Trump's Trials - RFK Jr.'s vaccine advisers meeting wraps up

Episode Date: June 27, 2025

A panel of vaccine advisers handpicked by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. concluded a two-day meeting with votes to limit the availability of certain flu vaccines. Their concern is a preservative that has been a source of controversy despite ample evidence that it is safe. NPR's Will Stone reports.Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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So instead, I'm going to tell you, we've just been on a run of really good shows lately. Some big epic emotional stories, some weird funny stuff too. Download us. This American Life. These days, there is a lot of news. It could be hard to keep up with what it means for you, your family, and your community. Consider This from NPR is a podcast that helps you make sense of the news. Six days a week, we bring you a deep dive on a story and provide the context, the backstory,

and analysis you need to understand our rapidly changing world. Listen to the Consider This podcast from NPR. I'm Adam Martinez. A committee that helps craft vaccine policy in the U.S. has become a source of controversy under the leadership of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Yesterday, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices wrapped up its two-day meeting. Here's NPR's Will Stone. This meeting of advisors to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was unusually high profile, largely because of Secretary Kennedy's decision to purge the entire panel of experts just a few weeks ago. In their place, his handpicked roster of seven members, some with a history of making inaccurate claims about the safety of COVID vaccines.

The chair of the committee, Martin Koldorf, an epidemiologist who's worked on vaccines, began the meeting with a call to rebuild public trust and an announcement that a new working group would re-examine the childhood vaccine schedule. The number of vaccines that our children and adolescents receive today exceeds what children in most other developed nations receive and what most of us in this room receive when we are children. Another group, he said, would look at vaccines that have not been subject to review in more than seven years.

All of this makes Yale professor Jason Schwartz, who studies vaccine policy, very nervous. They're already signaling their interest in revisiting long-settled questions around vaccine safety, opening up issues that have been focal points of critics of vaccines for decades. On the second day, a majority of the panel reaffirmed the CDC recommendations that anyone over six months get the annual flu shot. Other votes, however, focused on essentially banning flu vaccines with a mercury-containing preservative called thimerosal. Theories that chemical could cause autism have long been disproven. Even so, manufacturers voluntarily removed it from childhood vaccines years ago. It's rarely used in flu shots anymore. Even so, manufacturers voluntarily removed it from childhood vaccines years ago.

It's rarely used in flu shots anymore. And yet, the panel heard a presentation on alleged safety concerns from the former head of Children's Health Defense, a group that Secretary Kennedy founded. It's questioned vaccine safety and spread misinformation. Dr. Cody Meisner, a pediatrician at Dartmouth, was the only panel member to vote against the recommendations. I'm not quite sure how to respond to this presentation. This is an old issue that has been addressed. The meeting of the group, called ACIP for short, was at times chaotic. In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics decided not to attend. Dr. Jim Campbell, who's with the Academy, says they thought there would be no room for real participation,

and the votes on thimerosal prove that. The vote was based on a single talk without any work group or other expert input. That is not the way that ACIP typically works, so we're just disappointed. And the meeting has raised big questions about the future of vaccine policy for Dr. Andy Pavia, a pediatrician at the University of Utah. I think hundreds of physicians, epidemiologists, pediatricians watched with some degree of horror. Pavia points out this panel helps shape insurance coverage of vaccines and he worries what they decide going forward could ultimately reduce access to them. Will Stone, NPR News.

readily reduce access to them. Will Stone, NPR News. Before we wrap up a reminder, you can find more coverage of the Trump administration on the NPR Politics Podcast, where you can hear NPR's political reporters break down the day's biggest political news with new episodes every weekday afternoon. And thanks, as always, to our NPR Plus supporters who hear every episode of the show without sponsor messages. You can learn more at plus.npr.org. I'm Scott Detrow, thanks for listening to Trump's terms from NPR.

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