Dr. Levi and Vicky Pebsworth, a nurse affiliated with an anti-vaccine group, voted against recommending clesrovimab; the other five members voted yes. After some confusion, the panel also voted to include the antibody in the children’s vaccine program.

Used in very low amounts, thimerosal has been used since the 1930s to prevent contamination in multidose vaccine vials, and in the United States it is used only in multidose flu vaccine vials. The preservative has long been a hot-button topic of anti-vaccine groups, including one led in the past by Kennedy.

ATLANTA (AP) — U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s new vaccine advisory committee backed another option to protect infants against a dangerous virus — before turning to questions about fall flu vaccines and a preservative in a small fraction of them that some antivaccine groups have falsely tied to autism.