Robert Kennedy Jr. fires entire U.S. vaccination board

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is firing all 17 members of the CDC's vaccine advisory committee. The committee's job is to make recommendations on the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, he explains. ABC News.

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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced on June 9 that he was firing all 17 current members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) vaccine advisory committee. He plans to replace them with new people.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) makes recommendations on the safety, effectiveness, and clinical need of vaccines.

On the subject: US No Longer Recommends COVID-19 Vaccinations for Children and Pregnant Women

“Our priority today is to restore public trust, not to advance any particular pro- or anti-vaccine agenda,” Kennedy said. “The public must have confidence that the recommendations of our public health authorities are based on unbiased science, evaluated transparently, and protected from conflicts of interest.”

In a press release, the Department of Health and Human Services said all 17 current ACIP members were appointed by the Biden administration, with 13 of those appointments coming in 2024.

Kennedy said that meant the Trump administration would have to wait until 2028 before being able to appoint a majority of the committee members.

Kennedy argues that replacing the current committee will help restore public trust.

“A complete renewal of the membership is necessary to restore public confidence in vaccine science,” Kennedy said in a statement. “The new ACIP members will be guided by public health and evidence-based medicine. The committee will no longer act as an automatic endorser of industry-driven profit-making programs.”

In a separate column published June 9 in The Wall Street Journal, Kennedy alleged that the committee suffered from conflicts of interest.

The head of the department noted that the committee had never spoken out against any vaccine, even one that was later recalled for safety reasons.

In fact, ACIP has at times recommended more restrictive use of vaccines than has been officially approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Kennedy has previously said he would not change the composition of ACIP. In February, Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican who had previously wavered on Kennedy's confirmation vote to head the Department of Health and Human Services, said Kennedy had promised him he would not make changes to ACIP.

“He has committed to working within the existing system for approving and monitoring vaccine safety and not creating parallel structures,” Cassidy told the Senate at the time. “If confirmed, he will keep the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices intact.”

After the changes were announced on June 9, Cassidy wrote to X about concerns that ACIP would now be “filled with people who don’t know anything about vaccines.” He said he would continue to communicate with Kennedy to ensure that didn’t happen.

Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of the FDA's independent vaccine advisory committee, told ABC News he considered the decision extremely dangerous.

"He [Kennedy] has no example of any of these committees' votes having harmed children," Offit said. "In fact, the decisions of this committee over the last 25 years have resulted in fewer children getting sick and dying. ACIP members should be given awards, not fired."

Many leading medical organizations also condemned the move.

“For generations, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has been the nation’s authoritative source of evidence-based recommendations on the use of vaccines to prevent and control disease… Today’s decision to remove 17 current ACIP members undermines that trust and destroys a transparent process that has saved countless lives,” said American Medical Association President Bruce A. Scott, MD. “With the measles outbreak continuing and routine childhood vaccination rates declining, this move will only increase the spread of vaccine-preventable diseases.”

Former CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen said she is “deeply concerned for families struggling to protect the health of their loved ones.” “Department Director Kennedy’s unprecedented actions sow confusion and undermine trust in the transparent public health processes that protect Americans,” said Cohen, who led the CDC under the Biden administration.

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Dr. Richard Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former acting CDC director in the Obama administration, insists Kennedy's actions "should finally dispel any doubt that he intends to push his personal anti-vaccine agenda on Americans."

Two weeks ago, Kennedy announced in a video message on X that the COVID-19 vaccine would be removed from the CDC's vaccination schedule for "healthy children and pregnant women."

Last week, a CDC official who led one of the ACIP sections announced her resignation following Kennedy's announcement of changes to COVID-19 vaccine recommendations.

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