Days after Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), shocked public health experts by firing all 17 members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP), he announced eight replacements, several of whom have been critical of vaccines.
Kennedy revealed on Monday that he removed the 17 sitting members of the ACIP committee, which evaluates the safety, efficacy, and clinical need of the nation’s vaccines and passes its findings on to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
In a press release on the HHS site and an editorial in the Wall Street Journal, he said all the members were appointed by the Biden administration, 13 of them in 2024. Kennedy said the appointments prevented the Trump administration from choosing a majority of the committee until 2028.
“The prior administration made a concerted effort to lock in public health ideology and limit the incoming administration’s ability to take the proper actions to restore public trust in vaccines,” said Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic who faced scrutiny during his confirmation hearings about his beliefs. Although Sen. Bill Cassidy, M.D., (R-La.) expressed concerns about Kennedy’s views during the hearing, he ultimately decided to vote in favor of his confirmation based on his follow-up conversations with Kennedy, who committed to vaccine-related concessions.
Kennedy claimed in his announcement that the panel has been plagued with persistent conflicts of interest, rubber-stamping any vaccine. He said most of the members have received funding from pharmaceutical companies, including those marketing vaccines. Kennedy said he intends to appoint new members who won’t directly work for the vaccine industry. “A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science,” he said.
Public health industry reaction
The firing of the entire panel alarmed public health experts. The American Medical Association (AMA) House of Delegates passed an emergency resolution calling for Kennedy to reverse his decision. In a statement, AMA President Bruce A. Scott, M.D., said that the action “undermines that trust and upends a transparent process that has saved countless lives. With an ongoing measles outbreak and routine child vaccination rates declining, this move will further fuel the spread of vaccine-preventable illnesses.”
Former CDC Director Tom Frieden posted on X that the 17 doctors, pediatricians, scientists, and parents on the board were fired based on false claims of conflicts of interest, “a dangerous and unprecedented action that makes our families less safe.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), also called the move dangerous. “For decades, Secretary Kennedy has spread lies and conspiracy theories about vaccines,” said Sanders in a statement. “Now, with Trump’s backing, he’s doubling down on misinformation that will lead to preventable illness and death. At a time when we should be strengthening trust in science and expanding access to health care, this administration is doing the exact opposite. This is a continuation of Trump and Kennedy’s dangerous war on science. It cannot stand."
New members include vaccine skeptics, critics
Despite the backlash, on Wednesday afternoon, Kennedy announced the panel’s replacements on X, naming eight members who will attend ACIP’s scheduled June 25 meeting. Agenda items include recommendation votes for adult COVID-19 vaccines, HPV vaccines, influenza vaccines, meningococcal vaccines, RSV vaccines for adults, and RSV vaccines for maternal and pediatric populations. Vaccines for children votes are scheduled for COVID-19 vaccines, HPV vaccines, influenza vaccines, and RSV vaccines.
Kennedy said the new slate includes “highly credentialed scientists, leading public health experts, and some of America’s most accomplished physicians.” All of these individuals are committed to evidence-based medicine, gold-standard science, and common sense. They have each committed to demanding definitive safety and efficacy data before making any new vaccine recommendations.”
However, several of the new members are well-known vaccine skeptics and critics of COVID-19 interventions. Chief among them: Robert Malone, M.D., a physician the New York Times once called a “COVID misinformation star” who frequently appeared on conservative programs and podcasts to question the severity of the coronavirus and the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines. He has more recently suggested that medical error was the cause of recent pediatric deaths from measles.
Kennedy described Dr. Malone as a physician-scientist and biochemist known for his early contributions to mRNA vaccine technology. He conducted foundational research in the late 1980s on lipid-mediated mRNA delivery, which laid the groundwork for later developments in mRNA-based therapeutics.
Also named to the committee is an early critic of the country’s COVID-19 response. Kennedy describes Cody Meissner, M.D., a professor of pediatrics at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, as a nationally recognized expert in pediatric infectious diseases and vaccine policy. He has served as section chief of pediatric infectious disease at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and has held advisory roles with both the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Dr. Meissner criticized the practice of forcing children to wear masks during the pandemic. He also served as a member of ACIP from 2008 to 2012. Although Kennedy said he fired the previous committee members due to conflicts of interest, during Dr. Meissner’s tenure on the panel, he made 12 conflict of interest disclosures, NPR reported.
Martin Kulldorff, M.D., Ph.D., a biostatistician and epidemiologist formerly at Harvard Medical School and a leading expert in vaccine safety and infectious disease surveillance, was one of thousands of infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists who criticized mass lockdowns in October 2020 and said he was fired from Harvard because of his views. Kennedy said he has served on the Food and Drug Administration’s Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee and the CDC’s Vaccine Safety Subgroup of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, where he contributed to national vaccine safety monitoring systems.
Another Kennedy pick, Vicky Pebsworth, OP, Ph.D., R.N., earned a doctorate in public health and nursing from the University of Michigan. Kennedy said she has worked in the health care field for more than 45 years, serving in various capacities, including critical care nurse, health care administrator, health policy analyst, and research scientist with a focus on public health policy, bioethics, and vaccine safety. NPR reports that she has served on the board of the National Vaccine Information Center, which it describes as a prominent advocacy group that warns against vaccine risks.
The other members include:
Joseph R. Hibbeln, M.D., a psychiatrist and neuroscientist with a career in clinical research, public health policy, and federal service. As former acting chief of the section on nutritional neurosciences at the National Institutes of Health, he led research on immune regulation, neurodevelopment, and mental health. His work has informed U.S. public health guidelines, particularly in maternal and child health, Kennedy said.
Retsef Levi, Ph.D., professor of operations management at the MIT Sloan School of Management and a leading expert in health care analytics, risk management, and vaccine safety. He has served as faculty director of MIT Sloan’s Food Supply Chain Analytics and Sensing Initiative and co-led the Leaders for Global Operations Program. Dr. Levi has collaborated with public health agencies to evaluate vaccine safety, including co-authoring studies on mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and their association with cardiovascular risks. Kennedy said his research has contributed to discussions on vaccine manufacturing processes, safety surveillance, and public health policy.
James Pagano, M.D., a board-certified emergency medicine physician with over 40 years of clinical experience following his residency at UCLA. Kennedy said he has worked in diverse emergency settings, from Level 1 trauma centers to small community hospitals, caring for patients across all age groups, including infants, pregnant women, and the elderly.
Michael A. Ross, M.D., is a clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at George Washington University and Virginia Commonwealth University, with a career spanning clinical medicine, research, and public health policy. Kennedy said Dr. Ross has served on the CDC’s Advisory Committee for the Prevention of Breast and Cervical Cancer, where he contributed to national strategies for cancer prevention and early detection, including those involving HPV immunization.
Reaction to the new panel
Abram Wagner of the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health, who investigates vaccination programs, told ABC News that most of the people appointed by Kennedy “don’t have the technical capacity that we would expect out of people who would have to make really complicated decisions involving interpreting complicated scientific data.”
Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of the FDA’s independent panel of vaccine advisers, agreed. He told CNBC that some of the new members are “anti-vaccine activists.”
“I think the public is not going to be getting the same quality of advice as we had before the purge,” he told the publication. “I think the people who were on the committee that just got fired had far greater expertise in the areas that you needed expertise than this group.”