ATLANTA (AP) — The Trump administration’s new vaccine advisers on Thursday endorsed this fall’s flu vaccinations for just about every American but threw in a twist: Only use certain shots free of an ingredient antivaccine groups have falsely tied to autism.
What is normally a routine step in preparing for the upcoming flu season drew intense scrutiny after U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. abruptly fired the influential 17-member Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and handpicked replacements that include several vaccine skeptics.
That seven-member panel bucked another norm Thursday: It deliberated the safety of a preservative used in less than 5% of U.S. flu vaccinations based on a presentation from an antivaccine group's former leader — without allowing the usual public airing of scientific data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The preservative, thimerosal, has long been used in certain vaccines that come in multi-dose vials, to prevent contamination as each dose is withdrawn. But it has been controversial because it contains a small amount of a particular form of mercury.
Study after study has found no evidence that it causes autism or other harm. Yet since 2001, all vaccines routinely used for U.S. children age 6 years or younger have come in thimerosal-free formulas — including single-dose flu shots that account for the vast majority of influenza vaccinations.
The advisory panel first voted, with one abstention, to back the usual U.S. recommendation that nearly everyone age 6 months and older get an annual flu vaccination. Then the advisers decided people should only be given thimerosal-free single-dose formulations, voting 5-1 with one abstention.
That would include single-dose shots that already are the most common type of flu vaccination as well as the nasal spray FluMist. It would rule out the subset of flu vaccine that is dispensed in multi-dose vials.
“There is still no demonstrable evidence of harm,” one panelist, Dr. Joseph Hibbeln, a psychiatrist formerly with the National Institutes of Health, said in acknowledging the committee wasn’t following its usual practice of acting on evidence.
But he added that “whether the actual molecule is a risk or not, we have to respect the fear of mercury” that might dissuade some people from getting vaccinated.
Normally the CDC’s director would decide whether to accept ACIP’s recommendation, but the Senate has not yet confirmed nominee Susan Monarez. Administration officials said Kennedy would make that decision.
While Thursday's debate involved only a small fraction of flu vaccines, some public health experts contend the discussion unnecessarily raised doubt about vaccine safety. Already, fewer than half of Americans get their yearly flu vaccinations, and mistrust in vaccines overall is growing.
“What should have been a rigorous, evidence-based discussion on the national vaccine schedule instead appeared to be a predetermined exercise orchestrated to undermine the well-established safety and efficacy of vaccines and fundamental basics of science,” said Dr. Jason Goldman of the American College of Physicians.
Public health experts decried the panel's lack of transparency in blocking the presentation of CDC's analysis of thimerosal that concluded there was no link between the preservative and neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism. The data had been posted on the ACIP's website Tuesday, but was later removed — because, according to ACIP member Dr. Robert Malone, the report hadn't been authorized by Kennedy's office. Committee members said they had read it.
The ACIP, created more than 60 years ago, helps the CDC determine who should be vaccinated against a long list of diseases, and when. Those recommendations have a big impact on whether insurance covers vaccinations and where they’re available.
Kennedy has long held there was a tie between thimerosal and autism, and also accused the government of hiding the danger. Thimerosal was placed on the meeting agenda shortly after Kennedy’s new vaccine advisers were named last week.
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Neergaard reported from Washington.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Mike Stobbe And Lauran Neergaard, The Associated Press
