What happened

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s hand-picked vaccine advisory committee Thursday voted 8-3, with one abstention, to restrict access to a childhood vaccine against chickenpox (varicella) as well as measles, mumps and rubella. But the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices delayed a planned vote on the hepatitis B vaccine.

Who said what

ACIP advised that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention no longer approve the combined MMRV shot for kids under 4 but still recommend that the chickenpox and measles, mumps and rubella vaccines be given separately. The CDC has long favored the two separate vaccinations, so the new recommendation was “unlikely to have widespread consequences,” The New York Times said. And “in a bizarre twist,” the panel voted 8-1 to ha

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