HHS Rewrites Vaccine Advisory Panel’s Charter After a Court Blocked Its Changes

The Trump administration has rewritten the charter of the federal committee that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccines, a step critics say could let allies of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. back onto a panel a federal judge had sidelined. The new charter for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices was posted online Thursday, NBC News and the Associated Press reported.

According to the reports, the document broadens who can serve and adds “recovery from serious vaccine injuries” as an area of knowledge members may have. It also leans on language used by vaccine critics, such as studying “gaps in vaccine safety research,” adds four liaison groups that have been skeptical of vaccines, and no longer guarantees that the panel’s recommendations will appear in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, NBC News said.

The charter follows a court defeat. The AP reported that the charter also has the panel consider other countries’ vaccination schedules. Mr. Kennedy replaced the panel’s members, the AP reported, and the new committee declined to recommend COVID-19 vaccines for high-risk groups and voted to stop recommending most newborn hepatitis B shots. The administration also narrowed the childhood vaccine schedule. The American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical groups sued, and in March a federal judge in Massachusetts halted the reconstituted committee and reversed many of its changes, saying members appeared “distinctly unqualified,” NBC News reported. The AP said that has at least temporarily stopped the panel’s meetings. HHS has 60 days to appeal and had not yet done so, NBC News reported; the AP said the administration has indicated it plans to appeal.

The committee matters because the CDC typically follows its advice, and those recommendations guide state school vaccine requirements and insurance coverage, the AP noted.

HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said the renewal and publication are “routine statutory requirements” and do not signal a broader policy shift, and that talk of next steps is speculation, both outlets reported. Charters are renewed every two years, the AP said. Lawyer Aaron Siri called the new language a good step toward considering vaccine safety, NBC News reported.

Others read it differently. Richard Hughes IV, the lawyer for the pediatricians’ group, called it “a continued effort to do more of the same things to undermine ACIP, undermine vaccine policy” and public confidence, according to the AP; he did not say whether the group will challenge the changes in court, NBC News said. Lawrence Gostin of Georgetown University called the charter “a blatant attempt” to turn the committee into an anti-vaccine tool, NBC News reported, while Dorit Reiss of the University of California Law San Francisco said it suggests Mr. Kennedy may want to bring back former members and add new skeptics, but doubted a new panel would be named soon because the White House is likely to avoid vaccine controversy before the midterm elections.

The charter alone does not resolve the legal challenge, Hughes said, according to the AP, so whether the committee can meet again will depend on the court and on any appeal.