NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 U.S. health officials have told more than a half-dozen of the nation\u2019s top medical organizations that they will no longer help establish vaccination recommendations.<\/p>\n
The government told the organizations on Thursday via email that their experts are being disinvited from the workgroups that have been the backbone of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.<\/p>\n
The organizations include the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Infectious Diseases Society of America.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m concerned and distressed,\u201d said Dr. William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University vaccine expert who for decades has been involved with ACIP and its workgroups.<\/p>\n
He said the move will likely propel a confusing fragmentation of vaccine guidance, as patients may hear the government say one thing and hear their doctors say another.<\/p>\n
One email said the organizations are \u201cspecial interest groups and therefore are expected to have a \u2018bias\u2019 based on their constituency and\/or population that they represent.\u201d <\/p>\n
A federal health official on Friday confirmed the action, which was first reported by Bloomberg. <\/p>\n
The decision was the latest development in what has become a saga involving the ACIP. The committee, created in 1964, makes recommendations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how vaccines that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration should be used. <\/p>\n
CDC directors have traditionally almost always approved those recommendations, which are widely heeded by doctors and greenlight insurance coverage for shots.<\/p>\n
U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was a leading voice in the anti-vaccine movement<\/a> before becoming the U.S. government\u2019s top health official, and in June abruptly fired<\/a> the entire ACIP after accusing them of being too closely aligned with manufacturers. He handpicked replacements<\/a> that include several vaccine skeptics.<\/p>\n The workgroups typically include committee members and experts from medical and scientific organizations. At workgroup meetings, members evaluate data from vaccine manufacturers and the CDC, and formulate vaccination recommendation proposals to be presented to the full committee.<\/p>\n The structure was created for several reasons, Schaffner said. The professional groups provide input about what might and might not be possible for doctors to implement. And it helped build respect and trust in ACIP recommendations, having the buy-in of respected medical organizations, he said.<\/p>\n Workgroup members are vetted for conflicts of interest, to make sure than no one who had, say, made money from working on a hepatitis vaccine was placed on the hepatitis committee, Schaffner noted.<\/p>\n Also disinvited from the groups were the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Physicians, the American Geriatrics Society, the American Osteopathic Association, the National Medical Association and the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.<\/p>\n In a joint statement Friday, the AMA and several of the other organizations said: \u201cTo remove our deep medical expertise from this vital and once transparent process is irresponsible, dangerous to our nation\u2019s health, and will further undermine public and clinician trust in vaccines.\u201d<\/p>\n They urged the administration to reconsider the move \u201cso we can continue to feel confident in its vaccine recommendations for our patients.\u201d<\/p>\n