Along with several colleagues, I watched large portions of this week’s CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice (ACIP) so that you didn’t have to. Dr. Katelyn Jetelina and I debriefed afterwards. Our conversation is above.
Closed captions (㏄) and a transcript option (📄) can be found beneath the video playback control bar above. (Note: this session is free for everyone, thanks to recent upgrades that make this all possible. If you’d like to support this work, click here.)
Some adjectives came to mind while watching the meeting: Surreal. Embarrassing. Kafkaesque. In place of seventeen highly respected voting members, all fired by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, were seven new characters whose opinions ranged from unhinged (several of the members) to reasonable (mainly voiced by Dr. Cody Meissner).
Various members asked questions that revealed incomplete understandings of the legal process around these votes. One member wasn’t sure whether or not she had a conflict of interest. Random conspiracy theories got air time, while vetted scientific materials created by CDC scientists were literally removed from the meeting’s website, after having been posted earlier in the week.
Indeed, we learned during the meeting that the CDC’s briefing document on the safety of thimerosal in vaccines was removed because Secretary Kennedy’s office (i.e., RFK Jr. himself) did not approve of it. That of course means that the error-ridden, cherry-picked data in another presentation on the topic by an outside speaker (a longtime RFK Jr. ally) was approved. It was a dystopian nightmare.
The quasi-good news is that the committee voted in favor of flu shots for everyone ages 6 months and up (whew). They also voted to add a second RSV immunization option. Here are those recommendations (lightly adapted from CDC language):
One dose of clesrovimab, a monoclonal antibody for infants whose mothers are not protected by maternal respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccination. Clesrovimab is one of two RSV monoclonal antibody products available (including for the Vaccines for Children Program).
Routine annual influenza vaccination of all persons aged over six months who do not have contraindications.
The bad news is that the committee also voted to recommend that influenza vaccines that use thimerosal (a safe preservative in relevant concentrations) not be used. This won’t do anything to improve vaccine safety, but it did escalate pseudoscience to national policy. This is remarkable. In every previous ACIP vote, comprehensive data has been presented before a vote. In this case, one friend of RFK Jr. gave a talk (whose contents were not vetted or fact-checked by CDC scientists) before a national vote. It also may eventually be used as a rationale for denying vaccines to people around the world, because preservatives are needed to keep multi-dose vaccine vials from becoming contaminated, especially in settings where the chain of refrigeration may not be complete. Also, the CDC’s own experts were not permitted to speak on this, nor was their briefing document permitted to remain online. My heart goes out to the dedicated CDC scientists who had to sit through this. Here’s a screenshot I took during the meeting yesterday during Lyn Redwood’s (right) unvetted, highly problematic presentation on thimerosal. That poor CDC scientist (left) looks like a hostage.
Nevertheless, the new voting members of the committee patted itself on the back for its “transparency” in an email sent to the media after the meeting. Here’s what it said (bold added by me for emphasis):
“Honesty, transparency and compassion with regard to public health. These are the three pillars that we, the new ACIP members, are guided by. Our central duty is to protect public health, and we understand that we must answer the call for reestablishing confidence in the scientific examination process. This committee strongly supports the use of vaccines, and other countermeasures, predicated on evidence-based medicine, including rigorous evaluation and expansive credible scientific data, for both safety and efficacy.”
I’m sorry but this is bullshit. The committee undermined vaccine confidence by scaring people about thimerosal. Also, the notion that the proceedings were transparent or expansive simply was not borne out by the facts. This committee specifically suppressed work by CDC scientists. It also failed to publish the language of national vaccine policy votes in advance, which is probably illegal. Claiming all of these virtues as though they were innovations while actually undermining them by turning away from the prior committee’s genuine commitment to those principles is what the kids call “gaslighting.”
Some resources with actual science and debunking.
Below are two documents that fact-checked the ACIP meeting. They were created by a trustworthy group of scientists and health influencers, and debunk dozens of lies propagated by the new ACIP panel.
Also, because I anticipated that Secretary Kennedy might remove the CDC scientist’s rigorous briefing document on thimerosal from the ACIP website—which he indeed did—I downloaded a copy of it right away. Secretary Kennedy literally does not want you to see this. As per above, that is not hyperbole. We learned at the ACIP meeting (from the chair) that this document, created by CDC scientists, was “not approved” by Secretary Kennedy’s office.
So…here it is! Read it. Share it!
Closing Thoughts.
The ACIP meeting was a bizarre spectacle. It was as bad as feared, if not worse. Reasonable science from CDC experts was presented side-by-side with debunked misinformation presented by RFK-allied anti-vaxxers. Other times, only one side (the unscientific side) was permitted to present. What we witnessed was a circus, masquerading as dignified proceedings. (Well, mostly.) The whole thing would be hilarious, but for the stakes. Lives are on the line. Scientific integrity is under attack. Transparency is now just a buzzword, a stand-in for a newly discovered opaqueness from this once-august committee, whilst it claims the opposite.
Once again, I urge Senator Bill Cassidy—a physician now being routinely humiliated by his vote to confirm Secretary Kennedy based on false promises—to stand up against this attack on science.
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading and supporting science, facts, and the actual American way!
If you have information about any of the unfolding stories we are following, please email me or find me on Signal at InsideMedicine.88.
Share this post