U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has abruptly dismissed all 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)—the federal body that shapes America’s vaccine policy.
In a blistering op‑ed published Monday in The Wall Street Journal, RFK Jr. declared the panel “plagued with persistent conflicts of interest” and branding the current members as a shadowy cabal heavily influenced by pharmaceutical money.
He demanded “a clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science.”
It can be recalled that the ‘unsafe and ineffective’ COVID-19 vaccine was formally added to the routine immunization schedule for both children and adolescents by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday.
It is common knowledge that COVID-19 poses no threat to young children, that mRNA vaccinations against the virus are not effective or safe and that some people have even died after receiving a COVID vaccine. But the CDC and its advisory council continue to push for childhood vaccinations despite all these facts.
Back in October 2022, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which provides advice and guidance to the Director of the CDC regarding the use of vaccines for the control of vaccine-preventable diseases, voted to recommend COVID-19 to be included in the 2023 childhood immunization schedule in 15 unanimous votes.
ACIP recommended the use of COVID-19 vaccines for everyone as young as 6 months and older. The COVID-19 vaccine and other vaccines may be administered on the same day.
According to RFK Jr.:
ACIP evaluates the safety, efficacy and clinical need of the nation’s vaccines and passes its findings on to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The committee has been plagued with persistent conflicts of interest and has become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine. It has never recommended against a vaccine—even those later withdrawn for safety reasons. It has failed to scrutinize vaccine products given to babies and pregnant women. To make matters worse, the groups that inform ACIP meet behind closed doors, violating the legal and ethical principle of transparency crucial to maintaining public trust.
In 2000 the House issued the results of an investigation of ACIP and another vaccine advisory committee under the U.S. Food and Drug Administration—the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee. It found that enforcement of its conflict-of-interest rules was weak to nonexistent. Committee members regularly participated in deliberations and advocated products in which they had a financial stake. The CDC issued conflict-of-interest waivers to every committee member. Four out of eight ACIP members who voted in 1997 on guidelines for the Rotashield vaccine, subsequently withdrawn because of severe adverse events, had financial ties to pharmaceutical companies developing other rotavirus vaccines. A 2009 HHS inspector-general report echoed these findings. Few committee members completed full conflict-of-interest forms—97% of them had omissions. The CDC took no significant action to remedy the omissions.
These conflicts of interest persist. Most of ACIP’s members have received substantial funding from pharmaceutical companies, including those marketing vaccines. The problem isn’t necessarily that ACIP members are corrupt. Most likely aim to serve the public interest as they understand it. The problem is their immersion in a system of industry-aligned incentives and paradigms that enforce a narrow pro-industry orthodoxy. The new members won’t directly work for the vaccine industry. They will exercise independent judgment, refuse to serve as a rubber stamp, and foster a culture of critical inquiry—unafraid to ask hard questions.
A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science. 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.
No sooner had the news dropped than vaccine stocks took a dive. Moderna, Pfizer, BioNTech, and Novavax all saw notable declines, according to Reuters.
Now, the committee is set to reboot within just two weeks in Atlanta—without traditional vetting or the years-long process to ensure independent, expert input.
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