The Immunization Safety Office Scientific Agenda

In response to a 2005 Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommendation* and to guide the Immunization Safety Office's (ISO's) scientific direction, ISO is developing a five-year ISO Scientific Agenda to guide its vaccine safety science in three areas:

• Research


• Surveillance (monitoring)


• Guidance for healthcare providers

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.

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. The comments submitted are available at http://www.hhs.gov/nvpo/nvac/documents/ASPAPublicCommentsFeb2.pdf.

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 conferencing was available.

NVAC recommendations will be finalized and forwarded to the Immunization Safety Office to guide it in structuring its five-year scientific agenda. Additional information is available at: http://www.hhs.gov/nvpo/nvac/PublicEngagement.html.

Visit the ISO web page for important vaccine safety information at http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety.

Draft ISO Scientific Agenda background document in Microsoft^® Word format (289KB) or PDF format (103KB).

Draft recommendations for the ISO Scientific Agenda in Microsoft^® Word format (597KB) or PDF format (463KB).

Draft recommendations addendum in Microsoft^® Word format (44KB) or PDF format (40KB).

• External expert scientists: Microsoft^® Word format (362KB) or PDF format (2.4MB).
• Federal scientists: Microsoft^® Word format (172KB) or PDF format (209KB).
• Vaccine manufacturers' representatives: Microsoft^® Word format (179KB) or PDF format (238KB).

*Links to non-Federal organizations found at this site are provided solely as a service to our users. These links do not constitute an endorsement of these organizations or their programs by CDC or the Federal Government, and none should be inferred. CDC is not responsible for the content of the individual organization Web pages found at these links.