Vaccine policy in the U.S. is entering uncharted territory
Experts warn that an upheaval of past practices may hurt public health
Vaccines are facing new challenges from an unexpected quarter: the people who set vaccine policy for the United States.
Many people have never heard of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, but its work keeps preventable diseases, from polio to measles to COVID-19, in check. The committee decides which population groups should get certain vaccines. Those decisions then determine which vaccines Medicare and Medicaid, and by extension private insurance, will cover. ACIP also determines which vaccines will be provided for free through the
Vaccines for Children Program.
I’ve reported on ACIP meetings for years. Normally ACIP weighs reams of data, evaluating efficacy and risk versus benefit, before making its recommendations. The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention then has the final say.
But from the opening moments of the
June 25 and
June 26 ACIP meeting, it was clear that this was not business as usual. Instead, debunked science, an apparent nonchalance about preventable deaths and confusion over basic testing procedures often took center stage.
Among other moves, the committee scrapped votes on expanding access to important vaccines, announced plans to reevaluate the childhood vaccine schedule and said established vaccines, including the hepatitis B shot for newborns, will be reviewed every seven years. The committee also resurfaced many long-debunked anti-vaccine talking points. Three of the committee’s five votes concerned a vaccine ingredient that has not been in childhood vaccines for two decades.
Some medical and
pharmacists’ organizations have pledged not to follow some of the Trump administration’s vaccine policies. Among them is the American Academy of Pediatrics, a long-time collaborator of ACIP in setting vaccination schedules for children and adolescents. The group boycotted the meeting because it views the current committee as “illegitimate” and plans to publish its own childhood vaccine schedule.
“Some media outlets have been very harsh on the new members of this committee, issuing false accusations and making concerted efforts to put scientists in either a pro- or anti-vaccine box,” committee chair Martin Kulldorff, a biostatistician at Hillsdale College who is based at the Washington, D.C., campus, said during his opening remarks. “Such labels undermine critical scientific inquiry, and it further feeds the flames of vaccine hesitancy.” In contrast, Kulldorff had previously coauthored a controversial call to
build immunity to COVID-19 through natural infection.
All of this is unprecedented for ACIP, and public health experts now worry that instead of boosting confidence and protecting health, just the opposite will happen.
“I am very concerned that we are going to lose policies and recommendations that save babies, infants, children and adults,” says Chari Cohen, a public health scientist and president of the nonprofit Hepatitis B Foundation.
Full read at:
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/vaccine-policy-cdc-acip-public-health
