The CDC has updated vaccine recommendations for RSV and meningococcal disease, adopting expert panel advice despite controversy over agency leadership.
United States: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention incorporated suggestions of a panel of vaccine experts in April, months before they were summarily dismissed by US health Secretary Robert F Kennedy, Jr.
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The CDC integrated the recommendations of the panel on the utilization of vaccines for respiratory syncytial virus and meningococcal disease, a severe bacterial disease, on June 25, and it was indicated on the agency site on Wednesday.
On the one hand, since adults between the ages of 50 and 59 years who are at a high risk of becoming seriously ill due to the RSV virus infection are at low risk of being hospitalized due to it, the agency currently advises the mentioned population group to obtain RSV vaccine singly, as Reuters reported.
Kennedy’s new appointees to the CDC’s vaccine recommendation panel, ACIP, wasted no time at all.
— MAHA PAC🗽 (@MAHA_PAC) June 28, 2025
Last week, they voted AGAINST recommending flu vaccines with thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative. pic.twitter.com/H6Fkfhtm5Y
The CDC used to advise that the vaccine should only be used on adult people aged 75 years and above and in adults considered to be at risk and aged 60 to 74.
Kennedy accepted the recommendations of the panel (called the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices) without the director of the agency. Thus, the director, who should approve the recommendations of the panel before it is implemented, had no role to play.
The CDC director nominee Susan Monarez by President Donald Trump is yet to pass the US Senate confirmation process. The agency also suggested the administration of the GSK pentavalent meningococcal vaccine in healthy people within the age range of 16 years to 23 years and high-risk populations aged 10 years and above.
In May, the CDC adopted the suggestions of films against the virus of chikungunya, which is transmitted by mosquitoes.
The recommendations of this agency will help physicians select suitable vaccines for patients and also will help in the selection of insurance coverage arrangements in the US, as Reuters reported.
Three RSV vaccines have been given the green light in the US by the Food and Drug Administration, including Arexvy by GSK, mRESVIA by Moderna, and Abrysvo by Pfizer.
A reinvented ACIP board selected by Kennedy convened in June and advised the nation to have its children inoculated with seasonal flu vaccines without any trace of the mercury-derived preservative thimerosal in spite of nearly 20 years of research that found no such safety hitches.