U.S. health officials have told more than a half-dozen of the nation’s top medical organizations that they will no longer help establish vaccination recommendations.
The government told the organizations on Thursday via email that their experts are being disinvited from the workgroups that have been the backbone of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
The organizations include the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
“I’m concerned and distressed,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University vaccine expert who for decades has been involved with ACIP and its workgroups.
He said the move will likely propel a confusing fragmentation of vaccine guidance, as patients may hear the government say one thing and hear their doctors say another.
Hellbound and Down 