Health Experts Fear Vaccine Advisory Meeting Will Further Damage Nation’s Health

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Health experts with Defend Public Health urged the public and medical community to treat anything that comes from this week’s meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) with extreme caution, expressing fears that the committee will pursue Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s unscientific anti-vaccine agenda.

“In recent days, various HHS agencies have put out a torrent of disinformation on issues like vaccines and autism and COVID-19 vaccine safety,” said epidemiologist Elizabeth Jacobs, lead author of Defend Public Health’s recent analysis of COVID-19 vaccines and child deaths and University of Arizona professor emerita.. “Sadly, now that Kennedy has stacked this committee with allies who often have no qualifications beyond sharing his love of quackery, we have to expect dishonesty and the likelihood of dangerous recommendations. This is truly a catastrophe for public health.” 

According to the posted agenda, today’s ACIP meeting will consider infant vaccination for hepatitis B, an issue about which Defend Public Health submitted public comments urging no changes to current practices, which have been shown to be safe and effective. Friday’s session will focus on the childhood vaccination schedule, suggesting that the committee might act to further RFK Jr.’s baseless suggestion that the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine be broken into 3 separate shots, and possibly take away parents’ option for their child to receive multiple other shots at the same appointment. 

“RFK Jr. and his cronies are playing with fire,” said Gregg Gonsalves with Defend Public Health and an infectious disease epidemiologist at Yale. “Their assault on the childhood vaccination schedule has no basis in science whatsoever. What their changes will give us are more cases of preventable childhood diseases, suffering and death.”

DPH will monitor the meeting, and Jacobs and Gonsalves – both members of DPH’s Coordinating Committee – will be available to comment at the contact information above.

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Defend Public Health is a volunteer-driven network of public health researchers, healthcare workers, advocates and allies fighting to protect the health of all from the Trump administration's cruel attacks on proven, science-based public health policies. We believe that everyone has the right to what they need for a healthy life, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual orientation, gender or gender identity.
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