Kennedy’s vaccine panel votes to remove preservative long targeted by activists

A panel of vaccine advisers selected by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. voted Thursday to recommend that no one get a flu vaccine that contains thimerosal — a preservative that has long been a target of the anti-vaccine movement and Kennedy himself.

Five members voted to recommend that no children, pregnant women, or adults get any flu vaccine with thimerosal. If the CDC adopts the recommendation, it will mark one of the first major changes in federal vaccine guidance and access as Kennedy embarks on his goal of remaking immunization policy in his image.

“The risk from influenza is so much greater than the nonexistent, as far as we know, risk from thimerosal,” said Dr. Cody Meissner, the only panel member who voted no. “I would hate for a person not to receive the influenza vaccine because the only available preparation is with thimerosal.”

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