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Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Monday that all 17 members of the federal panel responsible for advising on vaccine safety and efficacy have been dismissed, calling the action a critical step toward rebuilding trust in the nation’s health agencies.
Kennedy said the department is “retiring” the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP), a long-standing body under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which has long reviewed and recommended vaccines for children and adults.
“Today, we are taking a bold step in restoring public trust by totally reconstituting the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP),” Kennedy wrote in an op-ed published by The Wall Street Journal. “We are retiring the 17 current members of the committee, some of whom were last-minute appointees of the Biden administration.”
Kennedy argued that keeping the current panel would have prevented the Trump administration from gaining a majority of appointees until 2028. He said the committee had become a rubber stamp for industry-backed recommendations, plagued by conflicts of interest and a lack of transparency.
He criticized the group’s closed-door meetings and referenced a 2000 government investigation that found its conflict-of-interest safeguards were virtually nonexistent.
“Committee members regularly participated in deliberations and advocated products in which they had a financial stake,” Kennedy noted.
A 2009 HHS inspector general report also found that 97 percent of financial disclosure forms submitted by ACIP members were incomplete or had omissions, with the CDC reportedly taking no significant action to address the issue.
“The public must know that unbiased science guides the recommendations from our health agencies,” Kennedy said. “This will ensure the American people receive the safest vaccines possible.”
Kennedy has recently spearheaded several significant shifts in federal vaccination policy. HHS is currently investing $500 million in a “Generation Gold Standard” initiative aimed at developing universal vaccines for multiple viruses. The CDC is also conducting new research into rising autism rates, including whether a link to childhood vaccinations exists.