COVID shots, newer vaccines in limbo after US court halts Kennedy's advisory panel

Source: Reuters

April 21, 2026 6:02 AM EDT Updated 5 hours ago


CHICAGO, April 21 (Reuters) - Americans may face the next respiratory disease season without clear guidance for COVID shots and updated flu vaccines after a federal court ruling last month left several vaccines in limbo, and raised questions about whether some newly approved products would be covered ​by insurers.

The decision by Boston-based U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy froze the work of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the panel that advises the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and ‌Prevention on how vaccines should be used. Murphy ruled that most members of a panel appointed last year by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. were unqualified and ordered that their votes be put on hold, effectively restoring the previous childhood immunization schedule that the U.S. Health Secretary and his allies had sought to revamp.

The ruling leaves the CDC without a functioning advisory body to recommend new vaccines or updated uses of existing ones. “It’s just uncharted territory,” said Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, former director of the CDC’s National Center for ​Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, who left the agency last year in protest over Kennedy's moves to rewrite U.S. vaccine policies.

Without ACIP recommendations, newly licensed vaccines and expanded indications — while legal to prescribe — may ​not be covered by insurers or included in federal programs, said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University and longtime ACIP adviser. Kennedy has yet ⁠to say whether he will reconfigure the panel, using his revamped ACIP charter to circumvent the court ruling, appeal the judge's order, or both.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/covid-shots-newer-vaccines-limbo-after-us-court-halts-kennedys-advisory-panel-2026-04-21/

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This is around the latest time when vax companies that make the "traditional" versions of the flu vaccine, need to get started with their manufacturing to be ready for fall (after WHO came up with the current circulating types in February (they need a long lead time due to the process using incubation in eggs).