Takeaways from RFK Jr.’s vaccine panel meeting on COVID-19 and childhood vaccines

New York – An advisory committee against vaccines sorted by the US Secretary for Health and Social Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The panel, responsible for making vaccine recommendations, refused to recommend COVVI -19 vaccines, claiming rather that people could make individual decisions – a decision that adds confusion as people weigh if a dose is necessary this fall.

During the sometimes chaotic two -day meeting, the panel also recommended new restrictions for a vaccine that protects against chickenpox as well as measles, mumps and rubella. In a surprise decision, the group has indefinitely postponed an expected vote on the shots of hepatitis B given to infants on the day of birth.

With Kennedy, skeptical of vaccines, leading the country’s health agencies, the meeting of the advisory committee of immunization practices, or ACIP, brought a different tone from past rallies. Among the 12 members, all chosen this year by Kennedy after having dismissed the panel of 17 previous members, are people who criticized and spread a disinformation on vaccines. Critics say that the makeup and the panel agenda could sow the distrust of the blows.

The recommendations of the panel will be sent to the director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an agency that has been shaken by disagreements on Kennedy vaccination policies. Panel recommendations are generally adopted by the CDC, then widely followed by doctors and insurers.

Here are some points to remember from the meeting.

On Friday, the panel discussed COVVI-19 vaccinations because the virus remained a threat of public health, causing 32,000 to 51,000 American deaths last and winter, according to CDC data.

Until now, vaccinations have been systematically provided to almost all the Americans who wanted them. The Food and Drug Administration has recently put new restrictions on the shots of this year of Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax, reserving them for people over 65 or under who are deemed more at risk of the virus.

The panelists refused to recommend the gunshots for everyone, including the elderly and the high -risk populations. They said that individuals could make their own decisions. Deleting the recommendations that were previously in place can confuse Americans trying to decide if and how to get their autumn boosters.

The panel also urged the CDC to adopt a stronger language around the allegations of vaccination risks, despite the decline in external medical groups which said that the shots had a safety file proven by the billions of doses administered worldwide.

The divided panel narrowly avoided extracting states to require a prescription for shooting.

Several states have announced policies to try to provide access to people to COVVI-19 vaccines, concerned about Friday’s ACIP’s decision. And a group representing most health insurers, American health insurance plans, said this week that its members would continue to cover shooting until 2026.

The Committee has recommended that a combined vaccine known as MMRV is not given to children under the age of 4. Instead, they declared during a vote of 8-3 with abstention, the children of this age group should obtain separate vaccines – one for the MMR and another for chickenpox, or chickenpox.

Their discussions centered on rare feverish crises that can occur in children who receive the first dose, between 1 and 2 years. Medical experts agree on these crises, although potentially frightening for families, are not linked to brain function or school problems.

In 2009, the ACIP changed a previous recommendation to inform that combined shooting or separate shots were acceptable for the first dose.

Some doctors and public health experts say they do not know new security data that would explain the review of these vaccination recommendations.

About 85% of children already receive separate doses for the first round, according to information presented at the meeting.

But the experts have raised fears that other children find it difficult to obtain the combined vaccine following the recommendation of the panel. Government insurance programs like Medicaid, for example, should stop paying for the dose of the early combo if the director of the acting CDC accepts the directives of the panel.

Since the APIP in 2005 recommended a dose of the hepatitis B vaccine for newborns, cases of liver viruses in infants have dropped more than half.

However, the Committee has chosen to review the directives of this week’s meeting, the members wondering if babies born of mothers who test negative for hepatitis B really need a vaccine at birth.

Panelists have sought to recommend delaying this initial vaccination – something that doctors and parents can already choose to do.

A member of the committee asked if vaccination just after birth “asked our babies to solve an adult problem”. Hepatitis B can propagate by sexual relations, share needles or a mother infected with a newborn baby.

But several external medical experts have criticized that the committee was debating the problem and said the vaccine was safe and managed to reduce infant infections.

After discussing it on Thursday, the panel decided on Friday morning to report a vote on the issue indefinitely.

President Martin Kulldorff opened the meeting by defying the former CDC directors to a public debate. Several doctors representing external medical groups have accused the panel of not having followed the long -standing directives of the CDC to weigh evidence to make recommendations.

CDC staff, as usual, presented numerous studies on debated subjects, explaining how they chose the research to be discussed. But on a few times, the members of the panel have cited different papers they had found, including those made in mice, which are generally not considered applicable.

The Committee also voted on Thursday that they were to be again on Friday morning concerning the program of the Government Vaccines for Children, which covers the costs of the vaccines for about half of us. Friday, they voted to align the coverage as part of the program with their advice on MMRV shots. One day earlier, they voted not on the idea.

“We are recruits. … There are a lot of technical problems that we might not understand yet,” said Kulldorff. He said that a member of the committee had told him that “maybe we don’t understand what was going on” with the vote.

At one point Thursday, one of the panelists seemed to take a nap, his eyes closed and his chin resting on his chest.

Doctors and public health experts who watch the meeting said they feared that the committee would create fear and distrust around vaccines at a time when American vaccination rates are already decreasing.

They suggested that the new panel used its recommendations selectively to justify specific conclusions, rather than considering all the evidence.

“It is disturbing to see the erosion of the integrity of the committee,” said Dr. Sandra Fryhofer of the American Medical Association.

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The writer Associated Press Jonathan Poet in Philadelphia contributed to this report.