So much trust being restored by this crew!

Lots of things to worry about in vaccine policy, but this isn’t one of them (at least for now). The VFC program doesn’t depend on the annual schedules being updated/ published, but on existing VFC “resolutions” for each vaccine that remain on the books unless rescinded: www.cdc.gov/vaccines-for...

A great time talking vaccines and seeing old bioethics friends at ASBH this weekend! (My connecting flight on the way out to Portland, on the other hand, was a bit of an adventure.)

@airlineflyer.net @petchmo.bsky.social Big fan of the pod (but a total novice in this world). Was on DL1661 today; rejected takeoff after an engine failed. Looks to have hit 137 KTS. Google suggests that’s really close to its ballpark V1. True? www.flightradar24.com/data/flights...

💬 Viewpoint: The newly constituted Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has departed from established, evidence-based guideline development standards, raising concerns about transparency and credibility. ja.ma/4opGX0K

I spoke to @melodyschreiber.com @theguardian.com along with @pauloffit.bsky.social & @jasonlschwartz.bsky.social about the MMR going monovalent. We all agree: following Andrew Wakefield's advice to "break up the vaccines" is unnecessary, pointless, & will only prevent kids from getting vaccinated

Latest eBay purchase: the 2005 Rolling Stone issue where RFK’s (later retracted) ‘Deadly Immunity’ was published. The very beginning of his two decades (and counting) spent challenging/rejecting the safety of vaccines. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadly_...

The acting director of the CDC called for new, separate MMR shots. That would be "remarkably complicated, time-consuming, costly, but more importantly unnecessary," @jasonlschwartz.bsky.social told me: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Great conversation on vaccine hesitancy (and all things US vaccine policy) hosted by the folks at @busph.bsky.social yesterday. Here’s the recording www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSCw...

One more plug for this webinar tomorrow afternoon. Not too late to register!

This new NASEM report on vaccine safety was commissioned by CDC during the Biden administration but arrives in an entirely different vaccine policy landscape. www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/rev...

The @factcheck.org team have done really thorough, careful work on 1000 vaccine-related claims during and since the pandemic. A fantastic resource and service that should get more attention.

If there’s really going to be another ACIP meeting on October 22-23, FACA requires a Federal Register announcement (with topics and potential votes) no later than this Tuesday, 10/7 (15 days ahead)

It doesn’t make a lot of sense that FDA is convening VRBPAC next week to make recommendations on the 2026 Southern Hemisphere flu vaccine strains when they didn’t have them meet last spring to consider the flu vaccine composition for the US itself this fall/winter. www.fda.gov/advisory-com...

Very glad that ICER is tackling this topic, its first-ever vaccine project!

And here’s the final version. ysph.yale.edu/news-article...

Sounds like we’ll be hearing a lot about aluminum in vaccines next. Great resource from the team at CHOP: www.chop.edu/vaccine-educ...

Glad to serve on a new advisory committee to the Connecticut Dept. of Public Health focusing on vaccination. Our first meeting today discussed changing ACIP recs., the resulting confusion, and the many challenges providers face discussing and delivering vaccines. Video: ct-n.com/ctnplayer.as...

Our YSPH Communications office asked me to do a Q&A about the ACIP meeting. (Focusing on the actual outcomes and votes, not all of the process chaos and dubious scientific content.) A shortened version will be posted on our website sometime this week, but here it is now, all 1400 words of it:

Only two possibilities here, both of them mind-boggling: an ACIP member genuinely doesn’t know what a vaccine ‘standing order’ means (Vaccine Policy 101), or he does and has no problem spreading falsehoods.

Earlier this summer, I wrote about how a shift toward greater use of individual (‘shared’) decision-making recommendations from ACIP seemed likely given what we heard and saw from federal health officials all year long re: vaccines and their view of the role of government public health agencies…

Some background on the history, role, and complexity of shared clinical decision-making recommendations for vaccines, given that’s where we seem to be now re: COVID vaccination www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Yes! Exactly the types of affordability/access divides that VFC was created in ‘94 to address. (And it’s done so!) The immediate issue here is a pretty niche one—15% of families who opted for a non-preferred option for 1 dose of 1 vaccine—but likely a harbinger of more consequential changes to come.

Open mic picked up someone saying “You’re an idiot!” as ACIP member Retsef Levi was speaking. So things are going great in vaccine policy.

A last-minute surprise vote by ACIP to table indefinitely their vote on removing the HepB birth dose rec. A pleasant surprise (for the time being, at least…)

And they are starting today’s meeting by cleaning up this mess from yesterday. Not a surprise.

And it means kids who have CHIP through Medicaid won’t have it covered because the first vote affected CMS. So you have all different kinds of access for no reason created by people who didn’t know what was going on.

None of the ACIP understand that they just voted to maintain VFC coverage for the MMRV vaccine for kids under 4 (50% of US kids) through one vote—a good thing!—while removing the overall recommendation for any kid to get it (and thus ending ACA coverage requirement for kids with private insurance).

An opportune time to promote this virtual event coming up in a few weeks, hosted by the folks at @busph.bsky.social. (Too bad there’s not much to discuss!) Details and registration: publichealthconversation.org/conversation...

Big day for vaccine policy related social media posts from health policy professors named Schwartz

Two perennial strategies of the most strident critics of vaccines: suggesting all sorts of specific studies that haven’t been done but need to be, and discounting any study that doesn’t support their views as either methodologically flawed or COI-biased. We’re being bombarded with both today at ACIP

Another first in my ~20 years of watching ACIP meetings: committee members asking questions to CDC subject-matter experts as if they were attorneys cross-examining witnesses. Asking questions to which they have their own answers ready, no matter how CDC responds.

As ACIP discusses doing away with the HepB birth dose, reminded of some papers I found in ACIP’s archives at NARA in the lead-up to the recommendation in 1990-91. US vaccination quite literally turning back the clock these days.

Sigh, ACIP members asking questions during the meeting that reveal they aren’t aware of the most basic aspects of the Vaccines for Children program, one of the most important implications of their recommendations and votes. www.nejm.org/doi/full/10....

Several good moves on COVID-19 vaccine recommendations, access, and coverage here in CT portal.ct.gov/governor/new...

The country’s defensive shields against disease are shattering, in ways that could take decades, even generations, to mend, Katherine J. Wu writes:

Setting aside the enormous consequences to public health, this is all just so sad. And it would have been literally unfathomable when I started studying ACIP ~20 years ago. (Or for that matter, unimaginable even just one year ago.)

Come see Michael Osterholm, Wendy Parmet, Rekha Lakshmanan, Jason Schwartz, and Nahid Bhadelia talk about the public health consequences of anti-vaccine politics, policy, and public opinion at @busph.bsky.social !

User fees have had a critical role in funding @fda.gov since 1992. In our new @nejm.org Perspective, we outline the history and intent of PDUFA, & suggest potential reforms to the PDUFA VIII negotiation process to enable transparency & promote patient-centeredness (1/3)

Happy to join my friends @heatherhhoward.bsky.social and @celinegounder.com for this conversation!

Joined @npr.org’s All Things Considered for a conversation about all of the turmoil in vaccine policy these days, trust in vaccines, and the critical role of pediatricians now (and always) in vaccine decision-making by parents. www.npr.org/2025/07/07/n...

Great wrap-up of this first chapter of the new ACIP era and what it suggests lies ahead. www.statnews.com/2025/06/26/c...

"They're signaling interest in revisiting long-settled questions around vaccine safety, opening up issues that have been focal points of critics of vaccines for decades," Prof. @jasonlschwartz.bsky.social told NPR.

One gets the sense that a few of these new ACIP members will never look at a vaccine’s safety and effectiveness data and find it to be sufficient to support its widespread use. (Definitely not all of them, but some.)

Kudos to the AAP for taking this step and for speaking with such clarity. Exactly the kind of approach and focus I outlined in NEJM last week.