Vaccines

While last week’s recommended changes by CDC advisors to the MMRV vaccine schedule are unlikely to have a tangible effect on Merck’s business, the company said the removal of choice for healthcare providers is “concerning.”

After a tension-packed two days that saw recommended changes to the MMRV vaccine schedule and COVID-19 vaccine access, as well as a delayed hepatitis B vaccine vote, policy experts expressed concern with the reconstituted committee’s dearth of previous experience and understanding of their role.

BMO Capital Markets analysts said the first day of the CDC vaccine advisory committee meeting Thursday had anti-vaccine overtones as the panel, which was revamped by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in June, voted to recommend that children under four receive the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine separately from a chickenpox vaccine. Today the advisors will vote on changing the childhood schedule for the hepatitis B and COVID-19 vaccines.

During a hearing in front of the Senate’s HELP committee, Susan Monarez addressed her controversial firing and recalled a conversation where Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. allegedly said that “CDC employees were killing children and they don’t care.”

Like the first batch of appointees to the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, several of the new panelists have documented histories of vaccine and COVID-19 skepticism.

This week’s release of the Make America Health Again report revealed continued emphasis on vaccine safety; Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s faceoff with senators last week amounted to political theater; the FDA promises complete response letters in real time and shares details on a new rare disease framework; and Summit disappoints at the World Conference on Lung Cancer in Barcelona.

Ousted CDC Director Susan Monarez claimed in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal Thursday that she was fired for refusing to rubber-stamp COVID-19 recommendations to be made by an advisory panel that has expressed “antivaccine rhetoric.”

The new additions would bring ACIP membership to 14 total. Several of the proposed members have taken part in anti-vaccine activity or made anti-vaccine statements.

YouTube has shut down a channel containing hundreds of videos of comments made by doctors and other influencers—including CBER Director Vinay Prasad, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya—during the pandemic. This comes as Prasad reveals further details about last week’s updated COVID-19 approvals.

Albert Bourla heralded the president’s COVID-19 leadership and Operation Warp Speed initiative as a Nobel Prize–worthy achievement and said that Pfizer stands by the integrity of the data already shared.