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Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has fired a panel of 17 medical and public health experts that advised the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccine policy, and is expected to replace them with individuals aligned with his own vaccine skepticism.
In a statement issued on Monday, the Department of Health and Human Services wrote that the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices will be restaffed with “new members currently under consideration.”
“A clean sweep is necessary to reestablish public confidence in vaccine science,” Kennedy wrote, alleging the committee — which helped coordinate the CDC’s annual flu prevention program — had been compromised by conflicts of interest. Members of the committee are required to file ethics disclosures, which are prominently displayed on its website.
“The Biden administration appointed all of the 17 sitting ACIP members. Thirteen of them were appointed in 2024. These appointments would have prevented the current administration from choosing a majority of the committee until 2028,” Kennedy added. The move comes after Kennedy promised Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) that he would make no changes to the committee in order to secure the senator’s support for his confirmation.
Earlier this year, the annual meeting of the ACIP was postponed without explanation and rescheduled for June. The months-long delay prompted concerns that the timeline for passing along recommendations to manufacturers and communicating with insurance companies would have negative repercussions to patients.
In an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal, Kennedy wrote that “the new members won’t directly work for the vaccine industry. They will exercise independent judgment, refuse to serve as a rubber stamp, and foster a culture of critical inquiry — unafraid to ask hard questions.”
Last month, Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” commission released a report that reiterated his own conspiracies about vaccines — and was riddled with citation errors and outright fake research. The so-called MAHA report alluded to disproven claims from vaccine skeptics that the vaccine schedule recommended for children in the United States is overloaded and potentially harmful.
The attack against the independent vaccine advisory board is the latest instance in which Kennedy has attempted to mold the nation’s leading public health systems around his own pseudoscientific agenda — with the health of millions of Americans in the balance.
