The health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has said he won’t take away anyone’s vaccines. “But this flies in the face of what Americans are experiencing on the ground,” Dr. Danielle Ofri writes in a new guest essay. When the Food and Drug Administration narrowed its approval of updated Covid vaccines last month, access suddenly became patchwork across the country. And yet, the real test of Kennedy’s promise may come this week, as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee — made up of Kennedy’s handpicked advisers — meets to discuss the Covid vaccines, the hepatitis B vaccine and the combined measles, mumps, rubella, varicella (M.M.R.V.) vaccine. The committee meeting may seem like bureaucratic inside baseball, but it could have a big impact: As many as 600 statutes and regulations nationwide reference the committee’s recommendations, including policies about whether insurance companies are required to cover the cost of the vaccines. “I suspect Mr. Kennedy would be happy to ban many vaccines outright, but that probably wouldn’t go over well with the overwhelming majority of Americans who support vaccinations for preventable diseases. So he’s tackling the vaccine infrastructure, instead,” Ofri writes. Her essay explains what’s at stake, and Opinion writers will be following the results of the meeting closely. Here’s what we’re focusing on today:
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