U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is preparing to appoint as many as seven new members to an influential vaccine advisory panel to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a former federal official who said they had seen a list of names under consideration.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, is tasked with reviewing the latest science on vaccines and then making recommendations to the CDC on how they should be used. The CDC director isn’t bound by the panel’s recommendations but usually accepts them. By law, insurance plans must cover vaccines with no cost-sharing if ACIP recommends them, and many states do not allow certain health care providers to give updated COVID-19 shots or other vaccines unless or until ACIP r

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