Vaccines for pregnant women will be targeted for extra scrutiny by the vaccine safety advisory panel to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a development that could lead to a change in access to at least five vaccines that confer immunity to babies in the womb.
Dr. Robert Malone, the interim chairman of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, announced Thursday during an update on the board’s activities that a working group was being established to study the safety of vaccines for pregnant women.
“CDC leadership and ACIP are also initiating a work group, which has not yet been chartered, having to do with vaccination and pregnancy,” Malone said.
Pregnant women are now recommended to receive at least five vaccines during pregnancy to confer immunity to their children in the womb, including the whooping cough, RSV, and flu vaccines.
The timeline for the working group to present its findings to the committee for recommendations was not made public.
ACIP recommendations are nonbinding unless they are adopted by the CDC director, but many insurance companies and state Medicaid programs tie their coverage of vaccines to ACIP recommendations regardless of whether they are adopted by the CDC.
Malone, an outspoken critic of the COVID-19 vaccine, also said the committee would establish working groups to study the safety of the flu, RSV, and HPV vaccines for children.
The ACIP has been criticized by outside public health experts since June, when Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. terminated the original members of the committee and replaced them with people more critical of the status quo on vaccine policy.
Malone announced the new project of the committee on Thursday during a high-profile meeting discussing the CDC’s recommendation for a universal dose of Hepatitis B vaccine on the first day of life for newborns.
The vote was postponed until Friday morning, following confusion over the exact language of the recommendation that members were to vote on, with some members not included in the working group complaining that there was not enough communication ahead of the event.
Nongovernment public health leaders have also taken umbrage with the way the activities of the ACIP’s work groups have not been more transparent. The working groups, made up of ACIP members and consulting scientists, work closely with CDC subject matter experts behind closed doors.
Malone said that ACIP working groups follow strict guidelines under the Federal Advisory Committee Act passed by Congress, preventing them from sharing all of their internal discussions.
But during Thursday’s meeting, that claim came under fire from Dr. Jason Goldman, a nonvoting liaison member representing the American College of Physicians.
Goldman complained that the membership of the working group examining Hepatitis B had not been made public, which is traditionally done as a courtesy. Eventually, during the meeting, ACIP leadership identified the members who contributed to the Hepatitis B findings.
CDC TO RECOMMEND PARENT CHOICE FOR HEPATITIS B VACCINE
“You are wasting taxpayer dollars by not having scientific, rigorous discussion on issues that truly matter,” Goldman said. “The best thing you can do is adjourn the meeting and discuss vaccine issues that actually need to be taken up.”
Earlier this year, the ACIP recommended to CDC leadership that the combination measles, mumps, rubella, and chickenpox vaccine no longer be recommended due to a small but elevated risk of fever-induced seizures. They also voted to make COVID-19 vaccines for children a parent’s decision.
