By Julie Steenhuysen
CHICAGO, April 9 (Reuters) – U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday issued a new charter for a CDC vaccine advisory committee that expands the role of the panel to include a focus on vaccine risks and supposed gaps in vaccine safety evidence.
The charter, signed by Kennedy on March 31 and posted on Thursday, follows a federal court ruling last month that declared most prior members of Kennedy’s vaccine panel unqualified, and put their decisions on hold.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the use of vaccines, had been a key tool in Kennedy’s efforts to reshape U.S. vaccine policy.
In a March 16 decision, Boston-based U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy concluded that ACIP had been unlawfully reconstituted after Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist, last year removed all 17 independent experts who previously served on the panel and named several new members who share many of his controversial vaccine views.
The new charter broadens the membership criteria of potential panelists beyond those with expertise in the use and research of vaccines and immunization practices, specifically adding toxicology, data science and those with “expertise in the assessment of vaccine safety and efficacy.”
Dorit Reiss, a professor of law at UC Law San Francisco who focuses on vaccine policy, said the new charter weakens the expertise requirement, requiring members to be “knowledgeable,” which could make it harder for judges to demand expertise.
It also names four new organizations to serve as non-voting liaisons to the committee including the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, the Independent Medical Alliance and Physicians for Informed Consent – groups that have expressed anti-vaccine views.
It also includes the Medical Academy of Pediatrics and Special Needs, which advocates for children with autism. Kennedy has long contended that childhood vaccines cause autism, contrary to decades of science showing them to be safe.
On Monday, the Department of Health and Human Services led by Kennedy published a notice indicating that a new charter was coming that would broaden the list of expertise for individuals who could serve on that panel, which makes recommendations impacting the use and insurance coverage of vaccines, including the U.S. childhood immunization schedule.
HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said the ACIP charter renewal and its publication “are routine statutory requirements and do not signal any broader policy shift.”
Daniel Jernigan, former director of the CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, said the new charter will make it easier to reconstitute the committee and “further politicizes the discussion at the meeting.”
Jernigan was one of three senior CDC leaders who left the agency in August in protest over Kennedy’s vaccine policies.
Richard Hughes IV, lead counsel for the American Academy of Pediatrics, which brought the suit against Kennedy’s vaccine policies, said it was premature to say whether the group would challenge the new charter. “It really remains to be seen how they reconstitute the committee,” he said.
(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chigago; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
