#vaccine-hesitancy

#vaccine-hesitancy

The already tumultuous landscape of U.S. vaccine policy faces more turmoil in what's anticipated to be a politically charged two-day meeting of a recently overhauled advisory panel to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is an independent panel of experts that has traditionally met three times a year to make science-based recommendations about who should receive certain vaccines.

The numbers are ambitious: more than 13 million girls aged nine to 14 are due to receive the vaccine in an initiative aimed at protecting them from cervical cancer, a disease with often few symptoms that kills more than 3,000 women in Pakistan each year. The concerns are the same everywhere we go, says Dr Azra Ahsan, president of Aman, one of several organisations working with the government in a 12-day drive to raise awareness about HPV and its vaccine.

This can make the bone go back into place," said 6-year-old Malcolm Turnbull, pointing at the orange cast on his teddy bear's arm.

"Since the ruling, we are really encouraged. But we haven't heard anything from the NIH about our grants being reinstated, and we don't have a window into what that process looks like."

Despite monumental vaccine rollout efforts leading to the saving of 154 million children, progress on immunization has stalled or even reversed, putting millions at risk.

Acharya's research grant was terminated due to federal policy changes, highlighting concerns over political influence and algorithmic decision-making in scientific funding.