A federal vaccine panel recently remade by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will meet in September to discuss and potentially vote on recommendations for vaccines against COVID-19, hepatitis B and measles.
According to a federal notice posted Thursday, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will meet Sept. 18 and 19. A detailed agenda is not yet available, but the notice mentions that vaccines for respiratory syncytial virus may also be discussed.
The anticipated meeting will be the second by the reconstituted ACIP since Kennedy fired all 17 of its prior members and replaced them with seven hand-picked advisers. In the first, the new panelists appeared skeptical of evidence supporting COVID shots’ safety and efficacy, and debated a controversial preservative that’s long been a target of vaccine skeptics despite data showing it to be generally safe.
Since then, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has taken further steps to limit the availability of COVID vaccines, moving to revoke emergency authorizations that enabled wider groups of people, especially children, to access the shots. The Food and Drug Administration, which he oversees, also narrowed eligibility for the vaccines in approving boosters reformulated to targeting a circulating coronavirus strain.
Vaccines from Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax are broadly approved for adults 65 years and over, but only available to younger adults who are considered to be at high risk from COVID.
In an email to clients Wednesday, Richard Hughes, a partner at the law firm Epstein Becker Green, said the limited clearances could mean that adults aged 18 through 64 years “will now need to show some proof of an underlying condition in order to be vaccinated.”
The FDA’s decisions also make Moderna’s vaccine the only option for children between 6 months and 5 years of age.
Kennedy previously said COVID vaccines would no longer be recommended for pregnant women and healthy children, a move that was met with pushback and lawsuits from several medical organizations. Last week, the American Academy of Pediatrics released its own updated vaccination guidelines, breaking with Kennedy to recommend a COVID vaccine for all children aged 6 through 23 months.
ACIP could further curtail access. Retsef Levi, one of the committee’s new panelists, was recently announced to lead the CDC’s COVID immunization working group, which is responsible for reviewing safety and efficacy data. Levi, a professor of operations management at the MIT Sloan School of Management, was critical of COVID vaccine data at the first meeting.
Leerink Partners analyst Daina Graybosch wrote in a note to clients Thursday that ACIP could decline to recommend COVID boosters for the 2025-2026 season, which would mean insurers would no longer be required to cover the shots. Graybosch called this “a likely scenario considering vaccine skeptic Retsef Levi’s appointment to head the COVID ACIP work group.”
The fired members of ACIP recently called for an alternative to the new committee, arguing that the federal government has “upended the U.S. vaccine policymaking process.”
ACIP recommendations are typically endorsed by the CDC director, who until Wednesday was the newly confirmed Susan Monarez. However, the White House moved to oust her from her role, spurring resignations from three top CDC officials. Monarez’s lawyers are contesting her ouster.
In the absence of a confirmed CDC director, the job of endorsing ACIP recommendations falls to Kennedy.
