
Secretary Of HHS Kennedy Fires Entire CDC's Vaccine Advisory Committee
Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is making good on his promise to radically reshape the vaccine policy landscape as he ousts the entire Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. In a press release issued by the Department of HHS on June 9th, Kennedy says he's doing this in order to restore the public's trust in vaccine science in America. It's unknown who Kennedy will hire to replace committee members, but it's possible they may share his skeptical views of vaccines. In turn, this could have the effect of increasing the public's vaccine hesitancy.
ACIP advises the director of the CDC on which vaccines approved by the Food and Drug Administration should be used; for example, recommending which groups of people ought to be vaccinated, at what doses and when. ACIP's guidance is not binding, though CDC almost always follows it and provides recommendations to the public on what is to be included in the United States adult and childhood immunization schedules.
Neither the Secretary of HHS nor the CDC director can unilaterally ban vaccines. But they can alter the CDC's messaging, fire and hire ACIP committee members and revise vaccination scheduling.
Moreover, the Secretary of HHS together with heads of agencies under his oversight can pursue changes in guidance that restructure regulatory pathways for vaccine development and revise recommendations to the public on who should get vaccinated.
In a major policy shift last month, Food and Drug Administration officials proposed requiring new clinical trial research with respect to the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines in healthy people under 65, including pregnant women, before issuing an updated approval for a broader population.
And we observed a preview of the new FDA approach when the agency made an unusual decision in May to limit the approval of the nation's only non-mRNA coronavirus vaccine, Novavax's nuvaxovid, for use only in adults 65 and older or those 12 to 64 who have at least one health problem that puts them at increased risk from COVID-19. And on May 31st, Moderna won approval for its latest COVID-19 vaccine with a similar set of limits.
To be indicated for a broader population, the FDA plans to require that vaccine makers conduct booster trials to demonstrate effectiveness in people under 65 or without certain risks. These trials could take a year to complete, according to a STAT report. As such, it's not something that can be accomplished prior to the autumn, even if Novavax, Pfizer, or Moderna, wished to pursue this pathway.
Changes are also occurring at CDC in terms of its messaging on vaccines. While all the standard childhood and adult vaccines are still on the website, the messaging in some instances incorporates more of an 'informed consent' approach than a recommendation. Informed consent is the principle that people should be notified of all the risks, as well as benefits, of any medical intervention they receive or any therapeutic they are prescribed.
All of the changes we're seeing shouldn't come as a surprise. Kennedy's vaccine-skeptic views are well-known. And while he told the podcaster Lex Fridman in 2023 that some vaccines 'are probably averting more problems than they're causing,' he also maintained that 'there's no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.' In March, he commissioned a large-scale study to investigate debunked theories that link autism to the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine. And, amid an outbreak of measles this year that started in Texas and spread to surrounding states and cost the lives of three people, Kennedy appeared at times to downplay its severity.
Kennedy has also been outspoken about the existing organizational framework within his department, in which he says that with respect to vaccines there are conflicts of interest. In announcing today's purge of the entire ACIP committee, Kennedy cited the pharmaceutical industry's close relationship with government agencies and ACIP that advises them. But it's unclear what Kennedy means when current ACIP members include academics, a chief medical officer of a community health center, a state public health higher-up and the owner of a family medicine practice.
Kennedy defends himself as merely wanting placebo-controlled trials prior to licensure and no more strict vaccine mandates. However, the vaccines he criticizes are typically subject to such clinical trials. Furthermore, arguably the mandates Kennedy opposes, which have been in place since the 1960s, have helped to contribute to a dramatic decline in childhood infectious diseases.
From smallpox inoculations—which began in the late 18th century and ended when the disease was eradicated in the 1970s—to mumps, rubella, tetanus, diphtheria, polio and measles immunizations, vaccinations have saved millions of lives and prevented crippling and life-threatening illnesses from occurring. To illustrate, mass vaccination programs with single or combination—measles, mumps and rubella—shots began in the 1960s and quickly suppressed the spread of measles in most developed countries. The measles vaccine is 'sterilizing,' which means it not only prevents illness, but also transmission.
The American public is already increasingly vaccine-hesitant around standard childhood immunizations. This is likely to lead to more outbreaks and preventable severe illness and death. Should Kennedy appoint like-minded vaccine skeptics to the ACIP committee, that could undermine the public's trust in vaccines even further.

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He's downplayed deaths related to one of the largest measles outbreaks in the U.S. in years. 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. Kennedy made the announcement in a social media post on Wednesday. The committee, created in 1964, makes recommendations to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC directors almost always approve those recommendations on how vaccines that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration should be used. The CDC's final recommendations are widely heeded by doctors and guide vaccination programs. The other appointees are: —Dr. James Hibbeln, who formerly headed a National Institutes of Health group focused on nutritional neurosciences and who studies how nutrition affects the brain, including the potential benefits of seafood consumption during pregnancy. —Retsef Levi, a professor of operations management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. —Dr. James Pagano, an emergency medicine physician from Los Angeles. —Dr. Michael Ross, a Virginia-based obstetrician and gynecologist. Of the eight named by Kennedy, perhaps the most experienced in vaccine policy is Meissner, an expert in pediatric infectious diseases at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, who has previously served as a member of both ACIP and the Food and Drug Administration's vaccine advisory panel. During his five-year term as an FDA adviser, the committee was repeatedly asked to review and vote on the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines that were rapidly developed to fight the pandemic. In September 2021, he joined the majority of panelists who voted against a plan from the Biden administration to offer an extra vaccine dose to all American adults. The panel instead recommended that the extra shot should be limited to seniors and those at higher risk of the disease. Ultimately, the FDA disregarded the panel's recommendation and OK'd an extra vaccine dose for all adults. In addition to serving on government panels, Meissner has helped author policy statements and vaccinations schedules for the American Academy of Pediatrics. ACIP members typically serve in staggered four-year terms, although several appointments were delayed during the Biden administration before positions were filled last year. The voting members all have scientific or clinical expertise in immunization, except for one 'consumer representative' who can bring perspective on community and social facets of vaccine programs. Kennedy, a leading voice in the anti-vaccine movement before becoming the U.S. government's top health official, has accused the committee of being too closely aligned with vaccine manufacturers and of rubber-stamping vaccines. ACIP policies require members to state past collaborations with vaccine companies and to recuse themselves from votes in which they had a conflict of interest, but Kennedy has dismissed those safeguards as weak. Most of the people who best understand vaccines are those who have researched them, which usually requires some degree of collaboration with the companies that develop and sell them, said Jason Schwartz, a Yale University health policy researcher. 'If you are to exclude any reputable, respected vaccine expert who has ever engaged even in a limited way with the vaccine industry, you're likely to have a very small pool of folks to draw from,' Schwartz said. The U.S. Senate confirmed Kennedy in February after he promised he would not change the vaccination schedule. But less than a week later, he vowed to investigate childhood vaccines that prevent measles, polio and other dangerous diseases. Kennedy has ignored some of the recommendations ACIP voted for in April, including the endorsement of a new combination shot that protects against five strains of meningococcal bacteria and the expansion of vaccinations against RSV. In late May, Kennedy disregarded the committee and announced the government would change the recommendation for children and pregnant women to get COVID-19 shots. On Monday, Kennedy ousted all 17 members of the ACIP, saying he would appoint a new group before the next scheduled meeting in late June. The agenda for that meeting has not yet been posted, but a recent federal notice said votes are expected on vaccinations against flu, COVID-19, HPV, RSV and meningococcal bacteria. A HHS spokesman did not respond to a question about whether there would be only eight ACIP members, or whether more will be named later. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.