The American Medical Association is among 50 healthcare organizations asking Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to reschedule a meeting of the Advisory Committee of Immunization Practices.
ACIP is an advisory committee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A meeting scheduled to start in Atlanta on Feb. 26 was "indefinitely postponed" by the Trump administration, according to The Washington Post.
"ACIP had a full agenda of critical, vaccine-related decisions, including discussion linked to deadly illnesses like meningococcal disease," said the Partnership to Fight Infectious Disease, in the Feb. 20 letter sent to Kennedy, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Susan Monarez, acting director of the CDC.
During Kennedy's confirmation hearings in the Senate, Cassidy, a physician, had expressed doubts about affirming Kennedy based on the nominee's statements on vaccines. As chairman of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Cassidy grilled Kennedy, wanting "yes or no" answers around his support of immunizations for measles, COVID-19 and hepatitis B.
"Rescheduling this critical meeting and reconciling the absent portal for public remarks would represent a meaningful early follow-through from the Trump administration and its new HHS Secretary to ensure Americans receive the information needed to protect themselves against vaccine-preventable illnesses, confirming immunization's importance in the mission to make America healthier," said the letter signed by the AMA and other organizations.
HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon confirmed the postponement to NPR in an email on Thursday, citing the need to "accommodate public comment in advance of the meeting."
A written public comment period for the meeting was set to open up on Feb. 3 and run through Feb. 17. A current CDC employee said CDC staff had been asking HHS to open up public comment since Feb. 3, but had not been given permission to do so, according to the NPR report.
The postponing of the ACIP meeting comes amid concerns that Kennedy, a longtime vaccine critic, could make changes to the group, or get rid of it altogether, according to CIDRAP.
Email the writer: SMorse@himss.org