Pretty interesting to see #CDC post pre-buttals on thimerosal in vaccines & the MMRV vaccine in advance of this week's #ACIP meeting, where the new committee appears intent on reopening debate on settled science. www.cdc.gov/acip/meeting…
— Helen Branswell 🇨🇦 (@helenbranswell.bsky.social) June 24, 2025 at 1:59 PM
This is good and important
www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/…— Molly Jong-Fast (@mollyjongfast.bsky.social) June 24, 2025 at 7:18 AM
Per the Washington Post, “The plan to vaccinate all Americans, despite RFK Jr.” [gift link]:
Professional medical societies, pharmacists, state health officials and vaccine manufacturers, as well as a new advocacy group, are mobilizing behind the scenes to preserve access for vaccines as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. works to upend the nation’s decades-old vaccine system, according to public health experts.
The groups are discussing ordering vaccines directly from manufacturers and giving greater weight to vaccine recommendations from medical associations. And they are asking insurance companies to continue covering shots based on professional societies’ guidance instead of the federal government’s, according to more than a dozen people familiar with the conversations, including some who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private discussions.
The moves come as Kennedy has replaced members of the key federal vaccine advisory panel to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that decides which vaccines are recommended for whom and whether they’ll be covered by insurance. Kennedy fired the 17-member committee earlier this month and handpicked eight new members, several of whom are vaccine critics.
But the extraordinary effort to create parallel systems of recommending, and perhaps even providing, vaccines faces major challenges, and some of the more ambitious goals have yet to be ironed out…
The impact of ACIP is wide-ranging. In addition to insurance coverage, its decisions — which must receive final approval from the CDC director — affect the ability of pharmacists to administer vaccines, as well as a government program ensuring roughly half of children in the United States can get vaccines free.
Healthcare Open Thread: Preserving VaccinesPost + Comments (84)