CDC Vaccine Panel to Consider Covid-19 Injuries at March Meeting

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s influential vaccine advisory panel will consider issuing recommendations related to vaccine injuries and long Covid, a shift outside what traditionally has been its jurisdiction.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices also announced it will consider updates to how it issues its recommendations. according to a notice posted Thursday on the Federal Register.

The move to consider vaccine injuries comes amid other vaccine policy changes championed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic, that have drawn widespread resistance from public health groups and others.

This week a coalition of 15 states challenged Kennedy’s changes to ACIP personnel and the revised childhood immunization schedule. Also this week, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists withdrew as a partner to the CDC panel.

ACIP’s purview includes guiding the CDC on how vaccines should be used to limit the spread of communicable diseases, while other HHS panels have traditionally followed vaccine injury issues. The Advisory Committee on Childhood Vaccines specifically tracks the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, and CDC uses the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System to monitor vaccine safety.

ACIP members will discuss Covid-19 vaccine injuries and long Covid during the March meeting, and the panel may schedule votes on any related recommendations.

While the panel’s recommendations are not binding, the CDC typically aligns with the panel’s suggestions.

Last week the panel delayed its spring meeting until March 18 and 19.