Overview
- HHS withdrew its revised charter for the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices on Tuesday, citing an administrative error with public notice timing that caused the charter to lapse and requires the committee to be re-established.
- In March, a federal judge found Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. likely violated advisory panel rules when he remade ACIP, and the order blocked his member appointments and broad vaccine recommendation changes.
- The scrapped charter would have widened membership to include consumer and vaccine-injury perspectives and would have added vaccine-skeptical groups such as Physicians for Informed Consent and the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons as nonvoting liaisons.
- Reuters reported reviewing a May 14 replacement draft that would drop role-specific requirements like toxicology or data science, call for a balanced range of expertise, and remove explicit mRNA language, though it has not been published.
- ACIP sets national vaccine guidance used by doctors and insurers, and legal and administrative uncertainty could slow updates, with outside counsel saying HHS may try to rebuild the panel before a possible June meeting using temporary ex officio members if a quorum is lacking.