An upcoming meeting of a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) vaccine advisory board to select virus strains for next season’s flu shot has been canceled.
The March 13 meeting of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) was scheduled to make recommendations for the flu strains that will be included in the 2025-26 flu shot or nasal spray for the Northern Hemisphere. VRPBAC typically meets in March to make those recommendations, which are based on what flu strains are expected to be circulating in the fall and winter. The FDA uses the recommendations to direct vaccine manufacturers on the composition of the shots, which take roughly 6 months to produce.
VRBPAC members were alerted that the meeting was canceled in an email from the FDA that did not include an explanation, according to the Washington Post. The cancelation is raising concerns that the timing and availability of next season’s flu shot could be affected.
“Cancelling this meeting means vaccine makers may not have the vital information and time they need to produce and distribute targeted vaccines before the next flu season,” Infectious Diseases Society of America President Tina Tan, MD, said in a statement. “If the FDA meeting is not immediately rescheduled, many lives that could be saved by vaccination will be lost.”
The FDA confirmed the cancelation in an email to CIDRAP News but said it won’t have an impact on the availability of next season’s vaccine.
“A planned March 13 meeting of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee on the influenza vaccine strains for the 2025-2026 influenza season in the northern hemisphere has been cancelled,” the agency said. “The FDA will make public its recommendations to manufacturers in time for updated vaccines to be available for the 2025-2026 influenza season.”
The World Health Organization is scheduled to announce its Northern Hemisphere flu strain selections tomorrow. The WHO strains typically match those recommended by VRBPAC.
Second vaccine-related meeting to be nixed
The VRBPAC meeting is the second meeting of a vaccine-related federal advisory group to be canceled or postponed in the past week by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Last week, a meeting of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, scheduled for February 26 through 28, was postponed, with no word on when it will be rescheduled.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also issued a 90-day stop-work order on a multimillion-dollar HHS contract with a company that’s developing an oral COVID vaccine, according to Fox News. Vaxart was set to begin a clinical trial next week.
The moves are adding to fears that Kennedy, a longtime vaccine critic, could undermine US vaccine policies.
This decision—and other federal efforts to undermine well-established science about vaccine safety—puts everyone at risk, especially when we are currently experiencing the worst U.S. flu season in more than a decade.
The cancelation of the VRBPAC meeting also comes amid one of the worst flu seasons in recent memory. In its most recent FluView report, the CDC estimated that 430,000 Americans have been admitted to the hospital and 19,000 have died from flu this season. The CDC has also confirmed 86 flu-related deaths in children. It’s the first flu season classified as “high severity” by the CDC since 2017-18.
“This decision—and other federal efforts to undermine well-established science about vaccine safety—puts everyone at risk, especially when we are currently experiencing the worst U.S. flu season in more than a decade,” said Tan.
Solid protection for this season’s flu vaccine
In related news, a team led by researchers with the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases reported in today’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report that interim vaccine effectiveness (VE) data show the 2024-25 flu vaccine, while offering modest protection against infection, has been more protective against hospitalization.
The analysis of data from three US VE networks found that, among children and adolescents, VE was 32%, 59%, and 60% against any flu in outpatient settings, while data from two networks showed VE of 63% and 78% against flu-related hospitalization.
Data from adults at two VE networks found flu VE was 36% and 54% against any flu in outpatient settings and 41% and 55% against flu-related hospitalization.
“These interim estimates of 2024–25 VE indicate that influenza vaccination was effective in preventing medically attended influenza-associated illness in children, adolescents, and adults in the United States,” the study authors wrote. “Given the high levels of influenza activity and severity in the United States this season, increasing influenza vaccination could reduce influenza-associated illnesses, medical visits, hospitalizations and deaths.”
