The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices was supposed to convene next week, but that meeting has been pushed back as the CDC is once again leaderless and FDA’s double-reversal on Moderna’s flu shot highlights continued uncertainty in the vaccine space.
A scheduled meeting of the vaccines advisory group for the CDC has been pushed back to next month amid continued instability to the agency’s leadership and mounting controversy surrounding the country’s immunization policies.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed the delay in a statement to Fierce Pharma, noting that the agency “will not hold the ACIP [Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices] meeting later this month.” The panel had originally been set to convene from Feb. 26 to 27.
Bloomberg News broke the news Thursday, citing an unnamed source familiar with the matter, who said the meeting was now set for mid-March. The HHS spokesperson did not confirm the rescheduled date, telling Fierce, “Further information will be shared as available.”
News of the delay comes just days after HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill, who had also been acting as a temporary director for the CDC, left the agency. Jay Bhattacharya, head of the National Institutes of Health, has since been named as acting director of the CDC.
It also comes amid vaccine drama at the FDA, which this week agreed to review Moderna’s application for its mRNA-based flu vaccine, after last week issuing a surprise refuse-to-file (RTF) letter.
Uncertainty has hung low over the vaccine space since longtime vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed as HHS Secretary just over one year ago, with the ACIP itself serving as a major source of controversy. Kennedy emptied the panel in June last year, claiming that the previous members were acting “as a rubber stamp for industry profit-taking agendas.” The ACIP has since been restacked, with many of its new members sharing Kennedy’s anti-vaccine views.
These views have informed the panel’s immunization recommendations. In December last year, for instance, the ACIP recommended delaying infant hepatitis B vaccination to two months after birth. This change, which will only apply to infants who were born to mothers negative for the virus, upends medical practice that has been in place for nearly three decades. The CDC soon adopted these recommendations.
Last month, the CDC took an even more drastic action against the childhood vaccination schedule, removing recommendations for six of the 17 shots that had been previously given to kids to protect them from several diseases. The removed vaccines include those for flu, COVID-19 and rotavirus.
Many experts have spoken out against these changes to vaccine policy. The American Academy of Pediatrics has even sued Kennedy, the HHS and other health leaders, alleging that their actions expose “vulnerable populations to serious illness with potentially irreversible long-term effects,” according to the July 2025 lawsuit. The case persists after a judge last month denied HHS’ motion to junk the complaint.
