Vaccine panel to hold high-stakes talks

A US panel stacked with figures sympathetic to the anti-vaccine movement was yesterday expected to take on federal immunization recommendations in a highly politicised meeting that could upend longstanding medical advice.

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President Donald Trump's top health official, Robert F Kennedy jr, handpicked the voting members of the medical advisory group that is expected to consider whether to alter the standard childhood vaccine schedule - a move public health experts warn could have dire consequences.

The specific questions that will come to a vote during the two-day meeting in Atlanta aren't public, but it's expected discussion will include delaying childhood shots including against the highly contagious disease Hepatitis B.

The Covid-19 vaccine is also on the agenda, as well as the combination MMRV shot that covers measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella shot, which is offered as an alternative to separate MMR and chicken pox injections.

They're expected to discuss the small increase in risk of febrile seizures that could result from the combined MMRV jab.

Earlier this year anti-vaccine advocate Kennedy fired all 17 members of the influential Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and replaced them with members whose vaccine scepticism tracks more closely with his own.