Today we’re going to continue our series of hearings on vaccine policy. For the last few months, we’ve been focusing on two important advisory committees. The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rely on these advisory committees to help them make vaccine policies that affect every child in America. We’ve looked very carefully at conflicts of interest. We’ve taken a good, hard look at whether the pharmaceutical industry has too much influence over these committees.

From the evidence we’ve found, we believe that they do. The first committee is the Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee. This committee makes recommendations on whether new vaccines should be licensed.