Confusion abounds over future of US vaccine advisory committee | US news
Does the United States have a vaccine advisory committee? The answer became surprisingly murky Thursday, as former members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and health officials issued conflicting statements after a federal judge essentially struck down the committee and its recent decisions on Monday.
According to a former committee member who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive issues, ACIP will continue to exist without the 13 members who were suspended Monday by Judge Brian Murphy — and officials plan to start the process again with new members.
The judge concluded that the members had not followed the necessary process to join the committee, and he suspended their membership as well as all decisions made by the committee over the past year. The judge also suspended an unprecedented measure taken in January by US health authorities aimed at making major changes to the routine childhood immunization schedule. This means that all 17 vaccines are fully recommended again, including the birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine.
But confusion still reigns over the committee’s future, even among its former members.
Robert Malone, the former co-chair of ACIP, posted on X on Thursday that the committee had been “disbanded.” The U.S. government is considering “creating a new ACIP committee because it will take less time than it would take to file and pursue an appeal,” Malone added.
Yet a source close to the authorities’ thinking refuted those claims, saying there was no final decision on how to proceed in light of the judge’s order. The 13 members hand-picked by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who were the subject of the lawsuit are no longer able to serve after the stay, but four other recently appointed members remain on the committee, which is mandated by law to exist.
“Unless we officially announce it, any assertions about what we will do next are baseless speculation,” said Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
On Thursday night, Malone doubled down – at first.
“For some reason they are now trying to go back while throwing us under the bus,” Malone posted. In a now-deleted post, Malone said he heard the details he released Thursday morning via an email and then a call from Kirk Milhoan, the committee chairman.
Malone later retracted his statements. “I have now been told that this was a misunderstanding and that in fact the decision on how to proceed has not been made, and dissolution and reform remains one of the options being considered,” he wrote.
An email from Milhoan, obtained by the Guardian, alerted members to a new development on Thursday morning and requested phone calls with them. Malone got some details of that conversation wrong, but one point was correct, according to the former committee member.
Jay Bhattacharya, acting director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told Milhoan Thursday morning that officials planned to select new members for the committee because an appeals process could be lengthy, Milhoan told former members by telephone. It is unclear whether authorities plan to appeal the judge’s suspension; so far no appeal has been filed.
Thursday’s uproar highlighted the “chaos and confusion, from the top down,” that characterized the commission’s tenure, the former member said.
“Let us hope that the reconstitution will follow the law” and that the new members will be “competent scientists”, they added.
Bruce Mirken, co-chair of communications for Defend Public Health, said “this chaos only adds to the public’s declining trust in government health agencies.”
“A cynic might say he wants Americans to believe no one and trust nothing, but the result is that people will continue to be confused and some will die needlessly from diseases that can be prevented by vaccines,” Mirken continued, before adding that Kennedy must be removed from office.
“Congress must impeach Kennedy now and put an end to this grotesque circus,” he said.
