The Food and Drug Administration has canceled a routine advisory meeting to discuss the makeup of the flu vaccine for this fall.

Paul Offit, a member of the advisory committee, said the March 13 session to select the targeted flu strains was called off with no new date.

“No reason given for the cancellation,” Dr. Offit, an attending physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told The Washington Times.

The decision will reverberate because Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is under the microscope for his past skepticism about vaccines.

The secretary assured senators at confirmation hearings that he wasn’t against vaccines but wanted solid data on their safety.

The Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee has advisers from the medical field who review data on shots and make recommendations to the FDA.

The panel rose to prominence during the COVID-19 crisis when its decisions on primary vaccines, boosters and reformulated shots were closely watched.

Different flu strains circulate each year, so the March meeting is used to determine the best formula for the vaccine to rein in the virus.

HHS said in a written statement, “A planned March 13 meeting of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee on the influenza vaccine strains for the 2025-26 influenza season in the northern hemisphere has been canceled. The FDA will make public its recommendations to manufacturers in time for updated vaccines to be available for the 2025-26 influenza season.”

• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.