Vaccinate Your Family’s Statement on the Updated National Vaccine Advisory Committee Charter

The National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC) has historically been an advisory committee to the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) that recommends strategies to prevent infectious disease through vaccination and vaccine safety research.

Recently, HHS issued a new charter for this committee that is dangerous and aims to use a federal advisory committee to undermine the value and safety profile of vaccines. Typically, issuing a new advisory committee charter is a routine process. However, under the current Administration, agency leadership is using the process of charter renewal to redefine and reshape committees’ work and membership to focus on undermining vaccine confidence.

Specifically, for the updated NVAC charter, Vaccinate Your Family is concerned with the following:

• Instead of focusing on evidence-based strategies to prevent disease, the charter now directs the committee to consider strategies such as “off label repurposed use of existing FDA approved drugs and the use of dietary supplements.”
• Sub-committees may include members of the at-large public “who are concerned and knowledgeable about immunizations.” However, this might provide a federally sponsored platform for those without sufficient scientific expertise to manipulate data to undermine vaccine confidence.
• New sub-committees have the flexibility to consider alternative ways to prevent disease, such as how to “boost natural immunity through healthy lifestyle.”

While healthy lifestyle choices are important for personal well-being, behaviors like diet, exercise, or supplements cannot prevent dangerous infectious diseases. They are not adequate substitutes for highly regulated and well-studied vaccines that offer individual and community protection.

Vaccination is a core component of our nation’s national security and health infrastructure. Vaccinations protect our communities from the potential severe outcomes and complications of vaccine-preventable diseases. Currently, we are experiencing record-breaking measles outbreaks that started last year, resulting in over 2,200 confirmed cases in 2026 (as of July 20). In the decade from 2014-2024, the United States had less than 3,500 measles cases total. The only evidence-based solution to preventing and stopping outbreaks is increasing measles vaccination coverage rates. Healthy lifestyle and unregulated supplements will not stop this children’s health crisis.

Continued reporting confirms that the Administration is shifting away from policies that would affect immunization and vaccines. Let us be clear: the new NVAC charter is not a shift away from immunization policy, but a clear attack on vaccine confidence.