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73 Stan. L. Rev. Online 1 (2020-2021)

handle is hein.journals/slro73 and id is 1 raw text is: ESSAY When Public Participation Is Public Theatre: Misuse of Public Comment Opportunities by Anti-Vaccine Activists Dorit Rubinstein Reiss & Barbara S. Romzek* Introduction Public health agencies and external government advisory committees are charged with making important public policy decisions, and, in the process, providing opportunities for public input to those deliberations. Public participation in agency decisionmaking can and does serve the important goals of public input, transparency, and legitimacy. In pursuit of these goals, agencies need to always weigh the benefits of oral comment againsttheir potential harms. Agencies should enable public comment only in ways that help to achieve such goals. Recently, however, these goals have been undermined by the strategies and tactics adopted by anti- vaccine groups, who misuse public participation opportunities at meetings of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on vaccine recommendations. The past few years have seen a growing incidence of anti-vaccine activists weaponizing ACIP public comment opportunities to voice criticism that is often faulty or not germane to the issues at hand. Activists record * Dorit Rubinstein Reiss, LLB, Ph.D., is a Professor of Law and the James Edgar Hervey Chair in Litigation, University of California - Hastings College of Law. Barbara S. Romzek, Ph.D., is a Professor of Public Administration and Policy, School of Public Affairs, American University. We are grateful to Hadar Aviram, Erica DeWald, Chimene Keitner, Paul Offit, Dave Owen, Zach Price and David Takacs for their thoughtful, helpful comments on previous drafts, and to Kya Coletta, Enne Mae Guerro, and Ally Relat for excellent research assistance. All errors are, of course, our own. . In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) licenses vaccines, but the CDC recommends the schedule. The FDA is the main regulator of pharmaceutical companies, but the CDC and FDA share much of the responsibility for safety monitoring. A detailed review is beyond the scope of this Essay, but can be found in Frank DeStefano et al., Vaccine Safety, in PLOTKIN'S VACCINES 1584, 1584-86 (Stanley A. Plotkin et al. eds., 7th ed. 2018). 1

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