RFK Jr.’s New Vaccine Panel Choices Stir Controversy, Protest
In the wake of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s unprecedented firing on June 9 of all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to the consternation of the healthcare community, Secretary Kennedy’s next move, announcing on Wednesday, June 11 eight new members of ACIP, has drawn fire from across the healthcare community.
As the Associated Press’s Mike Stobbe wrote on Thursday, “U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday named eight new vaccine policy advisers to replace the panel that he abruptly dismissed earlier this week. They include a scientist who researched mRNA vaccine technology and became a conservative darling for his criticisms of COVID-19 vaccines, a leading critic of pandemic-era lockdowns, and a professor of operations management.”
Stobbe reported that “The new appointees include Vicky Pebsworth, a regional director for the National Association of Catholic Nurses. She has been listed as a board member and volunteer director for the National Vaccine Information Center, a group that is widely considered to be a leading source of vaccine misinformation. Another is Dr. Robert Malone, the former mRNA researcher who emerged as a close adviser to Kennedy during the measles outbreak. Malone, who runs a wellness institute and a popular blog, rose to prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic as he relayed conspiracy theories around the outbreak and the vaccines that followed. He has appeared on podcasts and other conservative news outlets where he’s promoted unproven and alternative treatments for measles and COVID-19. He has claimed that millions of Americans were hypnotized into taking the COVID-19 shots and has suggested that those vaccines cause a form of AIDS. He’s downplayed deaths related to one of the largest measles outbreaks in the U.S. in years. Malone told The Associated Press he will do his best ‘to serve with unbiased objectivity and rigor.’”
And, Stobbe wrote, “Other appointees include Dr. Martin Kulldorff, a biostatistician and epidemiologist who was a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, an October 2020 letter maintaining that pandemic shutdowns were causing irreparable harm. Dr. Cody Meissner, a former ACIP member, also was named.”
Meanwhile, CNN’s Sarah Owermohle and Meg Tirrell wrote on Wednesday that “Kennedy had said Monday that the previous 17-member panel that makes recommendations on who should get vaccines and when was rife with conflicts of interest and that he would appoint new ‘highly credentialed’ experts in time for the panel’s June 25 meeting, at which the members are expected to discuss guidance for Covid-19 and HPV shots, among others. In a statement Wednesday, Kennedy said the reassembled panel will demand ‘definitive safety and efficacy data before making any new vaccine recommendations’ but will review data for the current vaccine schedule, as well.”
Owermohle and Tirrell noted some of the same questions around Malone and Kulldorff that the AP’s Stobbe referenced, including that Malone is “a biochemist who made early innovations in the field of messenger RNA but in more recent years has been a vocal critic of mRNA technology in Covid-19 vaccines.” And they added that “The CDC recently narrowed its recommendations for mRNA Covid-19 shots, but some advocates in the Make America Healthy Again movement have pressed Kennedy to go further and bar the vaccines entirely.”
They noted that Kulldorff is “a biostatistician and epidemiologist who co-authored an October 2020 strategy on herd immunity known as the Great Barrington Declaration with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, now director of the US National Institutes of Health. Both Malone’s and Kulldorff’s names were circulated early in the second Trump administration as potential advisers on ACIP or other panels, according to a person familiar with the process who requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak with CNN,” they added.
Further, Owermohle and Tirrell wrote, “Kennedy also chose Dr. James Pagano, an emergency medicine physician he described as a “strong advocate for evidence-based medicine” who has served on hospital committees and medical executive boards. Dr. Retsef Levi, an MIT professor who has published studies on mRNA vaccines and cardiovascular events, is also joining the panel. Levi is a professor of operations management. Several of the new members have served in federal health agencies previously, including Dr. Joseph Hibbeln, a former acting chief of the NIH’s section on nutritional neurosciences. Dr. Cody Meissner, a Dartmouth professor of pediatrics who also signed the Great Barrington Declaration, has previously served on ACIP and on the US Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee,” they wrote.
Meanwhile, in their report on Wednesday, the Washington Post’s Lena H. Sun and Lauren Weber noted that “Malone, a controversial scientist, is an ally of Kennedy’s who was at the unveiling of the Make America Healthy Again report at the White House last month. Malone previously sued The Post, alleging defamation over the newspaper’s reporting on his advocacy against the coronavirus vaccine. The case was dismissed in 2023. The selections come after Kennedy on Monday ousted 17 independent vaccine experts who advise the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He said the vaccine committee, which he has criticized for years, has been “plagued with persistent conflicts of interest” and has become a “rubber stamp” for vaccines,” the wrote.
“The new composition of the panel signals Kennedy’s plan for U.S. vaccination policy, experts said. The committee’s decisions shape which vaccines are administered and to whom — and whether they’ll be free and covered by insurance,” Sun and Weber noted, writing that “Public health advocates raised concerns about the future of vaccination under the new committee. ‘He is appointing a group of covid contrarians,’ said Richard Pan, a pediatrician and former California state lawmaker who often sparred with anti-vaccine activists. ‘They have and will undermine trust in vaccination,’” Pan told the Post reporters.
National associations weigh in
The leaders of nationwide healthcare associations with involvement in public health issues expressed alarm. On Thursday, the American Medical Association published the statement of its president, Bobby M. Mukkamala, M.D. Dr. Mukkamala said that “The AMA is deeply concerned to learn that new members have already been selected for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) without transparency and proper vetting to ensure they have the expertise necessary to make vaccine recommendations to protect the health of Americans. We urge the Administration to reconsider the removal of the 17 ACIP members who have deep expertise in vaccines so physicians can continue to have confidence in ACIP’s recommendations, which have for decades helped them make recommendations to patients about vaccination. We will closely monitor the developments of ACIP and encourage the Administration to recommit to maintaining vaccine access for all Americans.”
And on June 9, when Secretary Kennedy fired the 17 members of ACIP, Tina Tan, M.D., president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), the premier association connected to infectious disease-related public health issues in the U.S., stated 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 concluded.
Current and former staff rally outside CDC headquarters in Atlanta
All these actions have been creating unprecedented tension and conflict, both inside and outside HHS and its component agencies . As NBC News’s Brandy Zadrozny, Aria Bendix, and Erika Edwards wrote on Tuesday, June 10, “Tuesday’s scheduled all-hands meeting at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would have been the first during the new Trump administration. Instead, after it was canceled at the last minute, dozens of current and former employees at the country’s leading public health agency rallied outside CDC headquarters in Atlanta to protest what they described as a wave of unlawful firings, the dismantling of lifesaving programs and the censorship of science. Amid the roar of cowbells and car horns, protesters held colorful signs with sharp messages, including ‘Save CDC,’ ‘RFK’s War on Kids’ and ‘Who the f--- is in charge?’ The protest was spurred by staff cuts over the past several months that gutted departments amid a senior leadership vacuum at the agency, which still has no director. Many protesters called for the appointment of a new CDC director and the resignation of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who oversees the CDC. ‘I am here today to tell you that the secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has shown himself to be a domestic health threat,” said Dr. Anna Yousaf, an infectious disease researcher at the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. ‘These attacks against scientific standards and well-established processes culminated yesterday when Secretary Kennedy announced that he is firing all of the members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP,’ Yousaf continued, eliciting ‘boos’ from the crowd.”
