Individual liberty and choice vs. wider public health became one predictable hinge upon which swung the often-acerbic debates at the CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) meeting, which took up – again – the matter of hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccine scheduling, a day after the panel voted not to vote on such guidance.
Disorganization resulting from last-minute changes to voting questions involving new recommendations for hepatitis B virus vaccines created a moment of déjà vu Dec. 4 when the CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted 6-3 to once again delay its votes on whether the current recommended birth dose should be pushed back.
“Do not take us backwards,” many doctors and other stakeholders implored the CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices ahead of its meeting that starts Dec. 4 with a day-long discussion and votes on whether the current recommended birth dose of the hepatitis B virus vaccine should be delayed.
Both the FDA and the CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices are on the threshold of revising how vaccines are approved and used in the U.S., but whether that opens to a precipice or a new era of stronger evidence and safer use is in the telling of the beholder.
In preclinical studies at Sunshine Lake Pharma Co. Ltd., researchers investigated the antiviral and immune-modulatory potential of HEC-191834, a novel and highly selective human Toll-like receptor 8 (TLR8) agonist, in chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) models, as well as its activity when combined with siRNA.
SVF Vaccines AB, a portfolio company of Karolinska Development AB, has presented positive results from a preclinical study of its immunotherapy SVF-001 targeting chronic hepatitis B (HBV) and D viruses (HDV).
While the discussions and votes at the past two meetings of the U.S. CDC Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) have generated a lot of controversy and resulted in some states and medical groups issuing their own vaccine schedules, the truth is that the newly reconstituted committee’s recommendations to date are still in line with, or more generous in some instances than, global norms.
Despite some expectations that the U.S. CDC’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) would dramatically change the childhood vaccine schedule for hepatitis B, the committee is poised to vote Sept. 19 on a much smaller change that would move the current birth dose to 1 month for infants born to mothers who test negative for hepatitis B.
Just three days before the U.S. CDC’s reconstituted Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) is scheduled to discuss and possibly vote on the COVID-19, hepatitis B and MMRV vaccines, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy added five new members to the panel.
