The federal government is officially back to work, and unfortunately, so is Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s influence over the nation’s public health. Early next month, a panel of outside advisers assembled by Kennedy will meet once again and possibly take a sledgehammer to more vaccines.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently posted the draft agenda for the next meeting of its advisory committee on vaccination practices to be held on December 4 and 5. Among other things, ACIP plans to discuss the childhood vaccination program as well as “contaminants” in vaccines. While it’s not clear exactly what issues ACIP will vote on during this meeting, some of its members will likely try to remove the decades-old recommendation that children be vaccinated against hepatitis B from birth — a decision that some GOP lawmakers are also trying to block.
“I want to make America healthier, and you don’t start by stopping the recommendations that have largely made us healthier,” Senator Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) told CBS News. face the nation In an interview released on Sunday.
Hijacked ACIP
Earlier this year, Kennedy unilaterally dismissed all 17 members of ACIP, the panel of outside experts that helps guide the CDC’s vaccine policies. He then quickly added new advisers, many of whom—like Kennedy himself—had a history of spreading misinformation about vaccines.
In its two meetings to date, the reconstituted ACIP has issued several recommendations welcomed by the anti-vaccination movement. For example, it went on to ban the few remaining vaccines that contained thimerosal, an ingredient that antivaxxers have long accused with questionable evidence of causing autism. Although thimerosal was removed from most vaccines as a precaution in the early 2000s, studies since then have failed to find any link to autism, and autism rates continue to increase. ACIP also said that children under four years of age will no longer be given the combination measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella vaccine (MMRV), a decision the CDC had previously left up to parents.
These decisions, and ACIP’s general shift from science-supported evaluation, have helped fuel CDC’s internal collapse. In late August, RFK Jr. fired former CDC Director Susan Monarez after only four weeks in her role, reportedly because she refused to sign off on ACIP’s recommendations without reviewing them; Shortly thereafter, most of CDC’s senior leadership resigned in protest.
Until now, ACIP’s worst decisions have been limited in scope. Few vaccines today contain thimerosal, and most families were not vaccinating their very young children with the MMRV shot. But the potential removal of universal hepatitis B vaccination at birth threatens to be the most sweeping and harmful change yet.
unscientific fear
Hepatitis B is spread by direct contact with bodily fluids. In adults, it is usually spread through sex or by sharing contaminated needles. But this virus can also spread from infected mother to child during childbirth.
Although hepatitis B infection can be controlled with antiviral medications if it becomes chronic, there is currently no curative treatment. Most children with hepatitis B will have it for life, and about a quarter will experience serious health problems, including cirrhosis and liver cancer.
Thirty years ago, ACIP and CDC began recommending that everyone be vaccinated against hepatitis B when young, and eventually moving to dosing at birth for the first shot. This strategy was adopted only after previous efforts to vaccinate the highest-risk groups failed to reduce cases. And since its implementation, hepatitis B rates in the US, particularly among children, have steadily declined. The vaccine is also safe, with its most serious side effects, such as anaphylaxis, being exceptionally rare and manageable with proper monitoring.
At the last ACIP meeting in September, CDC staff argued in support of vaccination at birth and warned that more children would certainly develop hepatitis B if the policy was removed. Both ACIP sessions ran long, and at the last minute – amidst much confusion about what issues members were actually voting on – ACIP unexpectedly decided to table its planned vote on Hepatitis B. However, given the addition of hepatitis B to Friday’s agenda, it appears the reprieve was short-lived.
The inclusion of the childhood vaccination program on Thursday’s agenda is also quite worrying. Antivaxxers have made no secret of their desire to tear the schedule to pieces if they could. Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccination group founded by RFK Jr., hosted its “Moment of Truth” conference earlier this month. During the conference, Mark Gorton, president of the MHA Institute – a group founded to promote Kennedy’s “Make America Healthier” movement – called for “ending the childhood vaccination program.”
As before, the reformed ACIP has not disclosed the content of its votes scheduled for this next meeting. So it is still uncertain how far its members will go in trying to change the schedule. But there’s certainly no reason to be optimistic about what will happen next for the country’s public health under RFK Jr.’s reign.