Professional medical societies, pharmacists, state health officials and vaccine manufacturers, as well as a new advocacy group, are mobilising behind the scenes to preserve access for vaccines as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. works to upend the nation’s decades-old vaccine system, according to public health experts.
The groups are discussing ordering vaccines directly from manufacturers and giving greater weight to vaccine recommendations from medical associations. And they are asking insurance companies to continue covering shots based on professional societies’ guidance instead of the federal government’s, according to more than a dozen people familiar with the conversations, including some who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private discussions.
The moves come as Kennedy has replaced members of the key federal vaccine advisory panel to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that decides which vaccines are recommended for whom and whether they’ll be covered by insurance. Kennedy fired the 17-member committee earlier this month and handpicked eight new members, several of whom are vaccine critics.
But the extraordinary effort to create parallel systems of recommending, and perhaps even providing, vaccines faces major challenges, and some of the more ambitious goals have yet to be ironed out.
There is no guarantee that health plans will cover every shot without guidance from the CDC panel, known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP. States, which determine school vaccine entry requirements, may make different decisions. And potential competing recommendations could sow confusion among doctors as well as patients if it becomes unclear which recommendations to follow.
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Source: The Washington Post, 24 June 2025
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