A federal judge last month questioned the legitimacy of the panel and overturned its recent work. A notice suggests that it may be revived on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s terms. The Health Department is quietly laying the groundwork to revive a vaccine advisory committee whose membership and decisions were frozen last month by a federal judge.
A document renewing the committee’s charter for the next two years, and scheduled to be published on Monday in the Federal Register, enshrines changes that would allow Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to nominate members of his choice.
If Mr. Kennedy resurrects the committee, which rescinded recommendations for several childhood shots, he will be doing so even as the White House has indicated that it wants to tamp down talk of vaccines before the midterms.
The move would enable Mr. Kennedy to restore at least some of the changes he had made to vaccine recommendations over the past year before the judge halted them. The charter’s renewal appears to be a response to a petition last week by Aaron Siri, a lawyer who for years joined with Mr. Kennedy in court battles over vaccine safety.