September 17, 2025
4 min read
Key takeaways:
- Five new members will take part in their first ACIP meeting this week.
- The influential panel will vote on MMRV, hepatitis B and COVID-19 vaccines.
On Thursday, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will begin a 2-day meeting in Atlanta that could impact the availability of a few vaccines.
It is the second ACIP meeting since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took over as HHS secretary and first since he added five new members to the influential committee earlier this week.
The CDC’s vaccine advisors will meet over the course of 2 days this week. Image: Tada Images – stock.adobe.com
The published agenda includes votes on vaccines against hepatitis B and measles, mumps, rubella and varicella (MMRV) on Thursday, and a vote on COVID-19 vaccines on Friday.
Here is what you can expect to happen during the meeting:
Background
Kennedy fired all 17 sitting members of the ACIP and replaced them with eight new members in June in a move that was widely criticized by experts. One of the eight resigned over conflicts of interest, leaving seven voting members for a 2-day meeting in June, during which they voted to remove thimerosal from influenza vaccines — a longtime goal of anti-vaccine activists — recommended a new respiratory syncytial virus shot for infants, and announced that they would review existing vaccine recommendations at future meetings.
Like the previously named members, Kennedy’s new ACIP selections include people who have been critical of COVID-19 vaccines or vaccine policy or supportive of debunked treatments for the disease.
In a statement announcing the new picks, Kennedy said they “bring diverse expertise that strengthens the committee and ensures it fulfills its mission with transparency, independence, and gold-standard science.”
Amesh A. Adalja, MD, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, questioned their qualifications, describing the new members as being “in the same mold as those RFK Jr. has appointed in the past.”
“They are individuals who are not qualified to sit on this committee and are being put in place in order to undermine vaccine science at the upcoming meeting,” Adalja told Healio. “The ACIP is an organ of vaccine misinformation and anti-vaccine propaganda.”
The CDC is still without a permanent director after Susan Monarez, PhD, was fired by the Trump administration last month for refusing to fire senior CDC staff — which Kennedy acknowledged was true — and commit to preapproving vaccine recommendations before they are made, an accusation she made in an editorial published in The Wall Street Journal that Kennedy refuted.
For now, deputy HHS secretary Jim O’Neill is acting director of the CDC and in position to approve or reject recommendations made by the ACIP.
Scheduled discussions and votes
MMRV vaccination: The committee was scheduled to discuss MMRV vaccination during the June meeting but ran out of time. That topic was added to this week’s meeting, with two CDC scientists named as presenters and ACIP chair Martin Kulldorff, PhD, set to lead a discussion on proposed recommendations on Thursday, which will be followed by a vote.
Materials published ahead of the June meeting suggest the committee may recommend that children aged younger than 4 years not receive the MMRV vaccine if there is an alternative, such as giving them separate vaccines for MMR and varicella. The materials include data on febrile seizures experienced by young children after receiving the MMRV vaccine. The CDC says the seizures “are not common and have not been associated with any long-term problems.”
HBV vaccination: Also on Thursday, the committee will hear presentations on HBV vaccine safety and HBV vaccination at birth, followed by a vote.
Based on comments made by Kulldorff during the June meeting that cast doubt on the necessity of the HBV “birth dose,” it appears the committee will consider reversing the federal recommendation to vaccinate newborns against HBV if the mother has not tested positive for the virus.
In an editorial written for Healio ahead of the meeting, Rita K. Kuwahara, MD, MIH, FACP, called the HBV vaccine birth dose “a safe, highly effective, evidence-based practice that has saved thousands of lives.”
COVID-19 vaccination: On Friday, the committee will make recommendations for the new COVID-19 vaccines, which were updated for the 2025-2026 respiratory disease season. In the past, the ACIP has recommended universal COVID-19 vaccination for children and adults. But that has changed under new leadership at HHS and the FDA, which favors a risk-based strategy.
According to multiple reports, the first of which was published by The Washington Post, Friday’s meeting will also include a presentation by a Trump administration official that will link COVID-19 vaccination to pediatric deaths using the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), which catalogues unverified reports of vaccine side effects.
The CDC notes in a disclaimer on its website that VAERS data “cannot be interpreted as evidence of a causal association between a vaccine and an adverse event, or as evidence about the existence, severity, frequency, or rates of problems associated with vaccines.”
Diagnosis
We spoke with Healio | Infectious Disease News Editorial Board Member William Schaffner, MD, professor of preventive medicine and infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, ahead of this week’s ACIP meeting. Below are a selection of quotes from our interview.
On seizures linked to MMRV vaccination: “They do not have any long-term consequences, but they are frightening. That’s a well-known adverse effect that pediatricians and family doctors have known about and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has issued explanations about. Nonetheless, some parents elect to give their children the combined vaccine in order to not subject them to an extra inoculation.”
On HBV birth dose: “It has been a brilliantly successful program. It ain’t broke. Why are we trying to fix it? Not only that, but this vaccine is so effective that the protection continues into adolescence and young adulthood.”
References:
- ACIP meeting information. https://www.cdc.gov/acip/meetings/index.html. Accessed Sept. 17, 2025.
- CDC. Measles, mumps, rubella, varicella (MMRV) vaccine safety. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccine-safety/vaccines/mmrv.html. Published July 31, 2024. Accessed Sept. 17, 2025.
- HHS, CDC announce new ACIP members. https://www.hhs.gov/press-room/hhs-cdc-announce-new-acip-members-sept-2025.html. Published Sept. 15, 2025. Accessed Sept. 17, 2025.
- Monarez S. Robert F. Kennedy, the CDC and me. The Wall Street Journal. Sept. 4, 2025. https://www.wsj.com/opinion/robert-f-kennedy-jr-the-cdc-and-me-b4ca2eaa?mod=hp_opin_pos_2. Accessed Sept. 17, 2025.
For more information:
William Schaffner, MD, can be reached at william.schaffner@vumc.org.
