A panel of vaccine advisers named by US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Friday said that Covid-19 shots should be administered only through shared decision making with a healthcare provider.
The move scraps a broad recommendation for people to take the vaccine.
In making their decision, members of the Covid vaccine working group raised several potential safety issues that they believe warranted more study.
Members of the US Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices meet to discuss Covid-19 vaccines. (Picture: Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images)They focused on the persistence of the spike protein in tissue after vaccination, an issue the vaccine makers addressed, with all saying that their vaccines are safe.
The two-day meeting highlighted deep divisions over the future of the US immunisation schedules under Kennedy, who has long promoted claims about vaccine harms that run contrary to scientific evidence.
A second vote by the committee would have recommended that a prescription be needed for the Covid vaccine, but that vote failed to win a majority.
The committee earlier on Friday abandoned a vote that would have delayed the first hepatitis B vaccine dose for newborns, giving a temporary win to doctors, public health experts and patient advocates who had decried the move.
Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, a medical doctor who specialises in liver disease, last week warned that if the committee were to change the hepatitis B recommendation, Americans should not follow their advice.
On Thursday, the panel voted not to recommend giving the combined measles-mumps-rubella-varicella shot to children under four years old.
But the advisers voted to allow coverage for the shot for these same kids under a US government program that provides free vaccines to children, creating contradictory guidance.
However, on Friday morning, the committee reversed that vote to align the policy with their recommendation, removing coverage for the shots.
Kennedy has been moving at breakneck speed to rewrite US vaccination policy, including dropping recommendations for Covid vaccines for pregnant women and children and cutting funding for mRNA-based research.
The Covid vote by Kennedy’s hand-picked vaccine advisory panel followed lengthy presentations.
Several medical experts warned that presentations casting doubt on vaccine safety.
“All the red herrings thrown out today are going to raise doubts, and that will reduce vaccination delivery,” said John Grabenstein, former global executive director of medical affairs for vaccines at Merck Vaccines and former senior scientist for the US Department of Defence’s Military Vaccine Agency.
“It just throws friction into the system, and every piece of friction reduces vaccinations.”
With Reuters
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