Well, folks—time to buckle up for another ACIP meeting this Thursday and Friday.

This external advisory committee shapes U.S. vaccine policy, and its decisions carry significant weight:

They influence private insurance coverage, determine what’s accessible to Medicaid patients, and drive public and clinician perceptions, access, and confusion about vaccines.

This will be the third meeting since RFK Jr. overhauled the committee, replacing long-standing members with individuals ranging from long-time vaccine skeptics to Covid-19 contrarians.

In other words, brace yourself: this week is likely to be loud with vaccine falsehoods.

I’ll be sharing a longer post with the full YLE audience tomorrow on what to expect, but I wanted to give you—a paid subscriber—a first look at a resource to help you prepare if you’re stepping into conversations.

Together with The Evidence Collective (TEC), we put together a pre-bunk that includes key background, practical communication guidance, a fallacy playbook, and a rundown of the falsehoods and rumors likely to surface around the childhood immunization schedule, Hep B, the pediatric Covid-19 vaccine–death debacle, and more.

Download the resource below!

	Prebunk+dec+acip Tec+brief 4.67MB ∙ PDF file
Download

We hope this gives you the context, tools, and framing you need to engage confidently, clearly, and authoritatively in conversations—whether you’re a clinician fielding questions, a parent navigating social media, or someone looking for clarity rather than chaos.

Love, YLE and the TEC contributors*

*Marisa Donnelly, PhD; Annicka Evans, PhD; David Higgins, MD, MPH; Katelyn Jetelina, MPH, PhD; Elisabeth Marnik, PhD; Edward Nirenberg; Jessica Steier, DrPH

Your Local Epidemiologist (YLE) is founded and operated by Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, MPH PhD—an epidemiologist, wife. YLE is a public health newsletter that reaches over 400,000 people in more than 132 countries, with one goal: to translate the ever-evolving public health science so that people are well-equipped to make evidence-based decisions. This newsletter is free to everyone, thanks to the generous support of fellow YLE community members.