By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D.

Federal health officials have expanded the criteria for eligibility to serve on the panel that advised the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on vaccines, according to a notice about the committee’s renewed charter published today in the Federal Register.

The move fueled speculation that U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may soon reconstitute the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) with members of his choosing, The New York Times reported.

Last month, a federal judge froze ACIP and disbanded its members. In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy wrote that some ACIP members chosen by Kennedy last year lacked the legally required expertise in vaccines.

CHD appealed the ruling and asked the court for an emergency order to stay, or freeze, Murphy’s order.

CHD also appealed Murphy’s denial of the nonprofit’s motion to intervene in the case brought by the American Academy of Pediatrics against Kennedy and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The court has yet to rule on CHD’s request.

Now that HHS has changed the expertise criteria, Kennedy could rebuild the committee by bringing back some of the disbanded members — even without appealing the judge’s ruling, according to the Times.

HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon pushed back on the claim that Kennedy planned to soon rebuild the committee. He told The Defender:

“The ACIP charter renewal and its publication are routine statutory requirements and do not signal any broader policy shift. Unless officially announced by HHS, any assertions about next steps are speculation.”

Attorney Rick Jaffe, who represents CHD in its appeal of Murphy’s rulings, said it’s unclear whether any new ACIP appointments based on the new expertise criteria would survive judicial review.

That will hinge on whether the new appointments are made through a lawful process under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, “which Judge Murphy found was missing the first time around,” Jaffe said.

Murphy’s ruling was “largely about the process” that ACIP members must undergo to be legally appointed, he added.

‘Broadens the universe of qualified candidates considerably’

ACIP’s former charter required its members to “have expertise in the use of vaccines and other immunobiologic agents in clinical practice or preventive medicine, have expertise with clinical or laboratory vaccine research, or have expertise in assessment of vaccine efficacy and safety.”

The renewed version, effective through April 1, 2028, states that ACIP must reflect a “balance of specialty areas,” including “biostatistics, toxicology, immunology, epidemiology, pediatrics, internal medicine, family medicine, nursing, consumer issues, state and local health department perspective, academic perspective, public health perspective, etc.,” according to the Federal Register.

“That broadens the universe of qualified candidates considerably,” Jaffe told The Defender.

“Adding toxicology and biostatistics to the charter’s expertise criteria is a step toward the kind of committee that should have existed all along,” Jaffe said. “For too long, ACIP has been a captured committee for a narrow band of scientists who think only in terms of adding more and more vaccines without regard to the cumulative effect on children.”

Soon after his confirmation last year, Kennedy dismissed all 17 sitting members of ACIP, citing their financial ties to Big Pharma, which Kennedy said created conflicts of interest.

‘Desperate need to balance the committee so that safety is also properly considered’

Per federal law, the U.S. health secretary has to renew ACIP’s charter every two years.

On March 25, attorney Aaron Siri reminded Kennedy in a letter that the HHS secretary has the power to revise the ACIP charter and set the criteria for new members.

Siri, who sent the letter on behalf of the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN), encouraged Kennedy to make several amendments to ACIP’s charter, including broadening the expertise criteria, to ensure that the committee thoroughly assesses the safety of vaccines.

According to an ICAN press release, the 13 ACIP members that Murphy disbanded had the requisite experience. The release stated:

“In fact, never before had the committee had such an impressive range of perspective, experience, and background. When it comes to being ‘fairly balanced,’ it is the ACIP committees of years past that were sorely lacking in diversity of viewpoints.”

Siri proposed that at least two ACIP members have “direct and substantial experience advocating for and/or treating those injured by vaccines.”

Siri also suggested adding verbiage to make it ACIP’s explicit duty to review reports of adverse events experienced following vaccination when ACIP develops vaccine recommendations.

Siri told the Times:

“There is a desperate need to balance the committee so that safety is also properly considered. … A.C.I.P.’s longstanding membership imbalance has resulted in a failure to properly address and consider vaccine safety in its deliberations and recommendations.”

The CDC has yet to publish the full text of ACIP’s renewed charter, so it is unclear whether Kennedy opted to include Siri’s suggestions.

HHS declined to say when the agency plans to publicly release the renewed charter’s full text.

Siri did not immediately respond to The Defender’s request for comment.

Related articles in The Defender

• Exclusive: ‘Unqualified’ Judge to Blame for ‘Highly Politicized’ Ruling Against RFK Jr.’s Vaccine Advisers
• ‘We Keep Getting Pushed Aside’: Judge’s Ruling Shuts Down Testimony of People Injured by COVID Vaccines
• Breaking: Federal Court Blocks ACIP Meeting, Changes to Childhood Vaccine Schedule
• Federal Judge Weighs AAP Emergency Motion to Block Vaccine Policy Overhaul

The post HHS Expands Criteria for Embattled CDC Vaccine Panel — What Does It Mean? appeared first on Children’s Health Defense.

 

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