Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has fired every member of the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel in a sweeping move he says is meant to restore public trust, but critics are calling it reckless and radical.
In an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, Kennedy said the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) had been plagued by conflicts of interest, rubber-stamp behavior, and opaque decision-making for decades – and that only a “clean sweep” could fix it.
The committee has been plagued with persistent conflicts of interest and has become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine. It has never recommended against a vaccine—even those later withdrawn for safety reasons. It has failed to scrutinize vaccine products given to babies and pregnant women. To make matters worse, the groups that inform ACIP meet behind closed doors, violating the legal and ethical principle of transparency crucial to maintaining public trust. -RFK Jr.
The 17-member ACIP panel – made up of independent scientists, doctors, and public health professionals – was scheduled to meet later this month to review recommendations, including those involving COVID-19 vaccinations for children. That meeting will still go ahead, but without the current panelists, some of whom Kennedy said were ‘last-minute Biden appointees’ whose terms would have otherwise extended until 2028.
“Without removing the current members, the current Trump administration would not have been able to appoint a majority of new members until 2028,” Kennedy wrote.
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