Kennedy's New Advisers Rescind Recommendations for Some Flu Vaccines
Vaccine advisers recently appointed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. voted on Thursday to stop recommending flu vaccines containing thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative used to prevent bacterial contamination, to children and pregnant women.
Dozens of studies have shown thimerosal to be harmless, and it has not been a component of most childhood shots since 2001. Yet Mr. Kennedy and other critics have long insisted that the preservative might be linked to rising rates of autism.
'The risk from influenza is so greater than the nonexistent risk as far as we know from thimerosal,' said the lone dissenter, Dr. Cody Meissner, a pediatrician at Tufts Children's Hospital and widely considered to be the most qualified member of the new committee.
'I find it very hard to justify' the panel's decision, he added.
In a separate vote, the new advisers recommended seasonal flu vaccines to all Americans 6 months and older.
On the second day of their meeting, the advisers seemed to be warming to their roles as disrupters of the decades-old processes that have guided vaccines to Americans.
In addition to certain flu vaccines, some panelists questioned the safety of other products already approved by the Food and Drug Administration and thoroughly vetted by independent experts.
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