STAT+: The CDC\u2019s vaccine advisory panel, empowered by RFK Jr., is just getting started \u00a0
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The meeting began with an airing of pandemic-era grievances and closed with a move to cement a decades-old, long-dismissed anti-vaccine talking point into U.S. national policy<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the intervening 13 hours came technical issues, forgotten procedures, and a public comments session featuring a parade of alarmed experts speaking on behalf of health organizations. At one point, a panelist asked staff from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention whether a \u201cpattern of broad-based energy of some type\u201d may be responsible for a surge in flu deaths this year. Another member, one of the few with public health credentials, beseeched his colleagues to quit raising what he and career officials at the CDC consider long-investigated and discarded concerns.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThese are extraordinarily remarkable products, they are safe, and they are effective, and I don\u2019t think there\u2019s any further data that needs to be presented,\u201d said Cody Meissner, a professor of pediatrics, after another panelist, a professor of management, raised concerns about new drugs to protect against respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. \u201cThe work group has spent an enormous amount of time, the FDA has spent an enormous effort looking at safety and efficacy. It is simply not an issue here.\u201d<\/p>\n So went the first meeting of health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.\u2019s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a hearing unlike any other in the nerdy, august body\u2019s 64-year history.\u00a0<\/p>\n By the end, it was clear that a new era in U.S. vaccine policy had arrived, one in which individuals with long-simmering objections to public health conventions \u2014\u00a0and in some cases ties to the conspiracy-ridden anti-vaccine movement \u2014\u00a0had been empowered to make critical health recommendations for an entire nation.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe have an ACIP. It\u2019s just not a good or qualified or trustworthy ACIP,\u201d said Dorit Reiss, who studies vaccine law and policy at the University of California, San Francisco, in an email after the proceedings. \u201cI think at this point, it might be time to either disband the committee completely or legislate<\/a> to preserve its integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n Continue to STAT+ to read the full story\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n