A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel of vaccine advisors all appointed by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. met for the first time Wednesday.
Their future recommendations could upend vaccine policy in the U.S. and affect immunization availability for a number of diseases.
The new slate of seven advisors was appointed after Kennedy fired all 17 members of the previous committee.
Kennedy originally appointed eight new members, but one withdrew from the panel on Tuesday.
Several members of the remaining seven appointees have been criticized by many in the medical field for a lack of expertise in immunizations and for being vaccine skeptics.
"If people are sitting on this committee who start restricting vaccines and recommend that they are no longer given to certain groups of people, people will not be able to get these vaccines, and more people are going to die," said Dr. Fiona Havers, a former CDC senior official who resigned from her position earlier this month in protest of Kennedy's shakeup of the panel.
The agenda for the panel's two-day meeting includes discussing the effectiveness of the COVID, RSV and MMRV vaccines and votes on the RSV and flu vaccines.
Typically, the meeting features CDC officials and other health experts presenting to panel members, Havers said. But Thursday, it will also include a presentation from Lyn Redwood, the president emerita of Children's Health Defense, an anti-vaccine group that Kennedy formerly chaired.
Havers said that "would never have been on an agenda for a normal ACIP meeting and is clearly another example of interference of (Kennedy) in this process."
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New committee chairman Martin Kulldorff, a fierce critic of pandemic lockdowns, tried to reassure skeptics of the new appointees and the work that the committee will do.
"Vaccines are not all good or bad," he said at the start of the meeting. "If you think that all vaccines are safe and effective and want them all, or if you think that all vaccines are dangerous and don't want any of them, then you don't have much use for us. You already know what you want. But, if you wish to know which vaccines are suitable for you and your children and at what ages, then we will provide you with evidence-based recommendations."
He also criticized media reports that have been "harsh on the new members" of the panel. He said efforts to label members as pro or anti-vaccine "undermine critical scientific inquiry and it further feeds the flames of vaccine hesitancy."
David Mansdoerfer, the former deputy assistant secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services during the first Trump administration praised Kennedy's appointments when they came out earlier this month.
"I think it brings a good diversity of opinion for the ACIP committee," Mansdoerfer said in an interview. "I think they did an excellent job, everything ranging from different technical backgrounds to different credentials, to even different parts of the geographic regions in the United States."
Generally, the CDC adopts recommendations on vaccines from ACIP, and most insurers, including Medicare, are then required to cover them. If that changes, Americans could be forced to pay out of pocket for certain shots, according to Jen Kates, a senior vice president at KFF, a health policy research organization.
The American Academy of Pediatrics announced Wednesday that because of concerns following the dismissal of the entire advisory panel earlier this month, the new panel's process for recommending vaccine guidance is "no longer a credible process."
The academy said it will publish its own vaccine schedule developed by experts.
