CDC advisers expected to vote on hepatitis B, COVID vaccine recommendations Friday

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s hand-picked sheet of advisers will ballot connected their recommendations for nan hepatitis B and COVID vaccines connected nan 2nd time of nan highly anticipated meeting.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

A national vaccine advisory committee is pursuing done pinch a promise to alteration vaccine policy.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

The sheet advising nan Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was chosen by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

FADEL: NPR's Pien Huang is attending nan gathering successful Atlanta and joins maine now. Good morning, Pien.

PIEN HUANG, BYLINE: Good morning, Leila.

FADEL: Tell america astir nan changes successful this sheet and why that matters.

HUANG: Yeah, truthful this has been a highly different meeting, Leila. There are 12 members. They're caller since June, erstwhile Kennedy fired each nan erstwhile members. And they person travel pinch a caller approach. They're challenging years of established vaccine subject and they're digging heavy into aged information to effort and find grounds of harms. And passim nan meeting, there's been clashes betwixt nan caller members and pinch members of nan aesculapian establishment, for illustration Dr. Jason Goldman, who's president of nan American College of Physicians.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

JASON GOLDMAN: I impulse this committee not to alteration nan recommendations if they genuinely want to springiness nan powerfulness to nan parents to determine what is champion for their child.

HUANG: But nan committee did ballot to alteration a long-standing proposal connected nan MMRV vaccine.

FADEL: OK, truthful that's nan measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox vaccine, diseases that are very contagious successful kids. How did nan proposal change?

HUANG: Yeah, that's nan combo changeable for each of them. And they voted to urge that kids nether 4 should nary longer beryllium capable to get it. Instead, they should beryllium getting nan MMR vaccine and nan chickenpox vaccines separately. So that's a subtle alteration because astir kids, 85% of them, already do get nan changeable separately, and that's because of a somewhat higher consequence of thing called febrile seizures which travel pinch nan combo shot. That's thing that's been known for a agelong time. And while I cognize they sound scary, pediatricians opportunity they're mostly harmless. Here's Dr. Cody Meissner from Dartmouth. He's nan only personnel who served connected this committee before.

CODY MEISSNER: This chat is really a deja vu for maine because we had extended discussions connected this very topic, oh, 15 years ago, approximately.

HUANG: And he was 1 of 3 members who voted against nan change, but he was overruled. And this proposal could person implications for security coverage.

FADEL: Like what benignant of implications?

HUANG: So they're still sorting it out. I mean, this ballot could mean that nan combo changeable is nary longer covered by Medicaid aliases nan Children's Health Insurance Program for kids nether 4. It could besides mean that backstage insurers tin possibly take whether they screen it aliases not. Now, HHS did nonstop retired a connection aft nan gathering saying they were going to reappraisal what this intends for security sum earlier nan last determination is made by nan CDC's acting director.

FADEL: And what do you expect to hap today?

HUANG: So coming they're going to beryllium voting connected making changes to nan hepatitis B vaccine, which is besides a vaccine that's been astir for decades. It's been recommended astatine commencement for each babe since 1991, and it seems for illustration they're going to effort to hold that first dose. They're besides going to beryllium voting connected COVID vaccines. So these discussions are going to beryllium led by committee personnel Retsef Levi, who's a professor of operations guidance astatine MIT.

He's said that COVID vaccines are sidesplitting people, contempt information monitoring programs that person recovered this not to beryllium true. So nan committee could work together pinch nan FDA's existent recommendations for group 65 and older aliases those astatine higher risk. They could grow connected it. But based connected yesterday's discussions, doctors' groups are worried that they're going to beryllium voting to make them harder to get.

FADEL: That's NPR's Pien Huang successful Atlanta. Thank you, Pien.

HUANG: You're welcome.

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