The Secretary of Human Services and Health of the United States (HHS), Robert F. Kennedy Jr., testifies to the Senate Committee Audience on Assignments on the Budget of the Department of Health and Human Services, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, Ee. UU., May 20, 2025.
Ken cedeno | Reuters
The Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“A clean sweep is needed to restore public confidence in vaccine science,” Kennedy said in an opinion article at the Wall Street Journal on Monday.
Kennedy is eliminating all members of the Immunization Practices Advisory Committee, or ACIP, who advises the centers for disease control and prevention. The group reviews the vaccine data and makes recommendations that determine who is eligible for shots and if insurers must cover them, among other efforts.
ACIP members are independent medical and public experts who make recommendations based on a rigorous scientific review and evidence. The CDC director has to sign these recommendations to become an official policy.
It is not clear to whom Kennedy will designate the new group. In a statement, HHS said Acip will still hold a planned meeting from June 25 to 27 to make recommendations. A person familiar with the matter told CNBC that the new members will execute that meeting.
The advisor's review is Kennedy's last movement, an outstanding skeptic of the vaccine, to change and potentially undermine vaccines in the United States since he took the helm in HHS. Under Kennedy, HHS stopped recommending COVID-19 routine vaccines for healthy children and healthy pregnant women and canceled programs aimed at discovering new vaccines to prevent future pandemics, among other changes.
Kennedy said on Monday that HHS will put “the restoration of public confidence above any pro or anti -acuna agenda.”
Kennedy added that some of the members of the committee were appointed of the latest Biden administration and pointed out that, without expelling the advisors of the current group, the Trump administration could not have appointed most of the new members until 2028.
Kennedy said the panel has been “full of conflicts of persistent interest and has become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine.”
But all HHS agencies and their advice panels have had rigorous policies for conflicts of interest, and there have been no related problems for years. All members of federal vaccine advisers are already obliged to comply with regulations on revealing possible conflicts of interest.
The announcement occurs days after the expert in pediatric infectious diseases, Dr. Lakshmi Panagiotakopoulos, resigned as Co-leader of ACIP due to the belief that “it can no longer help the most vulnerable members” of the US population.
Health policies previously told CNBC that a shaking of the advisory committee could produce politicized recommendations that highlight damage instead of the benefits of the shots. These recommendations could also create greater distrust in the administration of CDC and Trump between scientists and public health experts.
ACIP has also analyzed vaccine products in the past, in contrast to what Kennedy and other Trump administration figures have argued. In certain cases, the group has recommended a more restricted use of vaccines than its approval under food and medication administration.
For example, the FDA approved the Merck HPV vaccine for use in women and men from 9 to 45 years. But CDC only recommends their use in patients from 9 to 26 years, because there is a lower public health benefit of the vaccine in those from 27 years to 45.
– Angelica Peebles de CNBC contributed to this report.
