RFK Jr. moves to broaden CDC vaccine panel eligibility after federal judge found new members unqualified

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s amended charter for a vaccine advisory committee was published Monday and is set to go into effect soon, but there are currently no members after a federal judge effectively nullified those handpicked by the secretary.

On April 6, Kennedy’s amended charter for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was published in the Federal Register. Kennedy’s charter renewal broadens the criteria for membership to the committee.

The previous charter, which expired last Wednesday, specified that members are to have “expertise in the use of vaccines and other immunobiologic agents in clinical practice or preventive medicine, have expertise with clinical or laboratory vaccine research, or have expertise in assessment of vaccine efficacy and safety.”

The updated charter published this week states that “aspects that are considered at the timeof candidate screening and review” will now involve “geographical balance” and a “balance of specialty areas” that can include toxicology, immunology, pediatrics, consumer issues and academic perspective.

Publishing a charter is not the same as filing it. The charter will likely be filed next week given the requirement of a seven-day notice prior to filing.

There is currently no functioning committee due to the expired charter, though the standing committee had already been blocked by a federal judge last month who determined Kennedy’s complete remaking of the organization had failed to abide by federal law. This resulted in all ACIP meetings, including one meant to happen last month, being indefinitely put on hold.

The committee had voted in favor of recommendations to no longer give birth doses of the hepatitis B vaccine; to delay the combined measles, mumps, rubella and varicella vaccine; and to no longer recommend the COVID-19 vaccine for everyone 6 months and older but to leave it to “individual-based decision making.”

U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy, a Biden appointee, found that most of the members chosen by Kennedy lacked “any meaningful experience in vaccines” and found the few that had relevant experience lacked the qualifications to constitute “expertise.”

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