Richard H. Hughes, IV, Member of the Firm in the Health Care & Life Sciences practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, was quoted in The Atlantic, in “America Is on the Cusp of a Two-Tier Vaccine System,” by Nicholas Florko.
Following is an excerpt:
Kennedy’s recent changes to COVID-vaccine policy, which narrowed the approval for COVID shots so that they are recommended only for people over 65 or who have certain underlying conditions, left many Americans unsure about if and how they could get one. (Today, the ACIP also voted that every person should consult with a clinician before receiving a COVID shot.) Americans who rely on VFC [Vaccines for Children] may soon have to similarly figure out what shots they can get, and where. The confusion over COVID shots “is a small glimpse of what may happen” if the ACIP moves forward with changes to the childhood-vaccine schedule, Schuchat told me.
In the event that a vaccine is removed from the schedule, the experts I spoke with remain hopeful that some entity, such as a state health department, a community health center, or philanthropy, would step in to provide uninsured kids with free shots. But who or what, besides the federal government, could provide vaccines at the necessary scale is an open question. “It’s going to require some sort of extraordinary effort to provide that access,” Richard Hughes IV, a professorial lecturer in law at the George Washington University Law School, told me. VFC works so well not only because it provides vaccines free of charge but also because it is designed to ensure that doctors always have a supply of vaccines on hand—the CDC purchases vaccines and then provides them for free to doctors, who then dole them out to children in need.
