The chairman of the Senate health committee on Wednesday cast doubt on the trustworthiness of a federal advisory panel on vaccines, and major insurers said they would continue to cover routine shots even if the panel tried to limit their use.
Both developments pointed to an accelerating distrust of what had been a widely respected scientific body, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, whose members recommend vaccination policy to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The panel is set to meet on Thursday and Friday to review recommendations for three childhood vaccines: those for Covid-19, hepatitis B and measles, mumps, rubella and varicella. Some of the advisers have expressed doubts that the vaccines are safe and should be used so widely.
“It’s a very positive step that the insurance industry is calling this travesty for what it is, rather than accepting the current A.C.I.P. will be able to protect the health of the patients they are responsible for,” said Dr. Richard Besser, chief executive of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and a former acting director of the C.D.C.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dismissed the committee’s 17 members in June and replaced them with new advisers, many of whom, like the secretary, have voiced skepticism of vaccines.
On Wednesday, Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana and chairman of the Senate health committee, said that if the new committee panelists were to make changes to the childhood vaccine schedule, Americans should not have confidence in their decisions.
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