CDC vaccine recommendation process stalled after Kennedy disbanded advisory panel and court intervened
The CDC's vaccine review-and-recommendation process has come to a halt following Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s dismissal of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and a federal court order suspending Kennedy's replacement panel. A federal judge ruled in March that Kennedy likely violated federal procedures, stopping the new panel from meeting and suspending his decision to reduce the number of vaccines recommended for children. The breakdown has left new vaccines, including the FDA-approved mRNA flu shot mFlusiva, without official CDC guidance.
Single source · Not corroborated
For 60 years, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices guided CDC vaccine recommendations through a public, evidence-based process in which the panel voted on guidance that the CDC director almost always adopted, prompting public and private insurers to cover the shots. That system was disrupted when Kennedy dismissed the entire committee and replaced it with a group that included several anti-vaccine voices, according to the Associated Press.
Controversial decisions by Kennedy's new panel prompted a lawsuit from the American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical groups. In March, a federal judge ruled Kennedy likely violated federal procedures, halted further meetings of his replacement panel, and suspended his decision to reduce the number of vaccines recommended for children. Kennedy had also, in January, unilaterally ordered the number of recommended HPV vaccine doses reduced to one — that decision was likewise suspended by the court.
With Kennedy's committee shut down and the court order in place, the CDC's recommendation process did not resume its prior form. Instead, medical societies working with a University of Minnesota researcher began debating vaccine evidence privately and issuing their own guidance. The health insurance trade association America's Health Insurance Plans said it would follow those societies' recommendations, meaning insurers have continued covering shots even without official CDC endorsement.