Overview

• HHS notified liaison organizations including the AMA, AAP, IDSA, ACP and others that they are no longer welcome in ACIP work groups.
• The department’s statement labels external groups as inherently biased and promises future input will come from individually selected experts.
• This move follows Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s June dismissal of all 17 ACIP voting members and appointment of eight advisers with vaccine-skeptical views.
• In early July, six medical associations and a pregnant physician sued HHS seeking injunctions against rollbacks in COVID-19 vaccine recommendations for children and pregnant women.
• Senators have launched inquiries into HHS’s overhaul of vaccine advisory bodies amid warnings that the changes could further erode public trust and worsen declining immunization rates.