Sen. Invoice Cassidy, R-La., on Monday criticized Well being and Human Providers Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s picks for a key federal vaccine advisory committee and referred to as for the group’s subsequent assembly to be delayed till extra members with related experience may be appointed.
Kennedy abruptly fired all 17 members of Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices this month and changed them with eight new members, together with identified vaccine skeptics. That group is scheduled to satisfy for the primary time Wednesday and Thursday.
Cassidy, a medical physician who’s the chairman of the Well being, Training, Labor and Pensions Committee, was a key vote in Kennedy’s affirmation. He stated he voted for Kennedy after Kennedy made quite a lot of commitments, together with to not make modifications to ACIP, a extremely influential panel that makes vaccine suggestions and shapes the childhood vaccination schedule.
Cassidy expressed considerations Monday on X in regards to the newly appointed members.
“Though the appointees to ACIP have scientific credentials, many should not have vital expertise learning microbiology, epidemiology or immunology. Specifically, some lack expertise learning new applied sciences reminiscent of mRNA vaccines, and should actually have a preconceived bias towards them,” Cassidy wrote.
“Wednesday’s assembly mustn’t proceed with a comparatively small panel, and no CDC Director in place to approve the panel’s suggestions. The assembly needs to be delayed till the panel is absolutely staffed with extra strong and balanced illustration—as required by legislation—together with these with extra direct related experience,” he continued.
Susan Monarez, President Donald Trump’s decide for CDC director, can have her Senate affirmation listening to Wednesday. With no CDC director, Kennedy has signed off on some ACIP suggestions. And final month, with out enter from ACIP, he introduced that the Covid vaccine would now not be really useful for wholesome kids and pregnant girls.
The Division of Well being and Human Providers, which oversees the CDC, didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon beforehand defended Kennedy’s ACIP picks, saying in a press release that the brand new panel “contains extremely credentialed scientists, main public-health specialists, and a few of America’s most achieved physicians. All of those people are dedicated to evidence-based drugs, gold-standard science, and customary sense.”
A draft agenda for this week’s ACIP assembly features a dialogue and a vote on flu vaccines that comprise thimerosal, a type of mercury that had been used as a preservative in some vaccines. Kennedy has lengthy espoused the debunked declare that there’s a hyperlink between thimerosal and autism.
Since 2001, almost all vaccines made in the US comprise no thimerosal or solely hint quantities. Solely multi-dose flu shot vials nonetheless comprise the preservative. Most flu pictures now are available single-shot packaging.
