FDA Abruptly Halts Progress on Next Season's Flu Shots

Mar. 15, 2025

Stock image of flu shots being offered at a local pharmacy.Photo:Getty

Getty

TheU.S. Centers for Disease Controlsays VRBPAC “makes the final decision about which vaccine viruses to include in the composition of domestic flu vaccines,” using research on which flu strains are “most likely to spread and cause illness.”

Stock image of someone getting a flu shot.Getty

Formulating the vaccines takes time, committee member Dr. Paul Offit of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told theNYT. “It’s a six-month production cycle. So one can only assume that we’re not picking flu strains this year.”

The reason for the cancellation was not given.

The news has sparked concern about the fate and effectiveness of the upcoming vaccines, givenHealth SecretaryRobert F. Kennedy Jr.controversial statements criticizing vaccines, likeningvaccine schedules to “Hitler’s Germany.”

As of Jan. 31, theFDA’s websitepoints out that “everyflu seasonis different, and the substantial health impacts can vary widely from season to season, with some flu seasons being worse than others … The vaccine typically changes each year and contains the three flu virus strains that are expected to circulate and cause illness in the U.S. during the upcoming flu season.”

Stock image of a girl sick with the flu.Getty

This year, “The FDA will make public its recommendations to manufacturers in time for updated vaccines to be available for the 2025-2026 influenza season,” spokesperson Andrew Nixon said in a statement toCBS News. However, a former health official told the outlet that it would be unprecedented to do so without the recommendation of the committee.

Last year’s meeting took place onMarch 5.

“Because the vaccine is grownin eggs, for the most part, it requires six months to produce,” Offit told CBS News. “So March is six months before September, which is when these vaccines roll out."

The flu generally infects the “nose, throat and lungs,” theMayo Clinicsays, adding that the vaccine can lower your chances of developing severe complications from the virus.

Those complications can be deadly,Verywell Healthexplains: It can cause sepsis, cardiac complications like myocarditis (inflammation of the heart), encephalitis (inflammation of the brain), escalate to pneumonia — or cause multi-organ failure.

The CDC reported amilestone pediatric flu deathsfor the 2023-2024 flu season. The agency’s annual estimates for all members of the population are up to52,000 flu deaths a year.

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source: people.com