June 30, 2025
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) held its scheduled meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) on June 25 and 26, just two weeks after Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. unilaterally replaced the entire panel of 17 experts with seven new members, many of whom lack significant vaccine-related expertise. The chair of the meeting was Martin Kulldorff, Ph.D., co-author (with National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya) of The Great Barrington Declaration. The session topics included: COVID-19 vaccines; respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccines and monoclonal antibodies; influenza vaccines and the use of thimerosal as a preservative; the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) and MMR-varicella (MMRV) vaccines; and brief presentations on chikungunya and anthrax vaccines.
Dr. Kulldorff kicked off the meeting with an update on the establishment of two new ACIP working groups to evaluate the cumulative effect of the childhood and adolescent immunization schedule, including the timing and interaction between the various vaccines, as well as existing vaccines that have not been reviewed in the last seven years. This includes evaluating the recommendation that infants receive their first hepatitis B vaccines on their day of birth and the scheduling of the MMR and MMRV vaccine doses.
