FILE PHOTO: The headquarters of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is seen in Silver Spring, Maryland November 4, 2009.
Jason Reed | Reuters
An important March meeting of vaccine advisors to the Food and Drug Administration has been canceled without explanation, a member of the advisory panel told CNBC on Wednesday.
The meeting of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, or VRBPAC, is held every March to pick out flu strains for shots released within the upcoming fall and winter.
But Dr. Paul Offit, a member of that panel, told CNBC that he received an email at 4:18 p.m. ET on Wednesday saying that the upcoming March 13 meeting is canceled. He said there was no indication of whether it’ll be rescheduled.
“Who canceled this meeting? Why did they cancel the meeting? Will manufacturers now turn to the World Health Organization to find out strains for this 12 months’s influenza vaccines?” Offit told CNBC.
The Department of Health and Human Services didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
The canceled meeting comes as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who now leads HHS, makes early moves that might affect vaccination uptake and policy within the U.S. Kennedy has a lengthy track record of being a vaccine skeptic.
It also comes amid a very brutal flu season within the U.S. CDC data shows the flu has caused as much as an estimated 910,000 hospitalizations since October, which puts the season heading in the right direction to be probably the most severe in no less than a decade.
Earlier this month, a separate meeting of advisors who help the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention make recommendations for vaccines was postponed to “accommodate public comment prematurely of the meeting,” several news outlets reported. It’s also unclear if that meeting will probably be rescheduled.
Kennedy also said last week that he’ll review the childhood vaccine schedule despite earlier pledges to not achieve this. He promised that a recent “Make America Healthy Again” commission would investigate vaccines, pesticides and antidepressants to see in the event that they have contributed to an increase of chronic illness within the U.S.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is weighing pulling funding for Moderna’s bird flu vaccine, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.
The country is grappling with a record-breaking bird flu outbreak that is impacted dozens of cattle herds together with poultry flocks, which has sent egg prices skyrocketing. Its rapid spread in animals has raised concerns about broader spread to humans.”
