Vaccine committee voted to disrupt childhood vaccine schedule, add barriers to Covid vaccine for patients

National Nurses United (NNU), the nation’s largest union of registered nurses, decries the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) for removing parental choice in MMRV (measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella) vaccinations and changing Covid vaccine policy to an approach that can create barriers to access and undermine public health. 

ACIP is an advisory panel that makes vaccine recommendations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In June, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. removed 17 members of ACIP and replaced many positions with people holding anti-vaccine views.

ACIP voted to restrict the combined MMRV vaccination to children 4 years and older, removing parents’ choice about getting one (MMRV) or two vaccines (MMR and varicella) to protect their children. The panel also recommended that people who wanted to get a Covid shot make the decision with a clinician about the risks and benefits of the vaccine — yet about one-third of people in the United States, about 100 million, do not have a primary care provider. 

“It is not clear how this will be implemented and what information will be shared with patients,” said Mary Turner, RN and NNU president. “As registered nurses, NNU members know that vaccines are one of the most effective public health developments in modern history. Nurses see firsthand the illness, suffering, and devastation when patients contract preventable infectious diseases because they are not vaccinated.

“NNU condemns Kennedy’s deadly anti-vaccine rhetoric and the policies put forward by his appointees: They will lead to an untold number of unnecessary illnesses and deaths.” 

Public health depends on collective action, and vaccines remain one of the most powerful collective health tools we have. Vaccines protect everyone — especially our seniors, children, and the most vulnerable, as well as the frontline workers who cannot work from home when emergencies arise. Anti-vaccine policies are part of a broader political move that puts the burden of surviving pandemics, and health threats in general, on the individual. In August, NNU called for Kennedy to be fired.

RNs recognize that the scientific evidence is abundantly clear: vaccines protect our patients’ health and save lives. Covid-19 vaccines prevented over 14.4 million deaths in the first year of the pandemic alone and continue to prevent severe illness, hospitalization, Long Covid cases, and deaths.

As the most trusted profession in the United States for more than two decades, nurses are an essential, trustworthy source of science-based information for nurses, health care workers, patients, and their families on health threats. RNs will continue advocating until health justice has been achieved for all patients.

National Nurses United is the largest and fastest-growing union and professional association of registered nurses in the United States with more than 225,000 members nationwide. NNU affiliates include California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, DC Nurses Association, Michigan Nurses Association, Minnesota Nurses Association, and New York State Nurses Association.