Scoop: FDA vaccine meeting abruptly canceled. Meeting was to determine 2025-2026 influenza vaccine composition.
Jeremy Faust, MD
Feb 26, 2025
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Hi everyone,
I think this is Breaking News and it’s deeply troubling. I spoke to an insider on the record about the meaning of this move. Please share one widely if you can.
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RFK Jr. Getty Images / Andrew Harnik
FDA abruptly cancels flu shot meeting. There are no plans to reschedule so far.
On Wednesday afternoon, members of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) learned that its upcoming meeting to determine which strains of influenza should be used in the 2025-2026 seasonal flu shot had been canceled.
One member of the committee, Dr. Paul Offit, confirmed the news and spoke to Inside Medicine. Here is a readout of our phone conversation, edited for clarity and flow:
Inside Medicine: Is it true? The VRBPAC meeting got canceled?
Offit: Yes. It just got canceled. I got the email at 4:15 p.m. I was told not to forward the email but that I could talk to the media, if I chose to.
Inside Medicine: What was the meeting supposed to be about?
Offit: This is a meeting where we pick flu strains. It’s a 6-month cycle. So, if we are not going to have the meeting, I guess it means we will be looking to the WHO for a flu shot formulation.
Inside Medicine: Why was it canceled? Will it be rescheduled?
Offit: I have no idea. Is it part of RFK Jr.’s cleansing project of removing anyone whom he presumes to have a conflict of interest related to vaccines? I don’t know. But I feel like the world is upside down. We aren’t doing the things we need to do to protect ourselves.
Inside Medicine: If VRBPAC does not make a recommendation, how will we get a flu shot for 2025-2026?
Offit: The WHO makes its recommendations known. We can just download that. But, look, usually two US representatives go to the WHO flu shot session. They occupy two of ten seats. So, already the quality isn’t going to be as high there.
Inside Medicine: So, we can just download the WHO-recommended flu shot recipe?
Offit: Yeah, basically. It’s not ideal, but what else are the vaccine manufacturers going to do?
Inside Medicine: Paul, how long have you been on VRBPAC?
Offit: Since 2017. I re-upped in 2021, and they asked me again recently. I said I’d agree to do two years, not the usual four years. So, until 2027.
Inside Medicine: Do you think that RFK Jr. believes that you have a conflict of interest because you helped invent a major vaccine?
Offit: It’s absurd. I spent 26 years working on a vaccine that eliminated rotavirus dehydration. We took 70,000 rotavirus hospitalizations from dehydration and got it down to zero. The vaccine is estimated to save 165,000 lives worldwide per year. That’s a good thing. At least, I thought so! Was I compensated by my hospital for my work? Yes. Children's Hospital of Philadelphia held the patent. When they sold the patent, they decided to compensate me. That was their decision, and I was grateful. I made money from that transition.
Inside Medicine: Do you think you’ll be thrown off the committee?
Offit: Who knows. But I am pro-science. I don’t just say yes to everything. I voted against the small pox vaccine [for the general public, at time of low prevalence]. I voted against the bivalent Covid-19 booster on VRBPAC. I don’t think every person needs a Covid-19 shot every year. Look, I’m a science advocate.
Inside Medicine: Meanwhile, RFK Jr. downplayed the measles outbreak today.
Offit: We just had a death due to measles and it was a preventable death. And RFK Jr. is saying that outbreaks [like the one in Texas] are normal. But we didn’t used to have measles. It was eradicated in this country in 2000.
Hi everyone,
insidemedicine.substack.com
exciting times
Mofos dying from the measles like this is Oregon Trail or some shyt