AMA launching its own vaccine safety, effectiveness review system

The American Medical Association (AMA) on Tuesday announced the launch of its own “evidence-based review process” of vaccine safety and efficacy for the next respiratory viral season, an apparent tacit rebuke of the federal government’s current regulations.

The AMA’s evaluation process will be conducted in collaboration with the Vaccine Integrity Project at the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota. The review will focus on immunizations for flu, COVID-19 and RSV.

“Respiratory viruses hospitalize and kill tens of thousands of Americans every year, and vaccine decisions must be guided by facts, not politics or ideology,” said CIDRAP Director Michael Osterholm.

“Our goal is to build on our efforts to restore peace of mind for clinicians and patients by ensuring that experts are continuously evaluating vaccine safety and effectiveness using transparent, evidence-based methods.”

In its announcement the AMA decried the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the expert-led panel that votes on CDC vaccine guidance. Last year, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all sitting panel members and appointed new members, several of whom are known vaccine skeptics.

Since being remade, the panel has voted to delay or no longer recommend several childhood immunizations including the birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine and the vaccine for measles, mumps, rubella and chicken pox.

“That system has now effectively collapsed,” said the AMA.

The AMA, which represents more than 270,000 members, said it will meet with “leading medical professional societies as well as public health and health care organizations” to develop relevant policy questions.

This is the most recent in what has been a growing trend of major medical societies publicly breaking with the federal government since Kennedy was confirmed. Last month, the American Academy of Pediatrics released its own childhood immunization schedule, recommending vaccines that the CDC had dropped earlier in the month.

“They are filling a void that the government created because it’s not doing a scientifically based analysis of impending infections. It’s just that simple. This is a testament to the problems we’ve had over the last year,” Ezekiel Emanuel, oncologist and former member of the Biden transition’s COVID-19 advisory board, said in a briefing Tuesday.

When reached for comment, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said, “The claim that ACIP’s evidence-based process has collapsed is categorically false.”

“ACIP continues to remain the nation’s advisory body for vaccine use recommendations driven by gold standard science,” said Nixon. “While outside organizations continue to conduct their own analyses and confuse the American people, those efforts do not replace or supersede the federal process that continues to guide vaccine policy in the United States.”