Wisconsin public health experts are concerned about the flu vaccine next year after the FDA cancels the advisory meeting

Wisconsin public health experts say they are concerned about the decision of the Food & Drug Administration of the US administration of Cancel an important meeting Towards the flu next year.

The FDA informed the members of the vaccines and the Advisory Committee for related biological products that its March 13 meeting had been canceled. The Committee of Independent Experts makes a recommendation on the influenza strain to target with the flu vaccine of next season.

Ajay Sethi, Professor of Population Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the committee uses surveillance data from other parts of the word to understand what the virus in North America could look like next.

“About a six -month process ago to go from strains to start to make the vaccine and then evolve and distribute,” said Sethi. “Timing is therefore essential to make the deadline in a way to get the flu.”

Sethi said he was concerned about the fact that federal leaders canceled the meeting without offering an explanation. He is concerned that the steep cancellation said of the Trump administration’s approach in vaccines and public health.

“If something like keeping a meeting is questioned, then what else could be questioned?” He said. “We must all be aware that this decision is just random, and it is not based on a justification which, I think, is right.”

Maureen Busalacchi, chairman of the board of directors of the Wisconsin Public Health Association, said that state public health officials were also concerned about the implications to cancel the meeting, in particular after an alarming number of influenza hospitalizations in the state this winter.

“It was a particularly difficult flu season,” said Busalacchi. “I think it is really important that people are vaccinated and that we have a vaccine to use so that we can protect people, especially our children and our elderly.”

Busalacchi said his organization was troubled by the wider model to cancel public meetings and reduce federal funding from the Trump administration in the last month. She said that maintaining public health services and vaccines is essential for the health of Wisconsinites.

“Although I do not think that anyone who does not agree, we should certainly seek waste, fraud and abuse, it is also important that we do it in a thoughtful manner, so that we can make sure that we do not cut critical documents that help maintain the health of our audience,” she said.

Dr. Jon Temte, professor of UW-Madison family medicine, has sat on similar national advisory groups for centers for Disease Control and Prevention throughout his career.

Temte said that committee meetings were open to the public, creating critical transparency around federal decision -making. And he said that groups bring together professionals with a variety of views of the subject.

“We have this independence of the government, this independence of the industry, and it provides a context of people who have a lot of expertise on the subject,” said Temte.

But he said that the committees simply made a recommendation that federal officials can choose to adopt or not. He said that the FDA commissioner could still make a decision on the flu vaccine next year in the coming months.

Temte said that this process may not be worrying for the seasonal flu vaccine, but it would be worrying about its application to the development of other vaccines.

“We could decide to avoid good medical and good scientific evidence and to use all the information or a disinformation that we choose to use,” he said.