The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Monday withdrew its amended charter for a highly influential vaccine advisory committee that would have loosened eligibility requirements, citing administrative errors.
In a notice set to be officially published in the Federal Register, HHS formally withdrew its proposed amendment to the charter for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The proposal would have replaced the previous charter’s requirement that ACIP members have “expertise in the use of vaccines and other immunobiologic agents in clinical practice or preventive medicine, have expertise with clinical or laboratory vaccine research, or have expertise in assessment of vaccine efficacy and safety.”
“The notice of charter renewal published on April 6, 2026 (91 FR 17279) is hereby withdrawn due to an administrative error in meeting the revised public notification timing requirements under the revised Federal Advisory Committee Act regulation,” the notice on Monday stated.
The proposed amended charter was published soon after a federal judge effectively undid the current committee, remade entirely by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with ideological allies, as well as its votes that remade U.S. vaccine guidance.
The last ACIP charter expired last month, and the new amended charter needed to be filed seven days after it was published.