RFK Jr. cancelled critical meeting to choose the strains for next year’s flu vaccine. Normally flu strains to be included in the vaccine are picked in early spring so manufacturing has enough time to get them ready for fall.
A Food and Drug Administration vaccine advisory committee meeting scheduled for March to select the strains to be included in next season’s flu shot has been canceled, a panel member said Wednesday.
The cancellation comes as the United States is in the midst of a particularly severe flu season. So far, 86 children and 19,000 adults have died this season, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dr Paul Offit, a pediatric infectious diseases expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and longtime Kennedy critic, questioned the cancellation. “What is the plan for picking this year’s flu strain?” Offit said in a report from The Washington Post. The CDC’s vaccine advisory panel meeting was also postponed last week.
By way of NBC News, NPR, and Cancer Therapy Advisor