Healthcare Leaders Protest RFK Jr.’s Firing of CDC Vaccine Panel
On Monday, June 9, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took an unprecedented action, firing all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to the consternation of the healthcare community, and in contravention of a promise that he had made to Senate Republicans who had supported his nomination as HHS Secretary over the unified opposition to that nomination, during his confirmation hearings at the end of January.
As the New York Times’s Apporva Mandavilli wrote on Monday afternoon, “Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. health secretary, on Monday fired all 17 members of the advisory committee on immunization to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, saying that the move would restore the public’s trust in vaccines. About two-thirds of the panel had been appointed in the last year of the Biden administration, Mr. Kennedy pointed out in announcing his decision in an opinion column for The Wall Street Journal. The C.D.C.’s vaccine advisers wield enormous influence. They carefully review data on vaccines, debate the evidence and vote on who should get the shots and when. Insurance companies and government programs like Medicaid are required to cover the vaccines recommended by the panel. The committee was supposed to meet June 25 to 27. It’s unclear when the new members will be announced, but the meeting will proceed as planned, according to a statement posted by the Department of Health and Human Services,” Mandavilli wrote.
“This is the latest in a series of moves that Mr. Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic, has made to dismantle decades of policy standards for immunizations. An advisory panel more closely aligned with Mr. Kennedy’s views has the potential to significantly alter — or even drop — the recommendations for immunizations to Americans, including childhood vaccinations,” she noted. “The decision directly contradicts a promise Mr. Kennedy made to Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, during his confirmation hearings, when he said he would not alter the panel, called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.” And Senator Cassidy posted on X that, “Of course, now the fear is that the ACIP will be filled up with people who know nothing about vaccines except suspicion.”
On Monday evening, POLITICO’s Sophie Gardner and Lauren Gardner noted that “ACIP votes on updates to the CDC’s vaccine schedule. The CDC director has the power to overrule those recommendations but rarely does. Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, will now be able to select replacements for all members, who usually serve four-year terms.
The committee, which is scheduled to meet from June 25-27 to consider several recommendations, will still meet then, but with new members, an HHS spokesperson told POLITICO. Kennedy’s decision marks one of his most aggressive moves to date to overhaul how the government makes decisions about vaccines. He cited ‘putting the restoration of public trust above any pro- or anti-vaccine agenda.’ The decision also seemed to buck promises that he made to Sen. Bill Cassidy, chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, to win confirmation as HHS secretary. Kennedy told Cassidy that he would “maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices without changes,” the Louisiana Republican said before voting to confirm.”
Gardner and Gardner noted that “Cassidy pushed back on the decision, writing on X: “Of course, now the fear is that the ACIP will be filled up with people who know nothing about vaccines except suspicion. I’ve just spoken with Secretary Kennedy, and I’ll continue to talk with him to ensure this is not the case.” Cassidy told reporters at the Capitol that he spoke with Kennedy twice on Monday, and that the assurance he’d won from the now-secretary to win his confirmation vote concerned ACIP process rather than membership. The HHS spokesperson said the department made “standard congressional notifications” about the decision to fire the board members. Even so, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a member of the HELP Committee and Appropriations chair, was taken by surprise when asked about the move. “I did not know that had happened. It must have been very recent. I don’t know who serves on those committees but it seems to be excessive to ask for everybody’s resignations,” Collins told reporters. POLITICO first reported in February that Kennedy was considering replacing some of the panel’s members with his own selections.”
And, the POLITICO reporters reported, “Public health experts were swift to express their concerns. ‘This is absolutely unprecedented. RFK Jr. has many levers at his disposal to influence vaccine policy in the U.S., each with varying degrees of impact. But this move is a red-alert, level 4 alarm,’ said Katelyn Jetelina, an epidemiologist who’s consulted for the CDC. Dr. Paul Offit, former ACIP member and director of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia’s Vaccine Education Center, said the panel’s recommendations have yielded significant public health wins — such as nearly eliminating or substantially decreasing hospitalizations of babies with illnesses caused by rotavirus and respiratory syncytial virus. ‘Can we trust an ACIP of people that RFK Jr. deems adequate to make decisions?’ said Offit, who currently serves on the FDA’s external vaccine panel. ‘The end result of all of this is chaos and distrust.’”
Meanwhile, CNN’s Sarah Owermohle and Meg Tirrell wrote on Monday evening that “ACIP members are not political appointees. However Kennedy, a longtime critic of federal vaccine policy and vaccine safety, argued that the current group is rife with conflicts of interest. ACIP had recently published details on conflicts and disclosures for its members from 2000 through 2024. Kennedy also said ACIP not been transparent in its vaccine recommendations. The committee recently considered narrowing the recommendations for Covid-19 vaccinations among children. Kennedy announced last week that the vaccine schedule was updated — without ACIP’s input. One just-dismissed ACIP member told CNN they did not receive a termination notice until after Kennedy’s op-ed published,” they reported, quoting that member as stating that “I’ve never seen anything this damaging to public health happen in my lifetime. I’m shocked. It’s pretty brazen. This will fundamentally destabilize vaccination in America,” adding that ACIP “has the most rigorous conflict of interest policy of any organization that I know of. Kennedy knows better,” the adviser told them.
Secretary explains move in WSJ op-ed
Kennedy explained his move in an op-ed published online on Monday afternoon in the Wall Street Journal. In the op-ed, he wrote that “Vaccines have become a divisive issue in American politics, but there is one thing all parties can agree on: The U.S. faces a crisis of public trust. Whether toward health agencies, pharmaceutical companies or vaccines themselves, public confidence is waning. Some would try to explain this away by blaming misinformation or antiscience attitudes. To do so, however, ignores a history of conflicts of interest, persecution of dissidents, a lack of curiosity, and skewed science that has plagued the vaccine regulatory apparatus for decades.” He wrote that “We are retiring the 17 current members of the committee, some of whom were last-minute appointees of the Biden 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 asserted—contrary to experts’ understanding of the situation, that “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.”
Association leaders make statements of protest
Kennedy’s unprecedented move was met with a wall of protest from the leaders of relevant nationwide healthcare associations. On Monday, the leaders of the Infectious Diseases Society of America released a statement denouncing the move. Tina Tan, M.D., IDSA’s president, said that “Secretary Kennedy’s allegations about the integrity of CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices are completely unfounded and will have a significant negative impact on Americans of all ages. Scientific recommendations about infectious diseases and vaccines that the public can trust require established experts to make them. ACIP is a highly qualified group of experts that has always operated with transparency and a commitment to protecting the public’s health. Unilaterally removing an entire panel of experts is reckless, shortsighted and severely harmful,” Dr. Tan stated.
The American Medical Association released a statement attributed to Bruce A. Scott, M.D., the association’s president, denouncing the move. Dr. Scott said, “For generations, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) has been a trusted national source of science- and data-driven advice and guidance on the use of vaccines to prevent and control disease. Physicians, parents, community leaders and public health officials rely on them for clinical guidance, public health information, and knowledge. Today’s action to remove the 17 sitting members of ACIP 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.”
And Susan Kressly, M.D., president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said in statement posted to that association’s website on Monday, that “The American Academy of Pediatrics is deeply troubled and alarmed by Secretary Kennedy’s mass firing of all 17 experts on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. This unprecedented action, against the backdrop of contradictory announcements from the Administration in recent days about vaccines, will cause even more confusion and uncertainty for families. We are witnessing an escalating effort by the Administration to silence independent medical expertise and stoke distrust in lifesaving vaccines. Creating confusion around proven vaccines endangers families' health and contributes to the spread of preventable diseases. This move undermines the trust pediatricians have built over decades with our patients and leaves us without critical scientific expertise we rely on,” Dr. Kressly said, adding that “Children and families must be able to access the immunizations they need to stay healthy. Our vaccine infrastructure must include this critical step of nonpartisan, expert review and discussion of the science and clinical recommendations for individual vaccines. Families and children will be the ones to pay the price for this decision.”
