RFK Jr. Removes All Members of CDC Vaccine Advisory Panel

The Department of Health and Human Services dismissed all 17 members that make up one of the main committees advising the US government on vaccine safety and policy, an unprecedented move to reshape a key scientific panel. '

“A clean sweep is needed to reestablish public confidence in vaccine science,” Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Monday in an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal.

The group, known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, reviews the latest data and makes recommendations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which typically implements them. The group’s positions are influential and determine whether insurers cover shots, among other things.

Without citing evidence in his commentary, Kennedy said members had received substantial funding from pharmaceutical companies, including vaccine manufacturers. Committee members are required to declare potential conflicts of interest and recuse themselves from debates or votes on those products.

“The committee has been plagued with persistent conflicts of interest and has become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine,” Kennedy wrote.

Some committee members had no idea they had lost their positions until seeing the decision reported in the news, according to people familiar with the matter.

New Members

In a statement, HHS said the group will be replaced with new members who are currently under consideration and will “ensure that government scientific activities are informed by the most credible, reliable, and impartial scientific evidence available.”

The move drew rebukes from many public health experts.

“The claim that this will restore trust is absurd on its face,” said Dorit Reiss, a professor at UC Law San Francisco. Reiss said she believed the changes were legal, but that “it’s a blatantly political move. It’s going to further undermine trust.”

Once a relatively obscure panel, ACIP has become a political lightning rod given Kennedy’s history of criticizing vaccine safety. Kennedy had promised Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana that he would “maintain” the ACIP committee “without changes” before he was confirmed, Cassidy said in a February speech on the Senate floor after deciding to vote in favor of the nomination.

Cassidy wrote in a post on X that the fear is that the panel will be repopulated with people who view vaccines with suspicion. He declined to comment further.

In another unprecedented step last month, Kennedy unilaterally changed the federal recommendations for Covid vaccines to say the shots would no longer be recommended for healthy children and pregnant women. Kennedy’s move leapfrogged an ACIP meeting on the topic planned for later this month at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta.

The panel is expected to vote on whether to recommend Merck & Co.’s recently approved preventive drug for RSV during the June meeting. It’s also scheduled to vote on vaccines for Covid, HPV, influenza and meningococcal disease, according to a post in the Federal Register. Merck didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment, while vaccine maker Moderna Inc. declined to comment.

Shares of Moderna fell 1.2% in extended New York trading, while Merck and Pfizer Inc. were down less than 1%.

Vaccine Policy

The committee has played an influential role in vaccine policy since it was first established in 1964. Dismissing all of its members undermines trust, upends a transparent process and will further fuel the spread of vaccine-preventable illness, said American Medical Association President Bruce Scott in a statement.

Kennedy is “trying to fix a system that isn’t broken,” said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and one of the developers of a rotavirus vaccine. He fears Kennedy will reconstitute the panel with “like-minded individuals who have an anti-vaccine bent.”

--------

Watch Bloomberg Radio LIVE on YouTube

Weekdays 7am-6pm ET

Follow us on X

Subscribe to our Podcasts:

Bloomberg Daybreak

Bloomberg Surveillance

Bloomberg Intelligence

Balance of Power

Bloomberg Businessweek

Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app:

Apple CarPlay

Android Auto

Visit our YouTube channels:

Bloomberg Podcasts

Bloomberg Television

Bloomberg Originals