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 Bloomberg Law, in “RFK Jr.’s Real Impact on US Vaccine Supply to Emerge as Panel Meets,” by Michelle Amponsah and Denise Lu. (Read the full version – subscription required.)
Following is an excerpt:
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s changes to US vaccine policy are putting the $24 billion US market for shots at risk, potentially making it harder for Americans to access them.
A key test of how deep and widespread the impact will be comes Wednesday, when an influential panel of vaccine advisers gathers in Atlanta for one of its three annual meetings. They will discuss a decades-old childhood vaccine that isn’t on the federal government’s schedule of shots, and the use of a rarely used preservative in flu shots that has been deemed safe by the medical community for years. …
Damage Done
Adding to the difficult environment, ACIP recommendations affect how insurance will pay out. Typically, when the panel calls for a shot, the CDC director and HHS secretary agree with that assessment. That leads to insurers fully covering the vaccines and for the federal government to provide them to families who can’t afford them through the Vaccines for Children Program.
About half of kids in the US are eligible for taxpayer-funded shots. Widespread coverage provides another financial incentive for manufacturers to make vaccines. Earlier this month, some insurers said they were monitoring changes in ACIP recommendations.
“So much of our vaccine policy nationally and at the state level, really is automatically tied to these recommendations,” said Hughes, the former Moderna executive and lawyer. “The vast majority of Americans have health insurance coverage that is dependent on these recommendations.”
