CDC Vaccine Advisory Panel Meeting Must be Cancelled
Reconstituted Committee is a Farce
WASHINGTON, DC – Senator Bill Cassidy, the chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, called for the meeting of the vaccine advisory panel at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), scheduled for Wednesday June 25 and Thursday June 26, to be “delayed until the panel is fully staffed with more robust and balanced representation¾as required by law¾including those with more direct relevant expertise.”
After firing the 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. replaced them with eight hand-picked appointees with insufficient infectious diseases proficiency; several are hostile to vaccines.
In advance of the meeting, Dr. Fiona Havers, one of the CDC’s leading vaccine experts, resigned, because she “could not be party to legitimizing this new committee…C.D.C. processes are being corrupted in a way that I haven’t seen before.” Havers added, “If it isn’t stopped, and some of this isn’t reversed, like, immediately, at lot of Americans are going to die of vaccine-preventable diseases.”
Public Citizen Health Research Group Director Dr. Robert Steinbrook issued the following statement:
“Senator Cassidy and Dr. Havers are correct: the reconstituted ACIP is a farce. Everything is wrong with the wholesale purging of the committee and the replacement of well-qualified appointees with a smaller number of people with insufficient expertise and impartiality. For the ACIP to issue meaningful recommendations that will be widely accepted by the public and the medical and public health communities, the members must have impeccable and broadly accepted scientific credentials and credibility.”
“Rather than further sullying the ACIP and undermining public confidence in vaccines, this week’s meeting should be rescheduled after the Senate has confirmed a new CDC Director who can both appoint an authoritative and representative committee and be able to approve the panel’s recommendations.”