Opinion: Transparency needed in Trump administration's key COVID vaccine decisions

Viewpoint: Making key COVID vaccine decisions without input, transparency is a public disservice Strengthening trust in public health, especially around big changes to vaccine policy, requires transparency, including letting the American people know what data you're using to make them.  CIDRAP

Strengthening trust in public health, especially around big changes to vaccine policy, requires transparency, including letting the American people know what data you're using to make them. 

Newly announced rules that limit the use of COVID vaccines suggest that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and federal public health agencies are moving in the opposite direction. 

We support a fresh look at COVID-19 vaccine and vaccination policies, informed by the experience of the past 5 years and the evolving science and epidemiology. We viewed the upcoming Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) meeting on May 22 as an opportunity to begin that discussion, with the interested public looking on. (VRBPAC, and independent panel of experts advises the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on vaccines and other medical products.)

But yesterday—before the planned VRBPAC meeting of advising experts—the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Director Vinay Prasad, MD, MPH, and Commissioner Marty Makary, MD, MPH, announced new rules for COVID vaccine use via an opinion piece in the New England Journal of Medicine. Without the benefits of their committee's expertise and public discussion, the op-ed dictates that shots will be reserved for people over 65, or for those in a risk-category for severe illness.

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