CDC official overseeing COVID-19 vaccine recommendations resigns

Changes successful CDC's COVID-19 vaccine guidance

What to cognize astir changes successful CDC guidance for COVID-19 vaccine 02:35

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention authoritative said Tuesday she was resigning from her relation overseeing updates to the agency's COVID-19 vaccine recommendations, pursuing an order by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to unit an update to the agency's guidance.

"My vocation successful nationalist wellness and vaccinology started with a deep-seated tendency to assistance the astir susceptible members of our population, and that is not thing I americium capable to proceed doing successful this role," Dr. Lakshmi Panagiotakopoulos wrote successful an email to immoderate members of the agency's Advisory Committee connected Immunization Practices (ACIP).

Panagiotakopoulos had served arsenic 1 of the leads of the enactment radical connected COVID-19 vaccines wrong the ACIP. She sent an email to members of the enactment radical aboriginal Tuesday greeting to accidental she was resigning, aggregate radical who received the email confirmed to CBS News. 

Reuters first reported quality of her resignation. Panagiotakopoulos and a CDC spokesperson did not instantly respond to requests for comment.

The process to update the CDC's influential vaccine recommendations is intimately watched by experts due to the fact that they are tied to national policies and programs, including liability protections, vaccines for uninsured children and requirements for security coverage. 

The committee had been acceptable to ballot connected updated recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines astatine a gathering later this month, earlier Kennedy usurped the process to enforce his ain changes to the guidance.

Earlier this year, members of the enactment radical had signaled they were already leaning toward narrowing the guidance to soften the proposal for children with nary underlying conditions to get vaccinated, successful enactment with however Kennedy's bid was ultimately implemented.

But Kennedy's directive besides broke with the committee by ordering the bureau to exclude large women from its COVID-19 vaccine recommendations. Pregnant women had been 1 of the groups that experts had worried were astatine higher hazard of terrible COVID-19 and warranted continued recommendations to get vaccinated.

"More of america should beryllium resigning successful protest," 1 national wellness authoritative told CBS News, successful effect to the quality of Panagiotakopoulos leaving her role.