Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) Meeting

The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices will convene 20-21 October 2021. ACIP typically holds three meetings each year at CDC in Atlanta, Georgia to make vaccine recommendations. Due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, ACIP meetings have been held more frequently and have been virtual only (no in-person attendance).

The agenda will include discussions on adult immunization schedule, child/adolescent immunization schedule, Ebola vaccine, hepatitis vaccines, herpes zoster vaccines, Orthopoxviruses vaccine, influenza vaccines, pneumococcal vaccine, cholera vaccine and tickborne encephalitis vaccine. Recommendation votes on adult immunization schedule, child/adolescent immunization schedule, hepatitis vaccine, herpes zoster vaccine, Orthopoxviruses vaccine, pneumococcal vaccine and Ebola vaccine are scheduled. No Vaccines for Children votes are scheduled. Agenda items are subject to change as priorities dictate. For more information on the meeting agenda visit https://www.cdc.gov/​vaccines/​acip/​meetings/​meetings-info.html.

Public Participation

Interested persons or organizations are invited to participate by submitting written views, recommendations, and data. Please note that comments received, including attachments and other supporting materials, are part of the public record and are subject to public disclosure. Comments will be posted on https://www.regulations.gov. Therefore, do not include any information in your comment or supporting materials that you consider confidential or inappropriate for public disclosure. If you include your name, contact information, or other information that identifies you in the body of your comments, that information will be on public display. CDC will review all submissions and may choose to redact, or withhold, submissions containing private or proprietary information such as Social Security numbers, medical information, inappropriate language, or duplicate/near duplicate examples of a mass-mail campaign. CDC will carefully consider all comments submitted into the docket.

Written Public Comment: The docket will be opened to receive written comments on October 1, 2021. Written comments must be received on or before October 21, 2021.

Oral Public Comment: This meeting will include time for members of the public to make an oral comment. Oral public comment will occur before any scheduled votes including all votes relevant to the ACIP’s Affordable Care Act and Vaccines for Children Program roles. Priority will be given to individuals who submit a request to make an oral public comment before the meeting according to the procedures below.

Procedure for Oral Public Comment: All persons interested in making an oral public comment at the October 20-21, 2021 ACIP meeting must submit a request at http://www.cdc.gov/​vaccines/​acip/​meetings/​no later than 11:59 p.m., EDT, October 18, 2021, according to the instructions provided.

If the number of persons requesting to speak is greater than can be reasonably accommodated during the scheduled time, CDC will conduct a lottery to determine the speakers for the scheduled public comment session. CDC staff will notify individuals regarding their request to speak by email by October 19, 2021. To accommodate the significant interest in participation in the oral public comment session of ACIP meetings, each speaker will be limited to 3 minutes, and each speaker may only speak once per meeting.

The Director, Strategic Business Initiatives Unit, Office of the Chief Operating Officer, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has been delegated the authority to sign Federal Register notices pertaining to announcements of meetings and other committee management activities, for both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

ACIP consists of 15 experts who are voting members and are responsible for making vaccine recommendations. The Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) selects these members after an application and nomination process. Fourteen of these members have expertise in vaccinology, immunology, pediatrics, internal medicine, nursing, family medicine, virology, public health, infectious diseases, or preventive medicine. One member is a consumer representative who provides perspectives on the social and community aspects of vaccination.

All of ACIP’s recommendations are posted online. Once they are reviewed and approved by the CDC Director and Department of Health and Human Services, recommendations are published in the CDC’s MMWR.

The MMWR publication represents the official CDC recommendations for immunizations of the U.S. population.