Kennedy removes all CDC vaccine panel experts

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. today retired all 17 members of an advisory committee on immunization to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, arguing that the move would restore the public’s trust in vaccines.

He made today’s announcement in an opinion column for The Wall Street Journal.

The CDC’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 are required to cover the vaccines recommended by the panel.

This is the latest in a series of moves that Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic, has made to drastically reshape policy on immunizations. A vaccine panel more closely aligned with Kennedy’s views has the potential to significantly alter the immunizations recommended to Americans, including childhood vaccinations.

Kennedy said the panel, called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, “has been plagued with persistent conflicts of interest.”

“The public must know that unbiased science guides the recommendations from our health agencies,” he said. “This will ensure the American people receive the safest vaccines possible.”

He has previously claimed that 97% of ACIP members had financial conflicts of interest. But the statistic came from a 2009 report, and a review found that 97% of the disclosure forms had errors, such as missing dates or information in the wrong section, not significant financial conflicts.

“I think RFK Jr is a conspiracy theorist, and that’s what this document is about,” said Dr. Paul Offit, who serves as an adviser to the Food and Drug Administration.

“It’s about the undue influence from Big Pharma,” Offit said. “This is a message that he has been putting out there for the last 20 years.”

In fact, ACIP members are carefully screened for major conflicts of interest, and they cannot hold stocks or serve on advisory boards or speaker bureaus affiliated with vaccine manufacturers.

On the rare occasion that members have indirect conflicts of interest — for example, if an institution at which they work receives money from a drug manufacturer — they disclose the conflict and recuse themselves from related votes.

As head of the Department of Health and Human Services, Kennedy has the authority to add or remove members of the panel. Without removing the current members, the Trump administration would not have been able to appoint a majority of new members until 2028, he wrote.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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