RFK Jr. removes all 17 members of vaccine committee for CDC
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Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday removed all 17 members of the expert panel that makes vaccine policy recommendations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, saying they'd be replaced with "new members currently under consideration."
Why it matters: Health and Human Services portrayed the unprecedented move as "restoring public trust" in vaccines, but it's expected to introduce anti-vaccine ideology to the influential panel.
- "Make no mistake: Politicizing the [Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices] as Secretary Kennedy is doing will undermine public trust under the guise of improving it," said Tom Frieden, former director of the CDC.
The big picture: ACIP is composed of appointees including vaccine and infectious disease experts from academic medical centers and other public health professionals. They evaluate vaccine data at public meetings and were due to meet later this month to discuss COVID-19 vaccines, among other topics.
- Kennedy during his confirmation process had promised senators he would keep the panel, without committing to maintaining its current makeup.
Senate health committee Chairman Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who supplied a key vote to confirm Kennedy after receiving assurances he wouldn't dismantle vaccine safety systems, acknowledged the possibility of anti-vaccine sentiment taking hold on ACIP.
- "Of course, now the fear is that the ACIP will be filled up with people who know nothing about vaccines except suspicion," Cassidy posted on X on Monday. "I've just spoken with Secretary Kennedy, and I'll continue to talk with him to ensure this is not the case."
- Pressed on whether Kennedy broke his promise, Cassidy told reporters the promise was about keeping the ACIP "process," not the committee members.
Thirteen of the panelists were appointed by the Biden administration in 2024 with terms that end in 2028.
- "A clean sweep is necessary to reestablish public confidence in vaccine science," Kennedy said in a statement.
- "ACIP's new members will prioritize public health and evidence-based medicine. The Committee will no longer function as a rubber stamp for industry profit-taking agendas."
The other side: "CDC just lost all credibility in this space," one of the current ACIP members, who requested anonymity in order to comment, told Axios.
- Among vaccines approved by the ACIP in recent years was the rotavirus vaccine, which was licensed in 2006 and virtually eliminated 70,000 hospitalizations with severe diarrhea every year, said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
- "That virus dominated my residency. We had 400 kids admitted every winter with that virus. Now it's the rare child who ever gets admitted," he said.
- Similarly, the ACIP recommended an HPV vaccine credited with slashing cervical cancer rates and more recently approved an RSV vaccine that caused hospitalizations in infants to drop, he said. "The ACIP should be given rewards, not fired," Offit said.
Public health experts and medical societies raised alarm about the future of vaccines in the U.S.
- Coupled with recent actions by HHS to limit COVID-19 vaccines, the move "circumvented the standard, transparent vaccine review process, interferes with the practice of evidence-based medicine and destabilizes a trusted source ... for helping guide decision-making for vaccines to protect the public health in our country," Jason Goldman, president of the American College of Physicians, said in a statement.
- "Unilaterally removing an entire panel of experts is reckless, shortsighted and severely harmful," Tina Tan, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, said in a statement.
Peter Sullivan contributed.
The story has been updated with comments on Kennedy vacating the vaccine board.
