U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced late today that the HHS is retiring all 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) vaccine advisory committee.
Kennedy announced the move in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. “Today, we are taking a bold step in restoring public trust by totally reconstituting the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP),” he wrote.
Kennedy noted that some of the current ACIP members were appointed in the final moments of the Biden administration. “Without removing the current members, the current Trump administration would not have been able to appoint a majority of new members until 2028,” he wrote.
The ACIP committee is responsible for shaping U.S. vaccine policy by issuing recommendations that become official CDC policy once adopted by the CDC director.
ACIP is described as an independent, nonfederal expert body of professionals with clinical, scientific and public health expertise.
The committee decides which vaccines should be recommended to the public, who should take them and how often — recommendations the CDC typically rubber stamps.
However, most members have financial ties to pharmaceutical companies marketing vaccines, or have worked with public health agencies to promote controversial vaccines, including the COVID-19, RSV and HPV shots.
These problems have plagued the committee for decades. A 2000 investigation by the U.S. House of Representatives found that enforcement of conflict-of-interest rules was “weak-to-nonexistent.” A 2009 HHS inspector-general report made similar findings, Kennedy wrote.
Investigations by The Defender in 2021 and 2024 also found that most committee members had direct ties to pharmaceutical companies.
Kennedy wrote that the committee has “never recommended against a vaccine — even those later withdrawn for safety reasons. He said the committee has failed to “adequately scrutinize” vaccines for babies and pregnant women.
“A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science,” Kennedy wrote. “In the 1960s, the world sought guidance from America’s health regulators, who had a reputation for integrity, scientific impartiality and zealous defense of patient welfare. Public trust has since collapsed, but we will earn it back. “
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According to an HHS press release, 13 of the 17 sitting ACIP members were appointed in 2024. The release stated, “The prior administration made a concerted effort to lock in public health ideology and limit the incoming administration’s ability to take the proper actions to restore public trust in vaccines.”
STAT News also reported at the time that the appointments were a move by the Biden administration to stack the committee, intended to “insulate the scientific integrity of the panel from the incoming administration.”
ACIP’s next meeting is scheduled for June 25-June 27 at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, the press release said.
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