• Posted April 13, 2026

New Rules May Allow Broader Picks for CDC Vaccine Panel

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) could soon have a new focus after officials changed the rules that determine who can serve on it.

The updated rules were approved by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and posted in a new charter outlining operation of the panel, which guides vaccine use in the U.S. and advises the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The changes expand who can serve on the committee and what topics it focuses on.

The old charter stipulated that members should have expertise in vaccines and related fields. 

The new charter provides for members to have knowledge about "recovery from serious vaccine injuries," in addition to experience in vaccines.

The update followed action by a federal judge, who halted the current panel and put many of its decisions on hold, NBC News reported.

The judge said several members lacked proper qualifications and described the group as "distinctly unqualified."

Experts say that by making membership criteria less strict, the new rules could let some members who were chosen before serve again.

“The changes in the language suggest to me they have in mind some of the older members,” Dorit Reiss, a vaccine policy expert at the University of California Law San Francisco, told NBC News.

What's more, "the new ACIP charter postures itself as a sincere attempt to identify vaccine adverse events, but it manipulates the advisory committee into intensely focusing on vaccine harms," Lawrence Gostin, director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, added.

Others say the update may also affect how vaccine recommendations are shared.

The new charter no longer guaranatees that guidance will be published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, which doctors rely on for vaccine advice.

Aaron Siri, who was a personal lawyer for Kennedy’s presidential campaign, told NBC News that the new charter is “a good step toward having a committee that considers vaccine safety as well as efficacy." 

He added: "Children harmed by vaccines deserve the same protection as those potentially harmed by infectious disease."

Others said the move could weaken trust in vaccines. 

“They’re basically creating more room to bring in more questionable people to platform more misinformation,” Richard Hughes IV, the American Academy of Pediatrics' attorney, said.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Andrew Nixon, said the charter update is routine and that it does "not signal any broader policy shift."

The government hasn't appealed the court ruling, but still has time to do so.

More information

Learn more about the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

SOURCE: NBC News, April 10, 2026