.S. is one of those advocates. He tells WCCO’s Adam and Jordana that the reason they formed a Vaccine Integrity Project immediately following the 2024 Presidential Election, was the knowledge that vaccinations would be a target of the Trump administration and his choice of Kennedy to lead the HHS Department.

“We envisioned even back then, that what was going to happen has happened, and that’s why we formed this group called the Vaccine Integrity Project,” Osterholm explained. “And we did that right after the first of the year to provide an alternative source of science-based, unbiased information on vaccines so that clinicians, whether they be doctors, nurses, or pharmacists, would have accurate information. And so nothing that’s happening here, right now with the administration, should be a surprise to anyone.”

First on the agenda for the meetings Wednesday is an awkward scenario: Kennedy already announced COVID-19 vaccines will no longer be recommended for healthy children or pregnant women, and his new advisers aren’t scheduled to vote on whether they agree. Yet government scientists prepared meeting materials calling vaccination “the best protection” during pregnancy — and said most children hospitalized for COVID-19 over the past year were unvaccinated.

Osterholm says that this is not even up for debate anymore, and the myths and disinformation he says Kennedy is spreading is a tragedy and he’s concerned that confusing and conflicting information will emerge from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

“Even if it’s mis or disinformation, the public’s confused and so we have a lot of work to do to help,” says Osterholm. “And how do we best share this information? I hope we don’t have dueling recommendations coming from the ACIP. But already here’s an example. Secretary Kennedy has basically taken COVID vaccines away from pregnant women. We know that pregnancy is the time when you’re at an increased risk of serious illness, hospitalizations and deaths from COVID. The data are clear and compelling, and now we are saying to these pregnant women, you can’t get vaccinated. I mean, that’s a tragedy.”

COVID-19 remains a public health threat, resulting in 32,000 to 51,000 U.S. deaths and more than 250,000 hospitalizations since last fall, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most at risk for hospitalization are seniors and children under 2 — especially infants under 6 months who could have some protection if their mom got vaccinated during pregnancy, according to the CDC’s presentation.

It’s one signal that this week’s two-day meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices isn’t business as usual.

Another sign: Shortly before the meeting, a Virginia-based obstetrician and gynecologist stepped down from the committee, bringing the panel’s number to just seven. The Trump administration said Dr. Michael Ross withdrew during a customary review of members’ financial holdings.

The meeting opened as the American Academy of Pediatrics announced that it will continue publishing its own vaccine schedule for children but now will do so independently of the ACIP, calling it “no longer a credible process.”

The panel, created more than 60 years ago, helps the CDC determine who should be vaccinated against a long list of diseases, and when. Those recommendations have a big impact on whether insurance covers vaccinations and where they’re available, such as at pharmacies.

Earlier this month, Kennedy abruptly dismissed the existing 17-member expert panel and handpicked eight replacements, including several anti-vaccine voices. And a number of the CDC’s top vaccine scientists — including some who lead the reporting of data and the vetting of presentations at ACIP meetings — have resigned or been moved out of previous positions.

The highly unusual moves prompted a last-minute plea from a prominent Republican senator to delay this week’s meeting. Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a physician who chairs the chamber’s health committee, said Monday that many of Kennedy’s chosen panelists lack the required expertise and “may even have a preconceived bias” against new vaccine technologies.

In a House hearing Tuesday, Kennedy defended his purge, saying the old panel had been “a template for medical malpractice.”

Rep. Kim Schrier, a pediatrician and Democrat from Washington state, told Kennedy: “I will lay all responsibility for every death from a vaccine-preventable illness at your feet.”

Osterholm adds that his Vaccine Integrity Project – which he says is funded 100% philanthropically without any industry or company support – is aiming to produce advice for Americans and bring together experts that the Advisory Committee Kennedy fired has used all along.

“This is the group we’re talking about, it’s 17 experts from outside of government,” says Osterholm. “They represent the very best and the brightest of researchers, people who deliver vaccines. They know this. There’s a whole group of of societies, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Infectious Disease Society of America, they all are part of this activity. And what we’ve done is brought them together to say what is it that we know, and don’t know, and to lay that out honestly and succinctly.”

Committee will vote on RSV protections

The two-day meeting’s agenda on was abruptly changed last week.

Discussion of COVID-19 shots will open the session on Wednesday. Later in the day, the committee will take up RSV, with votes expected. On Thursday, the committee will vote on fall flu vaccinations and on the use of a preservative in certain flu shots.

RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, is a common cause of cold-like symptoms that can be dangerous for infants.

In 2023, U.S. health officials began recommending two new measures to protect infants — a lab-made antibody for newborns and a vaccine for pregnant women — that experts say likely drove an improvement in infant mortality.

The committee will discuss another company’s newly approved antibody shot, but the exact language for the vote was not released prior to the meeting.

“I think there may be a theme of soft-pedaling or withdrawing recommendations for healthy pregnant women and healthy children,” even though they are at risk from vaccine-preventable diseases, said Lawrence Gostin, a public health law expert at Georgetown University who co-authored a recent medical journal commentary criticizing the COVID-19 vaccination decision.

Flu shot recommendations to be debated

At its June meetings, the committee usually refreshes guidance for Americans 6 month and older to get a flu shot, and helps greenlight the annual fall vaccination campaign.

But given the recent changes to the committee and federal public health leadership, it’s unclear how routine topics will be treated, said Jason Schwartz, a Yale University health policy researcher who has studied the committee.

Thursday also promises controversy. The advisory panel is set to consider a preservative in a subset of flu shots that Kennedy and some antivaccine groups have falsely contended is tied to autism. In preparation, the CDC posted a new report confirming that research shows no link between the preservative, thimerosal, and autism or any other neurodevelopmental disorders.

Gostin said the agenda appears to be “a combination of what we would normally expect ACIP to cover along with a mixture of potential conspiracy theories,” he said. “We clearly are in a new normal that’s highly skeptical of vaccine science.”

The committee’s 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 currently has no director, so the committee’s recommendations have been going to Kennedy, and he has yet to act on a couple recommendations ACIP made in April.

The CDC director nominee, Susan Monarez, is slated to go before a Senate committee on Wednesday.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.