The new members of the United States of the Secretary of Health Robert F Kennedy Jr, vaccine advisers, will examine the vaccination calendars long approved for children and adolescents.
The seven members of the Consultative Committee on Vaccination Practices (ACIP) met for the first time on Wednesday, weeks after Kennedy ousted the 17 predecessors.
The ACIP recommends which should be vaccinated and when in the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Before the meeting, public health experts and politicians raised concerns about the qualifications of new members – several of which are vaccine criticisms.
The Secretary of Health sparked an outcry when he withdrew the 17 members of the AICI on June 9, then selected eight new members to sit in the panel – one who abandoned a few hours before the first meeting.
Wednesday’s meeting began with Dr. Martin Kulldorff by saying to the panel that he had been dismissed from his work as a professor at Harvard University because he refused to obtain a COVVI-19 vaccine.
Dr. Kulldorff has also announced that the panel would launch new working groups to examine the vaccination schedules and vaccines that were approved seven years or more.
He said it would be examined if it was “wise” to give vaccines hepatitis B to newborns, a shot proven and effective to prevent infection that causes liver cancer.
The measles vaccine schedules would also be examined, he said.
Examination of the vaccines authorized seven years ago or more ago raises concerns, as it suggests that the process to approve them has been defective, said Bill Harage, professor of epidemiology at the Harvard Th Chan School of Public Health.
“I cannot think of any rational reason, you look at this and think it is,” he said.
The panel was initially intended to vote on the recommendations of fire against RSV, a respiratory virus which can be dangerous for infants, but which has been postponed.
On Thursday, the group should hear a presentation on the use of Thimérosal in the vaccines given by Lyn Redwood, a former leader in the defense of children’s health, an anti-vaccin group, Kennedy, used to manage.
Redwood was hired by the CDC to work in its vaccine safety office, according to the American BBC CBS News partner.
The decision for the panel to discuss Thimérosal, a mercury -based curator who has not been used in most vaccines for decades, is perplexed, said Dr. Harage.
In the past, he said, the members of the APIP had a wide range of vaccination expertise and would examine the recommendations of vaccines for months.
This time, Kennedy has chosen for the panel “people who are like him – people in the past who have shown an anti -vaccine bias,” said Dr. Paul Offer, former member of the AIPI and director of the Vaccine Center Center at the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia.
One of the new members of the AIPI was Dr. Michael Ross, but he retired this week before an examination of the financial assets of the members, said the Ministry of Health and Social Services.
Kennedy panels have also aroused criticism from the Republican senator Bill Cassidy, a skeptical doctor about the vote to confirm Kennedy as a health secretary because of his positions on vaccines.
In an article on X, Cassidy said the panel should not meet its meeting due to the small size of the group and the absence of a CDC director in place to approve their recommendations.
“Although people appointed to the AICPI have scientific references, many have no significant experience in studying microbiology, epidemiology or immunology,” he wrote.
“In particular, some lack experience in studying new technologies such as mRNA vaccines, and can even have a preconceived bias against them.”
