The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is scheduled to meet this Thursday and Friday to review the childhood vaccine schedule, examine vaccine adjuvants and contaminants, and evaluate recommendations for the hepatitis B vaccine, reports Baltimore Chronicle.
This marks the third ACIP meeting since Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dismissed all 17 previous members, replacing them with individuals of his choosing, many of whom have expressed skepticism toward vaccines. The upcoming session is the first since Martin Kulldorff, a former Harvard Medical School professor and the committee chair, accepted a permanent role at HHS. Pediatric cardiologist and former U.S. Air Force flight surgeon Dr. Kirk Milhoan will serve as chair during this meeting. Milhoan is a fellow with the Independent Medical Alliance, which has promoted treatments for COVID-19 that are not supported by evidence, including hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.
The draft agenda posted online indicates that on the first day, ACIP members will discuss and vote on hepatitis B vaccine recommendations, followed by deliberations on the childhood vaccine schedule on the second day. Experts have raised concerns that the committee may reconsider the long-standing recommendation to administer the hepatitis B vaccine to all newborns within 24 hours of birth, a practice that has nearly eliminated hepatitis B infections among infants in the United States.
Since the new members joined, ACIP has recommended against flu vaccines containing thimerosal, despite public health experts stating there is no evidence that low doses of thimerosal in vaccines cause harm. The committee has also narrowed recommendations for the combined MMRV vaccine, which protects against measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella.
Dr. Fiona Havers, a former CDC official who oversaw vaccine policy and tracked hospitalizations from COVID-19 and RSV, warned that changes to the hepatitis B recommendation could lead to preventable infections in infants and children. She noted that while only vaccinating high-risk newborns was previously standard in the United States, universal vaccination was implemented after infants continued to contract hepatitis B, a virus that can cause chronic infection, liver disease, liver failure, and liver cancer.
The second day of the meeting will focus on reviewing the childhood immunization schedule. ACIP has recently established two workgroups: one to assess the cumulative effects of all recommended vaccines on children and adolescents, and another to review vaccines that have not been evaluated in more than seven years. Secretary Kennedy has suggested that children now receive an excessive number of doses compared with previous generations, claiming the number has increased from three during his childhood to 92 doses today, although experts note the actual number of recommended doses is around 30.
The draft agenda also includes discussion of vaccine adjuvants and contaminants. Kennedy has previously claimed that aluminum adjuvants act as neurotoxins and are linked to allergies, despite CDC statements that adjuvants, used to enhance immune responses, have been safely incorporated in vaccines for over seventy years.
Earlier we wrote what to know about the hepatitis B vaccine for infants ahead of CDC panel review
