A panel of federal vaccine advisers appointed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will launch a new review on the use of vaccines during pregnancy, the panel’s chair said.
Martin Kulldorff, a statistician and former Harvard professor who chairs the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), made the announcement at the start of Thursday’s meeting, where panelists will consider recommendations related to the pediatric vaccine schedule, including hepatitis B.
The panel is set to vote later Thursday on changing the current recommendation that infants receive the hepatitis B vaccine at birth.
Another working group will examine the vaccines given between childhood and adolescence, Kulldorff said.
Most of the working groups consider a singular vaccine or group of related vaccines, Kulldorff noted, not broad categories or the entire concept of a vaccine schedule.
Thursday’s meeting comes after a tense Senate hearing Wednesday where former CDC Director Susan Monarez testified she was fired after refusing to rubber-stamp the panel’s recommendations before they were made. Kennedy handpicked the panelists, many of whom are critical about vaccinations, after firing their predecessors
In his opening remarks, Kulldorff challenged nine former heads of the CDC to a public debate on vaccination, after they accused him and the panelists of being unqualified and of spreading “dangerous and unscientific views.”
“False accusations that we and other respectable vaccine scientists are unscientific and dangerous anti-vaxxers, that just adds legitimacy to anti-vax positions, damaging both public health and the confidence in vaccines,” Kulldorff said.
Kulldorff said if the former directors won’t have a debate, they shouldn’t be trusted.
“When there are different scientific views, only trust scientists who are willing to engage with and publicly debate the scientists with other views,” he said. “With such debates, you can weigh and determine the scientific reasoning by each side, but without it, you cannot properly judge their arguments.”
