The next meeting of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s newly appointed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine panel is slated for Sept. 18-19, according to a Thursday notice.
In June, Kennedy fired 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which develops recommendations for how vaccines are used, and replaced them with eight members, several of whom have expressed vaccine skepticism. One resigned before the first meeting, leaving seven members.
Why it matters: The HHS notice comes the day after CDC Director Susan Monarez was pushed out of her role during a chaotic day that also saw three top CDC leaders resign: Chief Medical Officer Debra Houry, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Director Demetre Daskalakis and National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases Director Daniel Jernigan, four people familiar with the departures granted anonymity to discuss the developments told POLITICO’s Sophie Gardner.
The two-day September meeting will include discussion of Covid-19 vaccines, hepatitis B vaccines, the measles, mumps, rubella, varicella (MMRV) vaccine and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). While there may be recommendation votes on those vaccines, the agenda is subject to change, the notice says.
The ACIP’s chair, Martin Kulldorff, previously told POLITICO he thought it made sense to reconsider whether all infants need to receive the hepatitis B shot. The disease, which can cause liver failure, is typically spread through sex and by contaminated needles. The vaccine is given to infants because they could contract it from their mothers.
The meeting will include time for public oral comments prior to any votes, with priority given to those who submit a request to speak before the meeting.
Monarez had refused to fire top agency leaders or sign off on changes to vaccines from Kennedy's panel of hand-picked advisers, Richard Besser, CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and a former acting CDC director, explained at a press conference Thursday after speaking with Monarez on Wednesday.
When Kennedy and top aide Stefanie Spear pressured Monarez to resign this week, she refused. Then on Wednesday, HHS announced on X that Monarez was "no longer director."
The White House confirmed on Wednesday night that Monarez had been fired.
Monarez, who had only held the job for a month, spent much of that time responding to a shooting on the CDC campus in Atlanta earlier this month that killed a law enforcement officer and scared some HHS staff, who warned that Kennedy was "endangering the nation’s health by repeatedly spreading inaccurate health information."
In a Thursday statement, Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.) called for the ACIP meeting to be indefinitely postponed.
“Serious allegations have been made about the meeting agenda, membership, and lack of scientific process being followed for the now announced September ACIP meeting,” Cassidy said.
"These decisions directly impact children’s health and the meeting should not occur until significant oversight has been conducted. If the meeting proceeds, any recommendations made should be rejected as lacking legitimacy given the seriousness of the allegations and the current turmoil in CDC leadership.”
What's next: The ACIP meeting's written public comment period opens Sept. 2. Comments must be received by Sept. 13. The notice will be published to the Federal Register tomorrow.
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