Vaccine Safety

Archive: The Immunization Safety Office Scientific Agenda

How will the ISO Scientific Agenda be used?

The Immunization Safety Office will use the agenda to guide its research and monitoring activities for the next five years. The agenda will help ISO monitor the safety of vaccines used in the United States and conduct research to help ensure that vaccines are as safe as possible.

How is the ISO Scientific Agenda being developed?

During 2007-2008, ISO gathered input at three planned meetings with federal, academic, and vaccine manufacturer scientists to begin drafting the Scientific Agenda. To continue gathering input, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is conducting an external review process. The HHS external advisors, operating under the oversight of the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC), are looking at the agenda in depth to provide advice on the most important research that the Immunization Safety Office should focus on within the next five years.

HHS organized meetings in three cities to hear input from members of the public about ISO's Scientific Agenda. Meeting dates and locations were:

December 13, 2008–Birmingham, Alabama
January 10, 2009–Ashland, Oregon
January 17, 2009–Indianapolis, Indiana

The National Vaccine Program Office (NVPO) issued a Request for Information in the Federal Register on January 2, 2009 (Vol. 74, No. 1). Written comments received by the deadline of February 2, 2009 were summarized and provided in full to the NVAC Vaccine Safety Working Group. Please read the comments submitted [PDF - 1.43MB].

On March 16, 2009, a group of vaccine safety stakeholders met in Washington, D.C. to provide additional input to NVAC to help in guiding their scientific review of the ISO agenda. This Stakeholder Meeting was webcast and audio conference was available.

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