CDC advisers expected to vote on hepatitis B, COVID vaccine recommendations Friday : NPR
The group of advisers selected by the Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will vote on their recommendations for vaccines to hepatitis B and the second day of the long -awaited meeting.
Leila Fadel, host:
A federal advisory committee on vaccines follows a commitment to modify the vaccine policy.
Steve Inskeep, host:
The panel advising the centers for disease control and prevention was chosen by the secretary of health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Fadel: Pien Huang de NPR attended Reunion in Atlanta and joins me now. Hello, Pien.
Pien Huang, Byline: Hello, Leila.
Fadel: Tell us about changes in this panel and why it matters.
Huang: Yes, so it was a very unusual meeting, Leila. There are 12 members. They have been new since June, when Kennedy has dismissed all previous members. And they came with a new approach. These are difficult years of science from established vaccines and they deeply dig into old data to try to find evidence of damage. And throughout the meeting, there have been clashes between the new members and with members of the medical establishment, such as Dr. Jason Goldman, president of the American College of Physicians.
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Jason Goldman: I urge this committee not to change the recommendations if they really want to give power to parents to decide what is best for their child.
Huang: But the committee voted to change a long -standing recommendation on the MMRV vaccine.
Fadel: OK, so it’s diseases of measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox, diseases that are very contagious in children. How has the recommendation changed?
Huang: Yes, it’s the combo film for all. And they voted to recommend that children under 4 can no longer get it. Instead, they should get the ROR vaccine and chickenpox vaccines separately. It is therefore a subtle change because most children, 85%, already get the photo separately, and it is because of a slightly higher risk of something called the febrile crises that come with the combo photo. This is something that has been known for a long time. And even if I know that they seem frightening, the pediatricians say that they are especially harmless. Here is Dr Cody Meissner from Dartmouth. He is the only member to have sat on this committee before.
Cody Meissner: This discussion is really a already seen for me because we had in -depth discussions on this very subject, oh, about 15 years ago.
Huang: And he was one of the three members who voted against change, but he was rejected. And this recommendation could have implications for insurance coverage.
Fadel: How what kind of implications?
Huang: So they always sort it. I mean, this vote could mean that the combo shooting is no longer covered by Medicaid or the health insurance program for children for children under the age of 4. This could also mean that private insurers may perhaps choose whether or not they cover it. Now HHS sent a statement after the meeting saying they were going to review what it means for insurance coverage before the final decision was made by the acting director of the CDC.
Fadel: And what do you expect to perform today?
Huang: So today, they will vote to make changes to the hepatitis B vaccine, which is also a vaccine that has existed for decades. It has been recommended at birth for each baby since 1991, and it seems that they will try to delay this first dose. They will also vote on coated vaccines. These discussions will therefore be led by Retsef Levi, member of the Committee, who is professor of operations management at MIT.
He said vaccines are comfortable killing people, despite security surveillance programs that found that was not true. The Committee could therefore agree with the current FDA recommendations for people 65 and over or those at higher risks. They could develop it. But on the basis of yesterday’s discussions, the groups of doctors fear to vote to make them more difficult to obtain.
Fadel: It’s Pien Huang de NPR in Atlanta. Thank you, Pien.
Huang: You are welcome.
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