Adds background in paragraphs 4-7

Feb 26 (Reuters) - The U.S. CDC's vaccine advisory committee will discuss and may vote on recommendations for issues including COVID-19 vaccine injuries and long COVID at its scheduled meeting on March 18 and 19, according to a notice in the Federal Register.

The notice was posted on Wednesday.

The recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices historically have been used to guide U.S. health insurance coverage, state policies on vaccines needed for schools and how physicians advise parents and patients.

The panel was reconstituted last year after U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a vaccine skeptic, fired all 17 of its members.

Kennedy has sought sweeping changes to the national vaccination policy, including dropping broad recommendations for six childhood shots and cutting mRNA-based vaccine research funding.

The committee previously voted to scrap broad recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines. When it last met in December, it voted to remove the recommendation that all newborns in the U.S. receive a hepatitis B vaccine.

Several medical organizations have filed a lawsuit challenging policies adopted under Kennedy that they say would lower vaccination rates.

Earlier this month, major U.S. medical groups asked a federal judge to block the administration from implementing new guidance that cuts the number of vaccines routinely recommended for children and to bar Kennedy's handpicked vaccine advisory panel from holding its next meeting.

(Reporting by Michael Erman; Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee)

((michael.erman@thomsonreuters.com;))