Spreeha Choudhury and Richard H. Hughes, IV, attorneys in the Health Care & Life Sciences practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, co-authored an article in The Baltimore Sun, titled “US Courts Health Disaster as It Drops the Ball on Flu Preparedness.” (Read the full version – subscription required.)
Following is an excerpt:
At a time when next season’s flu planning should be firmly underway — and with the H5N1 bird flu emerging as a mounting public health threat — the United States is setting itself back.
The experts charged with preparing us for these disease threats have been temporarily relieved from duty — upcoming meetings of the Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) have been canceled or postponed with no clear explanation. It is unclear whether future sessions will proceed at all.
On March 13, 2025, in a closed-door interagency meeting, the FDA moved forward with selecting the 2025–2026 flu vaccine strains without convening its usual VRBPAC meeting for public deliberation. Notably, the Department of Defense participated in the discussion, with its attendee Dr. Anthony Fries presenting military influenza surveillance and mid-season vaccine effectiveness data — an unusual role for the Defense Department in a process that has historically been led by civilian public health agencies like the CDC and FDA.
