Kennedy names new members of CDC vaccine advisory panel days after removing previous advisers
Just two days after retiring the entirety of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's vaccine advisory panel, US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has appointed several prominent critics of the government's Covid-19 response to that committee.
He announced eight new members of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, on Wednesday.
Kennedy had said Monday that the previous 17-member panel that makes recommendations on who should get vaccines and when was rife with conflicts of interest and that he would appoint new 'highly credentialed' experts in time for the panel's June 25 meeting, at which the members are expected to discuss guidance for Covid-19 and HPV shots, among others.
In a statement Wednesday, Kennedy said the reassembled panel will demand 'definitive safety and efficacy data before making any new vaccine recommendations, but will also review data for the current vaccine schedule as well.'
The eight new ACIP members include Dr. Robert Malone, a biochemist who made early innovations in the field of messenger RNA but in more recent years has been a vocal critic of mRNA technology in Covid-19 vaccines.
The CDC recently narrowed its recommendations for mRNA Covid-19 shots, but some advocates in the Make America Healthy Again space have pressed Kennedy to go further and bar the vaccines entirely.
Another new member is Dr. Martin Kulldorff, a biostatistician and epidemiologist who co-authored an October 2020 strategy on herd immunity known as the Great Barrington Declaration with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, now director of the US National Institutes of Health.
Both Malone's and Kulldorff's names were circulated early in the second Trump administration as potential advisers on ACIP or other panels, according to a person familiar with the process who requested anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak with CNN.
Kennedy also chose Dr. James Pagano, an emergency medicine physician he described as a 'strong advocate for evidence-based medicine' who has served on hospital committees and medical executive boards.
Dr. Retsef Levi, an MIT professor who has published studies on mRNA vaccines and cardiovascular events, is also joining the panel. Levi is a professor of operations management.
Several of the new members have served in federal health agencies previously, including Dr. Joseph Hibbeln, a former acting chief of the NIH's section on nutritional neurosciences.
Dr. Cody Meissner, a Dartmouth professor of pediatrics who also signed the Great Barrington Declaration, has previously served on ACIP and on the US Food and Drug Administration's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.
Dr. Vicky Pebsworth, the Pacific region director of the National Association of Catholic Nurses, also served on the FDA committee and on a national panel reviewing the 2009 H1N1 swine flu vaccine.
Dr. Michael Ross, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at George Washington University and Virginia Commonwealth University, has previously served on the CDC's Advisory Committee for the Prevention of Breast and Cervical Cancer. Kennedy also nodded in his statement to Ross' 'continued service on biotech and healthcare boards.'
The private equity company Havencrest, in which Ross is an operating partner, describes him on its site as a 'serial CEO' who has served on the boards of several biotechnology companies.
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