Just two days after resigning from the entire U.S. Center for the US Disease Control and Prevention Vaccine Advisory Committee, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has appointed several prominent critics of the government’s COVID-19 response to that committee.
He announced the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Vaccination Practices (eight new members on ACIP) on Wednesday.
Kennedy said Monday that he will appoint a new “highly qualified” expert in time for the panel of 17 members before making recommendations on who should get the vaccine and when it is full of conflicts of interest, as well as a new “very qualified” expert in time for the panel’s June 25th meeting.
In a statement Wednesday, Kennedy said the reassembled panel would require “conclusive safety and efficacy data before creating new vaccine recommendations,” but would also review data from the current vaccine schedule.
Eight new ACIP members include Dr. Robert Malone, a biochemist who made early innovations in the field of messenger RNA, but most recently, he was a critic of the voice of the mRNA technology of the Covid-19 vaccine.
The CDC recently narrowed down recommendations for mRNA Covid-19 shots, but some supporters of Make America Healthy Movement are pushing Kennedy to go further and ban the vaccine entirely.
Another new member is Dr. Martin Kulldorff, a biostatistician and epidemiologist on herd immunity known as the October 2020 Barrington Declaration.
Both Malone and Kruldorf’s names were distributed early in the second Trump administration as potential advisors to ACIP or other panels, according to anyone familiar with the process that requested anonymity because they were not allowed to speak to CNN.
Kennedy also chose Dr. James Pagano, an emergency medical doctor who described him as a “strong advocate for evidence-based medicine,” who served on the hospital board and the medical executive committee.
Dr. Retsef Levi, MIT professor who published research on mRNA vaccines and cardiovascular events, also participated in the panel. Levi is a professor of operations management.
Several of the new members have previously worked for the Federal Health Agency, including Dr. Joseph Hibel, former deputy chief of the NIH section on nutrition neuroscience.
Dr. Cody Meissner, a professor of Dartmouth Pediatrics who also signed the Great Barrington Declaration, previously served on the vaccine and related biological products advisory committees for ACIP and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Dr. Vicki Pebworth, Pacific Regional Director of the National Association of Catholic Nurse, also served on the FDA Vaccine Committee. Pebworth questioned the safety of the vaccine, citing “serious long-term health issues” after his son’s 15-month vaccination and served on the board of the nonprofit National Vaccine Information Center, which suggests a link between vaccines and autism.
Dr. Michael Ross, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at George Washington University and Virginia Commonwealth University, previously served on the CDC’s Advisory Committee for the Prevention of Breast and Cervical Cancer. Kennedy also nodded to Ross’ statement to “continued services at the Biotechnology and Healthcare Committee.”
Private equity company Havencrest, which Ross operates, describes him on its site as a “serial CEO” who served on the boards of several biotech companies.
Founded in 1964, ACIP plays a quiet but important role in America’s vaccine policy. The panel is usually a gathering of pediatricians, immunologists, researchers and patient advocates, and is tasked with reviewing the safety and efficacy of the vaccine and voting on who should receive which vaccine. That recommendation will form patients coverage for the insurance company’s vaccine and physician recommendations.
Kennedy has pledged that federal vaccine advisor “clean sweep” will restore public confidence in health facilities and vaccines.
He claimed in several public comments this week that the panel was full of conflicts of interest and served as a “rubber stamp” for vaccine manufacturers over the years. ACIP members historically stated disclosures and conflicts of interest at the start of the meeting, and made federal submissions for stockholdings and research funds. ACIP recently published online the disputes and disclosures of its members from 2000 to 2024.
The secretary also said that some of the previous ACIP members were “last-minute appointees of the Biden administration,” and that the Trump administration could not add new members until 2028.
Biden officials appointed eight members to ACIP in the final months of his administration. Panelists usually serve for four years.
Kennedy wrote Tuesday that none of the new ACIP members are “ideological anti-vaxxers.”
“They will become highly qualified physicians and scientists who make very consequential public health decisions by applying evidence-based decisions with objectivity and common sense,” he said.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services has the authority to remove and appoint new members to the Advisory Board, but Kennedy’s full overhaul and prompt appointment of new members has earned prompt rebukes from doctors, nurses and former health authorities.
Conferences in Chicago this week, the American Medical Association has adopted a resolution sought from Kennedy to reverse its decision to remove previous ACIP members, particularly in the current climate of the US public health.
“The move will further promote spreading vaccine-preventable diseases due to the ongoing outbreak of measles and the rates of daily vaccination in children,” AMA’s Dr. Bruce Scott said in a statement.
“We took a huge step,” said Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine scientist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and an external advisor on vaccines for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. “We had that committee the type of expertise, experience and institutional memory that we benefited before the purging, and we don’t have that anymore.
“The group has two anti-vaccine activists,” Offit said. “Robert Malone, who testified before Congress that mRNA vaccines cause cancer, has Vicki Pebworth, a member of the National Vaccine Information Centre, an anti-vaccine group.”
The proposal by the new advisory board that “may mean that everything is active” existing vaccination schedules, he said. “Who knows that all the vaccines on the current schedule can do them? “These other vaccines are not tested the right way, so they’re not tested the right way, so they’re being tested the right way. Sky can imagine how bad it is.
Offitt was previously a member of ACIP and said reviews of new candidates before appointments, including conflicts of interest, usually take at least two to three months.
“We need to fill out a lot of forms and people look very careful,” he said. “One, to see if you have expertise, to see if there are excessive connections, to make sure you are completely independent of the pharmaceutical industry and completely independent of the government.
Two disjointed ACIP members noted that the application and review process took over a year and a half to two years.
The investment community following Biopharma stocks has responded with anxiety to the new slate.
“We are particularly concerned about the appointment of vaccine critics like Malone, Dr. Kruldorf and Vicki Pebworth,” said Malone, an analyst at financial company BMO Capital Markets, “contributed to the Covid-19 plot and the Vaccine Mandatic.” The National Vaccine Information Center has been “widely criticized for spreading misinformation about vaccines.”
However, Seigerman added, “While we are wary of the appointment of opposition to known vaccines, such voices do not seem to control the committee.”
He noted that the biggest fallout from the committee’s changes could be vaccine insurance coverage, noting that “the role of ACIP in determining the annual US vaccine schedule is usually to facilitate coverage decisions for US insurers.”