RFK Jr.’s Immunization Committee Changes MMRV Vaccine Recommendations

The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) met yesterday to discuss new recommendations for childhood vaccines — and voted to no longer recommend that children under the age of four receive the combination MMRV vaccine. Instead, they recommend that kids under the age of 4 receive their vaccine for measles, mumps, and rubella and their vaccine for varicella separately (MMR+V).

The official word is, “For measles, mumps, rubella and varicella vaccines given before age 4 years, the combined MMRV vaccine is not recommended.”

Previously, the CDC has recommended that babies get their first MMRV vaccine once at ages 12-15 months and a second time between ages 4 and 6.

While some medical experts explained the huge number of children’s lives saved by the vaccine, as well as the saved health care costs, the committee was worried about the small number of febrile seizures associated with the first dose in the week following the shot (febrile seizures are harmless).

Experts against the new recommendation also shared how overall vaccine rates are much higher when they are combined and when they are received as babies.

This decision comes after CDC director Susan Monarez, Ph.D., was pushed out of the organization by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. when, according to her testimony, she refused to be open to changing children’s vaccination schedules. It also comes after RFK dismissed many people on the ACIP and replaced them with hand-picked officials who were more aligned with his feelings about immunizations.

This change comes as an ongoing measles outbreak continues across the United States, the worst since the MMR vaccine was developed. So far this year, 1,491 measles cases have been confirmed across 42 states. A full 92 percent of those cases were in unvaccinated patients. This is the worst outbreak in over 30 years and the first of this scale since the vaccine was widely available.

While the committee also planned to vote on the Hepatitis B vaccine in newborns, arguments and confusion led to an unorthodox tabled vote. The Hep B vaccine has prevented an estimated 310 million cases of the disease, which has no cure and can be deadly.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) was notably absent from this week’s ACIP meeting, but sent out a press release about its own vaccine recommendations.

“Following today’s meeting, we want to be clear that our recommendations on hepatitis B and measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella (MMRV) vaccination have not changed:

• Giving newborns a dose of the hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours of birth, with additional doses at 1-2 months and 6-18 months, remains the best protection against serious health problems like liver disease and cancer. Many people with hepatitis B don’t know they have it at first. The virus can spread between family members living together and in other close contact settings, like daycares.
• All children should be vaccinated against measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella at 1 year and again at 4-6 years. The combination MMRV vaccine should remain an option for families for both doses.

Until we can again trust the recommendations made by our federal government, AAP will continue stepping up and working with our local, stat,e and federal partners to make sure every child in every community continues to have access to immunizations.”