ATLANTA, Ga. - An advisory committee for the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is set to make recommendations this week on vaccines for COVID-19, hepatitis B and measles.
Just ahead of the meetings on Thursday and Friday, five new members have been named to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). It comes after the unprecedented removal of all 17 sitting members of the committee.
Several of their replacements by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have made unproven claims about vaccines.
Many former CDC employees say they have a number of concerns about the upcoming meetings, especially as the agency is in such a time of turmoil, between the shooting at the agency last month, their ousted leader Dr. Susan Monarez, and now a vaccine panel with anti-vaccine voices among them.
Dr. Tony Fiore spent much of his professional life with the CDC focused on the hepatitis B vaccine.
"You can treat a child at birth to prevent infection but we were missing many of them. Routine vaccination captured all of them and provided protection," he said.
Now, that vaccine, along with COVID-19 and the measles, mumps, rubella and varicella (chickenpox) vaccine could be on the chopping block during upcoming votes on Thursday and Friday from the ACIP.
Part of what concerns public health experts like Fiore is what he calls the lack of vaccine expertise in the advisory committee appointed by Kennedy.
"Many of whom have put on social media or published things that can be described as anti-vaccine," he said Tuesday.
The committee makes recommendations to the director of the CDC on how already-approved vaccines should be used. CDC directors have almost always accepted those recommendations, which are then widely used by doctors and guide vaccination programs.
"I think formally, they can vote to restrict use of vaccines or even eliminate their use altogether in some age groups," he said.
Fiore said it's what this meeting could informally do that has him most concerned.
"The questions that they ask, very leading sorts of safety questions that have been debunked decades ago, inject concerns into parents, to providers, so providers aren't sure whether they should give the vaccine or who they should give it to, insurers don't know if they should pay for it," he said.
The first meeting begins Thursday at 10 a.m. Friday's meeting begins at 8:30 a.m.
Kennedy said he is focused on rebuilding the public's trust with advisory board members who are "unafraid to ask the hard questions."
"They will exercise independent judgment, refuse to serve as a rubber stamp, and foster a culture of critical inquiry -- unafraid to ask hard questions," he said when he cleared out the former committee members.
Susan Monarez, the recently ousted director of the CDC, is set to testify before a U.S. Senate committee Wednesday.
Her attorneys say she refused to "rubber stamp unscientific, reckless directives." Kennedy has denied that claim.