(NEW YORK) — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee is set to meet Thursday and Friday to discuss the childhood vaccine schedule, adjuvants and contaminants, and the hepatitis B vaccine.

It marks the third meeting this year of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) since Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all 17 members, replacing them with his own hand-selected picks, many of whom have expressed vaccine-skeptic views.

This is also the first meeting since the chair of the ACIP, Martin Kulldorff — a former Harvard Medical School professor — accepted a permanent role at HHS. Pediatric cardiologist and former U.S. Air Force flight surgeon Dr. Kirk Milhoan will chair the committee during the upcoming meeting.

Milhoan is a fellow with the Independent Medical Alliance, a group that has advocated for unproven treatments for COVID-19, including hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.

A draft agenda posted online indicates the ACIP will discuss and vote on recommendations around the hepatitis B vaccine on day one and discuss the childhood vaccine schedule on day two.

“I think every single thing on that agenda is concerning,” Dr. Richard Besser, resident and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and acting director of the CDC during the administration of former President Barack Obama, told ABC News. “We have an administration [that] seems hellbent on undermining people’s trust in vaccination.”

Hepatitis B vaccine

Since the new ACIP members were installed, the committee has recommended against flu vaccines containing the preservative thimerosal — despite public health experts saying there is no evidence that low doses of thimerosal in vaccines cause harm — and has narrowed existing recommendations for the combined MMRV shot that protects against measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox.

The first day of the meeting will include presentations and discussions about the hepatitis B vaccine.

The agenda also lists a scheduled vote and, although it’s not clear what will be voted on, experts believe the universal hepatitis B vaccine dose given at birth will be at issue.

The CDC currently recommends that the first dose of the three-dose hepatitis B vaccine be given to babies within 24 hours of birth. Doctors have said the universal birth dose recommendation has virtually eliminated hepatitis B among babies in the U.S.

However, earlier this year, Kulldorff questioned whether it was “wise” to administer shots “to every newborn before leaving the hospital.” Separately, Kennedy has falsely linked the hepatitis B vaccine to autism.

Some experts believe the panel will vote to either delay or remove the decades-long recommendation that newborns be vaccinated against hepatitis B.

“I am concerned that the committee is going to attempt to minimize the harm resulting from any changes to this long-standing recommendation,” Dr. Fiona Havers, a former CDC official who worked on vaccine policy and led the CDC’s tracking of hospitalizations from COVID-19 and RSV, told ABC News.

“They’re going to say that there’s no need to vaccinate babies at birth because you can screen mothers and only vaccinate babies born to patients who test positive or whose status is unknown,” she continued.

Havers said only vaccinating high-risk babies was the policy in the U.S. before the universal birth dose was implemented, but it was changed after doctors saw that babies and children continued to be infected with hepatitis B.

Additionally, babies infected with hepatitis B are at risk for chronic infection as well as liver disease, liver failure and even liver cancer.

“Babies can be infected not only by their mother if she has hepatitis B, but also by caregivers or others in the community who may not know that they have hepatitis B and any change to the routine recommendation means that we will see an increase in hepatitis B infections in infants and children,” Havers said.

She added, “Any hepatitis B infections that occur because a child wasn’t vaccinated at birth are an avoidable tragedy. We will start seeing more children living with a lifelong incurable infection that can lead to death from cirrhosis or liver cancer.”

Childhood immunization schedule

Besser said he is particularly concerned about the second day, which includes a discussion about the childhood immunization schedule.

The draft agenda is scant on details aside from topics including CDC vaccine risk monitoring evaluation discussion, vaccine schedule history, vaccine schedule considerations and a discussion of the childhood/adolescent immunization schedule

Earlier this year, the ACIP formed two new work groups, one focusing on the cumulative effects of children and adolescents receiving all recommended vaccines on the schedule and another reviewing vaccines that haven’t been examined for more than seven years.

Kennedy has suggested that children receive too many vaccine doses “to be fully compliant” and that the number of doses children receive has increased from three doses during his childhood to 92 doses today.

Doctors previously told ABC News that children actually receive about 30 vaccine doses and that the number of available, recommended immunizations has grown since the first vaccines were recommended in the late 1940s, based on evolving science and manufacturing capacity.

Besser said he has not heard safety concerns about the schedule from vaccine experts, pediatricians, those who administer vaccines or patient advocacy groups.

“There had not been concerns raised around the immunization schedule and forming a group that is going to look at [the schedule] wholesale when the going-in presumption is that it’s not safe really, really worries me,” Besser said.

The panel will also discuss vaccine “adjuvants and contaminants,” according to the draft agenda.

In a 2023 interview on The Joe Rogan Experience, Kennedy claimed aluminum adjuvants are neurotoxins and are associated with allergies, including food allergies.

The CDC says adjuvants are ingredients used in some vaccines to help boost the immune response and have been used safely in vaccines for more than 70 years.

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(NEW YORK) — One in four Americans covered by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are considering going without health insurance if their monthly premiums double next year, a new KFF poll published Thursday finds.

Open enrollment for the ACA began last month, and many Americans experienced sticker shock upon receiving their annual notices and discovering their 2026 premiums would be increasing.

At the same time, enhanced premium tax credits under the ACA, which help lower the cost of monthly premiums for about 22 million Americans, are set to expire at the end of the year, and it’s unclear if Congress will take action to extend them.

The survey, which included a nationally representative sample of 1,350 U.S. adults between ages 18 and 64 and was conducted during early to mid-November, found that many Americans are reconsidering coverage on the ACA marketplaces.

“What we’re really interested in is understanding how marketplace enrollees are thinking about their decisions around coverage in 2026 … and so we wanted to actually hear from the people that were being directly impacted by this,” Ashley Kirzinger, director of survey methodology at KFF, told ABC News.

The survey found that one in three people covered under the ACA said they would “very likely” shop for a cheaper plan if their premium payments doubled, or if they currently don’t pay a premium and would have to pay $50 a month.

Kirzinger said the finding that one in four Americans would “very likely” forego insurance if faced with the same scenario is concerning.

“One of the things that the Affordable Care Act did was decrease our uninsurance rate in this country,” she said. “And so this could have major implications and major consequences as more people become uninsured for the first time in a decade.”

“And so, it’s not that they want to go without coverage. It’s that that may be the only option available to them,” Kirzinger added.

‘We have to judge the value of our health’

One of the survey respondents, Jon, 38, from Florida, who withheld his last name due to privacy reasons, said his family needs a health insurance plan on the marketplace that has good coverage because his wife has an autoimmune disorder.

The monthly premium — which covers Jon, his wife and their two children — is currently $2,000 per month and is going up to $2,500 per month next year.

“Having health insurance is important,” he told ABC News. “We’re one accident from not being financially okay, one accident away from not being able to cover the cost of food, daily expenses.”

Jon said that his family is considering a plan next year that would lower the cost of the monthly premium but would raise their copay for doctor’s visits and emergency room visits

“Now we have to judge what the value of our health and nobody should have to judge the value of that,” he said.

The survey also found that 58% of enrollees, or six in 10 Americans, say they could not afford an annual increase of just $300 per year without significantly disrupting their household finances.

An additional 20% said they would not be able to afford a $1,000 per year increase without disrupting their finances.

If total health care costs — including premiums, deductibles and other expenses increase by $1,000 next year, about 67% of marketplace enrollees said they would likely cut down on daily household needs and 41% said they would likely skip or delay other bills, according to the survey.

‘Our most difficult monthly cost’

More than half of ACA policyholders, or 54%, said they expect the cost of their health insurance coverage next year to “increase a lot more than usual,” with one in four saying it will “increase a little more than usual,” the survey found.

Another survey respondent, Venus, 27, from Kentucky, who withheld her last name due to privacy reasons, told ABC News it’s currently difficult to pay for the cost of her and her husband’s monthly health insurance premiums.

“Mainly because we only have one income and we have to pay for two health insurances for people with two different chronic illnesses,” she said. “It’s our most difficult monthly cost to pay.”

Venus explained that because they need an insurance plan with a higher deductible, their premium is lower, but out-of-pocket costs are higher.

She and her husband pay about $200 each month, and their monthly premium is expected to increase $90, which will eat into their monthly budget.

If premiums doubled, she said she and her husband would have to consider going without insurance.

“I don’t even have the words for that,” she said, “Paying for insulin out-of-pocket, I just couldn’t imagine.”

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