A glimpse into the new ACIP

Politico

27-06-2025

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Driving the Day
ACIP TAKEAWAYS — ATLANTA — The first meeting of the newly appointed CDC vaccine panel concluded Thursday, offering a glimpse into how federal vaccine policy could begin to reflect Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s personal views, Sophie reports with POLITICO's Lauren Gardner.
During the two-day meeting at the CDC headquarters, Kennedy's hand-picked advisers on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices set the stage to revise the childhood vaccine schedule and voted to stop recommending flu shots with an additive that has long been a target of the anti-vaccine movement.
Earlier this month, Kennedy fired 17 members of the panel and replaced them with eight members — including several with a history of vaccine skepticism. One member resigned before the meeting began, leaving seven.
Here are three takeaways from the meeting:
1. Kennedy's agenda was front and center
The panel voted to no longer recommend thimerosal-containing flu vaccines for all ages, a measure Kennedy has pushed for. In 2014, he wrote a book about thimerosal, arguing that it likely causes autism and should be banned.
But many public health agencies have long considered the preservative to be safe — including the CDC, according to its website.
What it means: If endorsed by the CDC director, the new recommendations would mark one of the most prominent examples of Kennedy's views reflected in U.S. vaccine policy since becoming HHS secretary. With no CDC director or acting director in place, however, Kennedy is expected to make the final endorsement.
2. One member pushed back
The panel's lone pediatrician, Dartmouth's Dr. Cody Meissner, was the only voting member to push back on views presented that contradicted scientific consensus, a development that encouraged some public health experts otherwise troubled by the meeting.
'He's dealt with vaccine-preventable diseases. He's talked to parents about vaccines, so I thought he was generally a voice of reason,' said Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician who serves on the FDA's external vaccine panel.
3. More vaccine scrutiny looms
The committee's agenda items in the months ahead signal that Thursday's thimerosal votes were just the beginning of policy shifts that could affect vaccine access in the U.S.
ACIP Chair Martin Kulldorff, an epidemiologist and a former Harvard Medical School professor, said Wednesday the panel would review childhood vaccines and shots not studied in more than seven years, opening up the possibility of significant changes to the pediatric schedule. And he said Thursday that, at its next meeting, the panel might consider advising against the use of a combination shot known as MMRV, which protects against measles and chickenpox, in children under 4 years old.
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In Congress
CUTS IN QUESTION — The Senate parliamentarian dealt a blow to Senate Republicans' plans for the GOP megabill Thursday, sending lawmakers back to the drawing board as several of their health-related provisions won't be able to pass along party lines, POLITICO's Meredith Lee Hill, Robert King and Jordain Carney report.
Those provisions include a politically explosive plan to hold down Medicaid costs by cracking down on a state provider tax, as well as proposals to exclude undocumented residents from Medicaid and to prohibit plans that cover abortion from receiving certain Obamacare payments.
The decisions, detailed in a Thursday morning memo, come at a critical time for Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who's already facing a revolt inside his conference as members are wary of the practical and political impacts of the Medicaid changes. Thune said Thursday the Senate would not move to overrule its parliamentarian despite prodding from multiple conservatives.
When asked by POLITICO about overruling her, Thune said, 'No, that would not be a good option for getting a bill done.'
Pressure is on: Despite the setback, the White House still expects lawmakers to meet President Donald Trump's fast-approaching July 4 deadline for passage of the bill, which would enact his domestic agenda of tax cuts and energy and border policy.
FIRST IN PULSE: CURES CAMPAIGN — Advocacy group UsAgainstAlzheimer's today launched a seven-figure campaign to fight back against the Trump administration's massive funding cuts to health agencies and medical research.
The campaign, called United for Cures, is pushing to restore funding that the Trump administration has cut at the National Institutes of Health and the FDA that went toward developing life-saving treatments and cures for diseases like Alzheimer's, cancer and diabetes. The group will release digital and social media ads today that will run through September, targeting Republican lawmakers in vulnerable seats and urging them to preserve medical research funding.
The digital ads call out Reps. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) and David Schweikert (R-Ariz.), David Valadao (R-Calif.), as well as Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).
'United for Cures is launching at a critical moment — when life-saving biomedical research is under attack,' said Russ Paulsen, chief operating officer of UsAgainstAlzheimer's. 'Deep cuts to federal health agencies, especially the NIH, are jeopardizing future breakthroughs that give Americans a fighting chance against deadly diseases.'
Background: President Donald Trump wants Congress to codify spending cuts he's clawed back from the NIH. The Trump administration also wants Congress to slash the NIH's budget by more than 40 percent in fiscal 2026, from roughly $47 billion to $27 billion.
The proposed budget cements a controversial plan to impose a 15 percent cap on the indirect costs that the NIH pays to aid research at universities — a cut that university presidents have warned would decimate their ability to conduct critical laboratory work. That plan was later halted in court.
Key context: Researchers and universities have said that the deep cuts would put the U.S. at risk of losing its edge to China as the world's leader in biomedical research.
At the Courts
GRANT FUNDING STAYS ON PAUSE — A federal judge on Thursday declined to immediately restore federal grants to Planned Parenthood affiliates participating in HHS's teen pregnancy prevention program.
Five Planned Parenthood affiliates sued the Trump administration in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in May after HHS ordered the groups to align with executive orders from President Donald Trump to keep receiving grant funding for the program. The executive orders aim to end diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at federal agencies and affirm the definition of biological sex as either male or female, among other ideology-focused guidance.
The groups argue the Trump administration's mandate is 'impossibly vague' and would impede Planned Parenthood from implementing the teen pregnancy prevention program's mandate from Congress: to implement 'medically accurate' programs that effectively reduce teenage pregnancy and associated risk factors.
The Planned Parenthood groups sought both a preliminary and permanent injunction against the new funding requirements, but Trump-appointed Judge Timothy Kelly rejected the preliminary request Thursday, saying the groups failed to demonstrate that Planned Parenthood will imminently suffer irreparable harm.
Planned Parenthood didn't immediately return a request for comment.
Background: The Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program is a national, evidence-based program that provides grant funding to organizations like Planned Parenthood to educate teens and their guardians on sexual and reproductive health and improve health outcomes — including decreasing sexually transmitted infections and unintended teen pregnancy. The program is administered by HHS's Office of Population Affairs, with an annual budget of about $101 million.
Medicaid
SMALL-BUSINESS IMPACT — Republicans' Medicaid cut proposals could be devastating for small business owners and workers who rely on the so-called safety-net health insurance program, according to an analysis from the Georgetown McCourt School of Public Policy.
About one-third of all Medicaid enrollees — including owners and employees and their family members — are connected to small businesses, according to the report. About 11 million children whose parents are self-employed or work for small businesses are enrolled in Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program that covers more than 70 million low-income Americans.
Why it matters: Providing private health insurance can be costly for small businesses because of high administrative costs and a smaller pool of people in the market compared to larger businesses. That's why many small businesses don't offer health insurance plans to workers, and a large share instead rely on the Affordable Care Act or Medicaid.
But the proposals in the House-passed GOP megabill threaten to kick millions of people off both Medicaid and the ACA, heightening concerns for small business owners about fueling job growth at their companies.
'Most notably, we would expect to see many small business workers have to leave their jobs, and even some small business owners close their firms, and go work for someone else in part because they will have lost their health benefits through Medicaid,' said David Chase, vice president of policy and advocacy at the Small Business Majority, in a statement.
Names in the News
Jonathan Kupperman has been promoted to legislative director for Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas). He most recently was health policy adviser for Arrington.
WHAT WE'RE READING
POLITICO's Alice Miranda Ollstein, Josh Gerstein and Lauren Gardner report on the Supreme Court clearing the way for states to kick Planned Parenthood out of Medicaid.
KFF Health News' Jordan Rau reports on a double whammy of threats facing the long-term health care industry.