Newly posted agendas for the meeting of appointed groups next week of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s external vaccine advisors include discussion and vote on the flu vaccine thimerosal.
The meeting, which will begin on June 25th for two days, is the first of a newly established group of eight advisory committees on vaccination practices. US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dismissed a previous group of 17 experts last week claiming they had a conflict of interest.
However, many new panelists have raised concerns about the vaccine’s position, serving as expert witnesses in lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers, and raising concerns about the vaccine’s position, including proposing without evidence that the Covid-19 vaccine kills young people and should be removed from the market soon.
It is not clear that discussion and votes will be involved at next week’s meeting regarding the flu vaccine thimeromonal, and presenters of the meeting’s information are listed on the agenda as “TBD.” A spokesman for the HHS asked about the nature of the discussion and voted for the agenda posted.
Thimeromonkeys are mercury-based compounds used to prevent bacteria and fungi from growing in vaccines, and the CDC says data from multiple studies “does not show evidence of harm caused by low doses of thimeromonkeys in vaccines.”
Nevertheless, the use of thimerosal in vaccines has been significantly reduced since the US Food and Drug Administration asked vaccine manufacturers for details on their plans to remove it. The FDA now states, “All vaccines that are routinely recommended for children under the age of six in the United States are available in thimeromonal-free formulations.”
Preservatives are still used in multi-dose vials of seasonal influenza vaccines.
As thimeromonkeys were largely removed from the pediatric vaccine, autism rates continue to rise, and the CDC notes that “the opposite of what would be expected if thimeromonkeys caused autism.”
Thimerosal has long been the focus of Kennedy, who published a book called “Thimerosal: Let the Science Salk” in 2014.
However, the CDC points out that there are two types of mercury, methylmercury and ethylmercury, and that high levels of the first level can be toxic to people. Thimerosal contains Ethylmercury, the agency says, “This is less likely to cause harm, as it is cleared from the human body more rapidly than methylmercury.”
Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine scientist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and external vaccine advisor for the FDA, suggests that the fact that thimeromonal is on the agenda of Kennedy’s newly appointed vaccine advisor could make public claims against evidence that preservatives are dangerous.
“What we’re trying to do is make sure those vaccines become available and become expensive,” Offit told CNN. “It certainly won’t make them safer.”
Offitt pointed out that manufacturers cannot deliver these vaccines quickly, which “will lead to a shortage of vaccines, making them more expensive.”
Also new features in the agenda are discussions and proposed recommendations regarding measles, mumps, rubella, and water cell (or chicken pox) vaccines for children under the age of 5. It is not clear what the nature of that argument is, and the presenter is also listed as “TBD.”
The combination vaccine known as MMRV has been approved in the US as Proquad since 2005, and the CDC notes that although the vaccine combinations receive fewer injections than individual shots, they are at a higher risk of fever and febrile attacks 5-12 days after the first dose in children aged 1 to 2 years. Administering a water cell vaccine apart from the MMR vaccine avoids this increased risk, and the CDC notes that it is “very low for both options.”
It’s not clear if that’s the focus of the presentation and recommendations, but Offit said, “I don’t know what’s going to add here,” as vaccine advisors have already been doing that discussion.
According to the June 9 federal registration, the meeting is scheduled to take place over three days and is now shortened to two people. The topic list is much slimmer, although it still includes votes on RSV vaccinations for pregnant women and children, as well as planned discussions about Covid-19, Chikungunya and Anthrax vaccines. There is no longer any discussion about cytomegalovirus vaccines, human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines, Lyme disease vaccines, meningococcal vaccines, and pneumococcal vaccines.
During an internal meeting between CDC employees on Tuesday, leadership members told staff that some agenda items from the upcoming ACIP meeting were not included because they were still speeding up, according to a CDC employee who requested anonymity for fear of Reprisal.
The employee called the reasoning “A transparent lie. They would have had to speed up all these new people if they hadn’t fired the old ones.”
The agenda also includes many “TBD” lists for presenters, including COVID-19 vaccine safety and RSV vaccinations. At previous meetings, these presentations on Covid-19 were made by Dr. Fiona Havers and Dr. Lakshmi Panagiotakopoulos.
“My career in public health and vaccinology began with a deep seated desire to help the most vulnerable members of our population,” Panagio Tacopoulos wrote in an email to a former ACIP member obtained by CNN.
