A CDC advisory panel voted Thursday to limit the availability of a combined shot for measles, mumps, rubella and varicella, the virus that causes chicken pox for children.
The panel also delayed a vote on the newborn hepatitis B shot until Friday.
The 12-person Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices was chosen by Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., who has expressed skepticism about the efficacy of vaccines.
The panel voted 8-3 with one abstention to recommend against giving the MMRV vaccine to children before the age of 4 over possible seizure concerns. Instead, the panel said MMR and chickenpox shots should be given separately.
Doctors say parents prefer the combined shot to limit the number of injections their child receives.
The vote may allow for health insurers to no longer cover the MMRV vaccine for children under four.
“I urge this committee not to change the recommendations if they truly want to give the power to the parents to decide what is best for their child,” Dr. Jason Goldman, president of the American College of Physicians who is acting as a liaison to the committee, said before the vote.
The recommendations must be reviewed and approved by the CDC director to become official guidance, but CDC directors almost always accepted the panel’s recommendations. Former CDC director Susan Monarez was fired last month reportedly after she told Kennedy Jr. she would not blindly accept the panel’s recommendations.
“He said the childhood vaccine schedule would be changing starting in September and that I needed to be on board with it,” she told a Senate committee on Wednesday.
Acting CDC director Jim O’Neill, who was installed by Kennedy, is expected to accept the panel’s recommendations.
Dr. Debra Houry, former chief medical officer for the CDC, testified to Congress on Wednesday that the U.S. “is on track to see drastic increases in preventable diseases and declines in health” as a result of Kennedy Jr.’s actions.
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