New members of an influential federal vaccine panel, which was recently gutted by Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr., met for the first time this week to vote on fall immunization recommendations. The panel recommended vaccinating babies against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), but also raised disproven concerns about an ingredient in some flu shots.
Thimerosal, a preservative in multi-dose flu vaccines, is falsely linked to autism by some in the anti-vaccine community. In the U.S., it is not used in pediatric vaccines, but Kennedy’s new panel voted to rescind its use in a small number of flu shots. That’s despite multiple global studies debunking a link between thimerosal and autism.
Of concern, the committee chair, Dr. Martin Kulldorff, also hinted at banning measles, mumps, and rubella shots for certain children, said Naomi Rogers, a science historian at Yale University.
“The new chair raised the idea that MMR, and vaccine for chickenpox for children under a certain age, could potentially be banned, and that they will consider this in another meeting,” Rogers said.
Kulldorff, an advocate for herd immunity in healthy individuals, was fired by Harvard University for publicly opposing vaccine mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Addressing committee members, Dr. Caroline Brown, a pediatrician in North Carolina, spoke of calls to her clinic from panicked parents over a measles case announced in her county.
Even though measles was eradicated in the U.S. 25 years ago, she said it is “back now because of declining vaccine rates fueled by misinformation that is not only allowed, but amplified by voices of some of you sitting on this very committee.”
Rogers also expressed concern over committed members who voted against recommending the shots.
The committee approved by a vote of 5-2, one dose of clesrovimab, a monoclonal antibody for infants whose mothers are not protected by maternal RSV vaccination.
Members recommended, by a vote of 5-1, seasonal flu vaccines only in single-dose formulations that are free of thimerosal for children 18 years and younger, pregnant people and all adults.
A panelist asked staff from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention whether a “pattern of broad-based energy of some type” could have caused a surge in flu deaths this year, according to STAT News.
Rogers said not all people following the discussion will find such statements to be outlandish.
“They know that they're being very closely listened to by a range of anti-vaxers and they want to hear that skepticism, they want to hear those doubts expressed publicly by this committee,” she said.
Rogers said pediatricians and the members of the CDC are not used to “the cultural and medical traditions” surrounding immunizations that many in the committee are drawing on.
Vaccine skepticism in the US isn’t new
Rogers said the U.S. has a long history of vaccine skepticism. In the late part of the 19th century, influenced by the British anti-vaccine movement, American public health officials experienced a pushback against states passing vaccine mandates during epidemics. There was a riot in Milwaukee when officials brought in the police. The U.S. saw the emergence of a new, mild, smallpox variant around 1900.
The Cold War years in the 1960s were also filled with distrust of the public health system, as many people believed it was staffed with communist doctors. “Untrue, but it was a career path for many Jewish doctors,” Rogers said.
And now, starting in the 1990s, Rogers said well-off mothers who had not seen children’s infectious diseases in their lifetime, worry about vaccine risks and side effects – fueled by debunked studies linking autism to vaccines – and are leaning into herd immunity theories.
