STAT+: A closer look at the new members of the CDC vaccine advisory panel
For more than a half-century, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has relied on outside experts to guide the agency’s recommendations on how vaccines should be used to prevent…
For more than a half-century, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has relied on outside experts to guide the agency’s recommendations on how vaccines should be used to prevent the spread of infectious disease. That task will now fall to a panel that includes several individuals who’ve either been openly critical of vaccines or who have scant infectious disease expertise.
The new members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices include a psychiatrist who has studied the connection between pregnant women eating fish and autism, and a board member of an organization that raises alarms about vaccine safety. And while some of the new ACIP members have at times endorsed the protective power of immunizations, others have admitted they don’t have much vaccine expertise.
Kathryn Edwards, scientific director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Research Program, told STAT that she has previously served on advisory committees with three of the new ACIP members, though she did not share names.
