RFK Jr ousts all members of CDC vaccine advisory panel

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

United States Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr said today he was removing the entire membership of the influential vaccine advisory panel.

It makes immunisation recommendations to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

In an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, Kennedy said he was making the unprecedented move to retire the 17 independent vaccine experts from the Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices because the panel has been “plagued with persistent conflicts of interest” and has become a “rubber stamp” for vaccines.

Kennedy has long criticised the panel, which makes vaccine recommendations to the CDC director.

When the recommendations are approved by the director, they become official public health guidance and are required to be covered by insurance plans at no cost to consumers.

Members of the panel meet in public several times a year and disclose conflicts of interest at the start of every meeting.

Kennedy’s move appears to violate a pledge he made to Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican of Louisiana, during his confirmation process that he would “maintain the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices without changes”, according to a Senate floor speech Cassidy gave explaining his vote to confirm Kennedy in February.

Cassidy, a physician and chairman of the Senate health committee, openly wrestled with whether to support Kennedy’s nomination out of concern about his views on vaccines. A spokesman for the committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last month, Kennedy took the unprecedented step of bypassing the panel and the CDC by saying his agency would no longer recommend the coronavirus vaccine for healthy pregnant women and healthy children - overturning existing guidance for everyone 6 months old and older to receive an annual coronavirus vaccine.

His announcement in a video posted on X blindsided the CDC, which learned about the decision by seeing it on social media, current and former federal health officials have said.

As Health Secretary, Kennedy has the authority over appointments to the advisory group.

Kennedy, the founder of an anti-vaccine group, has a long history of disparaging vaccines, which has alarmed public health experts as he is now able to reshape the nation’s vaccination policy.

“You have to worry that he may be bringing in people who are like-minded to him,” said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Centre at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a former member of the panel.

“He just makes these decisions by himself, without any input from advisory committees or experts or professional societies. He just is running roughshod over public health.”