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In the late afternoon of Feb. 26, members of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s expert committee on vaccines received an unusual email. It informed them that their upcoming meeting on March 13 to determine which influenza strains to include in the next flu shot—a meeting that has occurred every year since the late 1960s, even during the pandemic—was canceled.
One of the email recipients was Dr. Paul Offit, director of the vaccine education center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine, and a member of the committee since 2017. “It said the meeting was canceled—not postponed—and there was no evidence that it would be rescheduled,” he says. In a statement, the FDA said: “The FDA will make public its recommendations to manufacturers in time for updated vaccines to be available for the 2025-2026 influenza season.”
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“I assume that will be without the advice of the expert independent advisory committee,” Offit says. “I don’t know what this means, who made the decision, or why they made the decision. We were told nothing about it.”
The cancellation came one day before new government-issued data was published showing the high effectiveness of the latest flu vaccine at keeping kids and adults out of the hospital.
Here’s what to know.
What the vaccine committee does
The Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) is a group of vaccine experts who volunteer their time to review data on the yearly update to the flu vaccine. They do the same for any new vaccines against infectious disease, as well as biological products that companies hope to sell to the public. The committee’s primary responsibility is to discuss the safety and effectiveness of these health therapies.
To ensure the members are reviewing and analyzing the data objectively, the committee is independent; voting members are not active employees of the government, although government officials join the discussion.
Read More: When Is the Best Time to Get a Flu Shot?
After reviewing data provided by vaccine makers on studies the companies have conducted on their vaccines, the committee votes on whether it believes a vaccine should be approved or not. In the case of the annual flu shot, they vote on which strains to include in the vaccine, based on recommendations from the World Health Organization and data from flu cases in the southern hemisphere, which goes through its flu season before the northern part of the world.
This process led to the emergency use authorizations and ultimately approvals of the COVID-19 vaccines. The VRBPAC members met to discuss data, as they became available, on each of the new COVID-19 vaccines; based on the recommendations from the committee, the FDA then made the final decision on whether vaccines were safe and effective enough for the public.
What usually happens after the committee meets
Once the FDA commissioner decides to approve a vaccine or update the strains in a vaccine, the work then shifts to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC has a vaccine committee of its own: the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, which meets several times a year to make recommendations for the childhood and adult vaccine schedule.
Based on these insights, CDC then recommends certain vaccines to the public and outlines how frequently and how many doses should be provided. Doctors rely almost exclusively on the data from both the FDA and the CDC when discussing and administering vaccines to their patients.
Signs of trouble for vaccines
Soon after Robert F. Kennedy Jr., became head of the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees both the FDA and the CDC, the CDC announced that its vaccine committee meeting scheduled for Feb. 26 to Feb. 28 was postponed. Kennedy has been a long-time skeptic of vaccines; he continues to question their safety and highlights what he describes as conflicts of interest in the vaccine review and approval process.
Read More: What to Know About the Measles Vaccine
Not having a discussion and incorporating advice from independent experts “is worrisome,” says Offit, who has also served on ACIP. “We are getting the sense that expertise isn’t really valued.” Without the work of both the FDA and CDC committees, the message is that “doctors and parents should figure it out for themselves,” he says. “But there are things discussed at these meetings that most physicians in private practice aren’t going to intuit on their own. That’s why they look to the advisory committees to help give them advice and provide that information.”
Committee members don’t always agree. But “it’s important to have dissenting votes and have a vigorous discussion to make sure the science behind public policy is well-tuned,” Offit says. “This is an independent group. It is independent of the pharmaceutical industry, and independent of government.” Without its advice, it means the government would be making important decisions affecting the public’s health on its own.
New research on the importance of flu vaccines
The meeting cancellation came one day before the CDC issued its weekly MMWR report, a scientific update on the latest public-health news. In the Feb. 27 edition, CDC scientists published new data on the benefits of flu shots in protecting both children and adults from serious complications.
The latest data on the most recent flu season from 2024 to 2025 show that children and teens who were vaccinated were up to 78% less likely to be hospitalized for flu than those who weren’t, and adults who got their flu shot were up to 55% less likely to get hospitalized.
The report concludes by reiterating the agency’s recommendation that people who are eligible should get a flu shot every year.
