Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Monday that he had fired every single member of an advisory committee on vaccines in a “bold step” to help restore “public trust,” much to the delight of anti-vaxxers.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services disclosed in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal Monday that he was “retiring” 17 members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP), which reports to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on vaccine efficacy. The op-ed was followed up by an official announcement.
“Today we are prioritizing the restoration of public trust above any specific pro- or anti-vaccine agenda,” Kennedy said in an HHS press release Monday.
“The public must know that unbiased science—evaluated through a transparent process and insulated from conflicts of interest—guides the recommendations of our health agencies,” he added.
ACIP examines and deliberates over vaccine data in order to determine the efficacy, safety, and clinical need of vaccines, which they then report to the CDC.
But in his op-ed, Kennedy claimed that ACIP had been “plagued with persistent conflicts of interest,” becoming nothing more than a “rubber stamp” for vaccines.
“A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science,” he wrote.
Among those he “clean swept” out of advising on vital public health measures were Albert Shaw, a Yale professor of medicine specializing in infectious diseases among the elderly; Edwin Asturias, professor of pediatrics and infectious diseases epidemiology, at the University of Colorado; and Helen Talbot, a professor of medicine and health policy at Vanderbilt University.
The HHS secretary cited a 2009 HHS inspector-general report that showed that 97 percent of ACIP members did not fully complete a conflict-of-interest form, claiming that the “CDC took no significant action to remedy the omissions.”
Yet, NPR found that this statement was a “misrepresentation” of the almost 20-year-old report.
The forms Kennedy was referring to were marked as incomplete due to minor errors, like forgetting to initial and date certain pages, and not because of financial conflicts of interests.
Nevertheless, Kennedy persisted, noting that the real problem was not ACIP members being corrupt, but rather their “immersion in a system of industry-aligned incentives and paradigms that enforce a narrow pro-industry orthodoxy.”
“The new members won’t directly work for the vaccine industry,” Kennedy wrote. “They will exercise independent judgment, refuse to serve as a rubber stamp, and foster a culture of critical inquiry—unafraid to ask hard questions.” He named none of them.
All 17 of the now-former ACIP members were appointed by the Biden administration, Kennedy calling some of them “last-minute appointees” of the previous administration.
“Without removing the current members, the current Trump administration would not have been able to appoint a majority of new members until 2028,” he remarked.
Anti-vaxxers online praised Kennedy for the unprecedented move, prominent anti-vaxxer and doctor Sherri Tenpenny sharing on X: “This is unprecedented. And long overdue. The foundation is shaking. Keep your eyes open.”
However public health expert Dr. Neil Stone, remarked that Kennedy has always been a “lifelong committed hard core anti vaxxer.”
“It should come as no surprise that as HHS Secretary he’s pursuing his dream of tearing down the vaccine programs that has saved lives and prevented horrific infections,” Stone wrote. “He’s a villain.”
“The entire world once looked to American health regulators for guidance, inspiration, scientific impartiality, and unimpeachable integrity,” Kennedy said in the HHS press release.
“Public trust has eroded. Only through radical transparency and gold standard science, will we earn it back,” he concluded, referring to President Trump’s gold standard executive order.
This move comes days after pediatric infectious disease expert Dr. Lakshmi Panagiotakopoulos stepped down from her position as co-leader of a CDC group behind the agency’s COVID vaccine recommendations, and left the agency as a whole.
Though she did not cite any specific reason for her decision, she reportedly said in an email that her “career in public health and vaccinology started with a deep-seated desire to help the most vulnerable members of our population, and that is not something I am able to continue doing in this role.”
Four days before announcing her departure, Kennedy changed the guidelines around COVID vaccines for healthy children and pregnant women, removing them from the CDC recommended immunization schedule.
