WASHINGTON — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday adopted recommendations from his newly remade vaccine advisory committee to remove a mercury-based preservative, thimerosal, from all U.S. flu vaccines.

Kennedy adopted the recommendations in the absence of a Senate-confirmed director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee advanced the nomination of Susan Monarez to lead the agency earlier this month, but she has yet to receive a vote in the full chamber.

“We’re encouraging the CDC director to be appointed quickly because we need a CDC director who knows science, who is reviewing the (vaccine advisory board) recommendations,” HELP Chair Bill Cassidy, R-La., said Wednesday when asked if thimerosal is what the agency’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices should be focusing on.

Vaccine makers removed thimerosal from roughly 95 percent of flu vaccinations in 1999 following unfounded claims about mercury that eroded some public trust in immunizations. The ingredient is a preservative used in some multi-dose batches of vaccines sent to rural care centers.

Vaccine skeptics have promoted the idea that thimerosal was linked to autism, but no scientific studies have confirmed the connection. Both the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics say that thimerosal is safe and has no connection to autism. The amount of mercury in vials is about equal to that in a 3-ounce can of tuna, the FDA says, and health experts have noted that the form is ethylmercury, which is excreted more quickly from the body than methylmercury, which is considered more hazardous.

Autism rates actually rose after the ingredient was removed from childhood vaccines, according to studies.

Kennedy has made eliminating autism a main focus of his tenure at HHS and has promised to eliminate “environmental causes” of the disease.

“Injecting any amount of mercury into children when safe, mercury-free alternatives exist defies common sense and public health responsibility. Today, we put safety first,” Kennedy said in a statement.

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