ATLANTA (AP) — A key vaccine advisory committee met for the first time under new U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a leading voice in the U.S. anti-vaccine movement.
Tuesday's meeting was, to some extent, business as usual, though with a major question looming: Who would evaluate the committee's recommendations?
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices' two-day meeting took up vaccine policy questions that had been put on hold when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services abruptly postponed the panel's February meeting.
“It will be striking” if the meeting is routine, given “signals and alarms” that suggest changes and perhaps reductions in federal vaccination efforts, said Jason Schwartz, a Yale University health policy researcher who studies government health agencies.
But Tuesday's meeting started fairly routine, with most members joining through a webcast. They discussed an mpox vaccine and how the winter flu and COVID-19 seasons were going.
The conversation took a turn when a CDC official summarized a committee workgroup discussion about the waning COVID-19 pandemic, and asked whether the panel might consider changing vaccination recommendations. For example, instead of recommending seasonal shots for all Americans 6 months and older, should the recommendations be more focused — at least for certain age groups — on people with chronic illnesses or otherwise at higher risk?
“I guess I am surprised we're considering a risk-based recommendation," said committee member Dr. Denise Jamieson, dean of the University of Iowa’s medical school.
She worried it will be harder to implement, and may cause more headaches for patients who want to get shots and have them covered by insurance.
Dr. Jamie Loehr, a family medicine doctor in Itasca, New York, said he is happy the committee is considering a risk-based recommendation but also worried about feasibility and the message it would send.
“COVID is still a fairly dangerous disease and very, very common,” he said. "We are not talking about 10 cases of mpox. We are talking about thousands of hospitalizations and deaths.”
A vote on the idea could come at the next committee meeting, scheduled for June.
The 15-member panel of outside scientific experts, created in 1964, makes recommendations to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC directors almost always approve those recommendations on how Food and Drug Administration-cleared vaccines should be used. The CDC's final recommendations are not binding, but for decades they have been widely heeded by doctors and determine the scope and funding of vaccination programs.
The committee was slated to vote Wednesday afternoon on whether to make new recommendations regarding three kinds of vaccines, including one for meningitis and another to prevent a mosquito-borne illness called chikungunya.
It's not clear who would decide whether to accept those recommendations.
The Trump administration named Susan Monarez as acting CDC director in January, and last month picked her to lead the agency. But while she’s awaiting Senate confirmation, Monarez has essentially recused herself from regular director duties because of federal law around vacancies, said two CDC officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss agency matters and feared being fired.
That means any committee recommendations made Wednesday seems likely to fall to Kennedy. When an AP reporter asked an HHS spokesperson, he said he was looking into the question but did not immediately have an answer.
During his Senate confirmation hearings, Kennedy told lawmakers he is not “antivaccine.” But since taking office, he has promised to “investigate” children’s shots and to take a new look at the possibility of links between childhood vaccinations and autism — a theory that has been debunked by a number of studies, including at least a dozen that involved CDC researchers.
The panel’s chair, Dr. Helen Keipp Talbot of Vanderbilt University, said she didn't know who would decide whether to sign off on any recommendations.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
FILE - A sign stands at an entrance to the main campus of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, Friday, Feb. 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeff Amy, File)
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr speaks during a Make Indiana Healthy Again initiative event in Indianapolis, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
FILE - A healthcare worker fills a syringe with the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at Jackson Memorial Hospital on Oct. 5, 2021, in Miami. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, File)
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis died on Easter Monday at the age of 88. Here are the key things to know about the death of the Argentine pontiff, history's first from Latin America, who presided over the Catholic Church for more than 12 years.
The death of Francis was announced by Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the Irish-born Vatican camerlengo, a position that will be important in the coming weeks as he takes charge of the administration of the Holy See until a new pope is elected.
“At 7:35 this morning, the Bishop of Rome, Francis, returned to the home of the Father,” Farrell said. “His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and of his Church.”
Farrell made the announcement just over two hours after Francis had died. Farrell spoke from Domus Santa Marta, the apartment on Vatican grounds where Francis lived and where he had returned to recover after a hospitalization for double pneumonia.
Francis made his final public appearance a day earlier on Easter Sunday. He appeared very frail, and had delegated the celebration of the Easter Mass to another cardinal. But though his voice was weak, he blessed a crowd of faithful from the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica.
“Brothers and sisters, Happy Easter,” he said from the same loggia where Jorge Mario Bergoglio was introduced to the world on March 13, 2013 as the 266th pope.
Francis also made a surprise ride in the square in his popemobile, drawing wild cheers and applause.
Beforehand, he met briefly with U.S. Vice President JD Vance.
“I was happy to see him yesterday, though he was obviously very ill," Vance, who converted to Catholicism in 2019, said on Monday during a visit to India.
Even before the great bells of St. Peter’s Basilica began tolling to mark Francis’ death, messages of tribute began pouring in from across the world.
Catholic and non-Catholic leaders alike honored a spiritual leader who was a voice for the marginalized and the weak, for migrants and LGBTQ+ people, and for environmental protection.
King Charles III praised the pope for his work on safeguarding the planet. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called him an inspiration for the entire world, not just Christians. Even the far-right Argentine President Milei, who had chilly relations with the pope, expressed sorrow.
“We are saying goodbye to a great man and a great shepherd,” Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, one of the few official visitors to see Francis during his recent hospitalization, said. Flags were flown at half-staff on Monday across Italy and some top-level soccer matches were postponed.
The representatives of other religions and other Christian denominations also praised him for seeking dialogue. The head of the Church of England remembered him for his commitment to improving relations among the world’s religions, while Rome's chief rabbi described Francis' pontificate as an important new chapter in relations between Judaism and Catholicism.
Francis, who suffered from chronic lung disease and had part of one lung removed as a young man, was admitted to Gemelli hospital in Rome on Feb. 14, 2025, for a respiratory crisis that developed into double pneumonia. He spent 38 days there, the longest hospitalization of his papacy.
For the faithful, those were weeks of fear that his illness could be fatal or lead to another papal resignation after that of Pope Benedict XVI, a surprise move that led to the election of Francis in March 2013.
The pontiff's return to the Vatican on March 23 brought relief to many at the time.
Francis' death now sets off the process of allowing the faithful to pay their final respects, first for Vatican officials in the Santa Marta chapel and then in St. Peter’s for the general public.
A precise sequence of events will include the confirmation of death in the pontiff’s home, the transfer of the coffin to St. Peter’s Basilica for public viewing, a funeral Mass and burial.
The dates haven't been announced yet, but the burial must take place between the fourth and sixth day after his death.
After the funeral, there are nine days of official mourning, known as the “novendiali.”
During this period, cardinals arrive in Rome to participate in a conclave to elect the next pope.
To give everyone time to assemble, the conclave must begin 15-20 days after the “sede vacante” — the “vacant See” — is declared, although it can start sooner if the cardinals agree.
The cardinals will vote in secret sessions, and the ballots will be burned in a special stove after each session.
Black smoke will indicate that no pope has been elected, while white smoke will indicate that the cardinals have chosen the next head of the Catholic Church.
Francis tried to maintain the Vatican’s traditional diplomatic neutrality when it came to Ukraine, and that led to criticism for what some called an unclear position on Russia’s invasion of its neighbor.
He at times expressed apparent sympathy with Russia’s rationale for invading Ukraine — like when he said NATO was “barking at Russia’s door” with its eastward enlargement. And last year he called on Ukraine to show the “courage” to negotiate peace, which seemed to suggest it should capitulate to Russian aggression.
Russian President Vladimir Putin in a condolence message praised Francis as a “consistent defender of the high values of humanism and justice.”
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, said his country was grieving and recalled how the pope often prayed for peace in Ukraine.
Francis also had critics who argued that he failed to bring justice to victims of clergy sex abuse or to bring the needed reforms to the church.
“In this realm, where Francis had supreme power, he refused to make the necessary changes. This choice is having devastating consequences for the Church’s most powerless members. It will forever tarnish the legacy of this remarkable man,” said Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, a United States-based watchdog.
The Women’s Ordination Conference also lamented Francis’ unwillingness to push for the ordination of women. “This made him a complicated, frustrating and sometimes heart-breaking figure for many women," it said.
Vanessa Gera reported from Warsaw, Poland. Colleen Barry contributed to this report from Milan.
Pope Francis appears on the central lodge of St. Peter's Basilica to bestow the Urbi et Orbi (Latin for to the city and the world) blessing at the end of the Easter mass presided over by Cardinal Angelo Comastri in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican Sunday, April 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
FILE - Pope Francis speaks during a meeting with the media at the Pope VI hall, at the Vatican, Saturday, March 16, 2013. Speaking of the moment of his election and his conversation with his friend, Cardinal Claudio Hummes, in the Sistine Chapel as the votes were going his way. “When things were looking dangerous, he encouraged me. And when the votes reached two-thirds, there was the usual applause, because the pope had been elected. And he gave me a hug and a kiss and said: ‘Don't forget the poor!’ And those words came to me: the poor, the poor. Then, right away, thinking of the poor, I thought of Francis of Assisi. Then I thought of all the wars, as the votes were still being counted, till the end. Francis is also the man of peace. That is how the name came into my heart: Francis of Assisi. … How I would like a Church which is poor and for the poor!” (AP Photo/Michael Sohn, File)
Pope Francis appears on the central lodge of St. Peter's Basilica to bestow the Urbi et Orbi (Latin for to the city and to the world) blessing at the end of the Easter mass presided over by Cardinal Angelo Comastri in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican Sunday, April 20, 2025.(AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
