The new vaccine committee appointed by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took minimal action in its first meeting.
The seven members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) met on June 25 and 26 at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.
The committee deliberated mRNA vaccine technology, voted to recommend Merck’s recently developed anti-RSV monoclonal antibody, and agreed to order the removal of thimerosal from flu vaccines. A link to a recording of the meeting has been posted on YouTube for those who missed the livestream.
The meeting concluded with a joint statement in which the members said they were committed to “unbiased scientific thinking” and understood their role in the government. “Our votes are recommendations, but we know that some may perceive them as mandates, so we take this responsibility very seriously,” the committee stated.
Political Attacks
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) broke tradition by boycotting the meeting, and the organization announced it will publish its own vaccine guidelines. Ousted panel member, Paul Offit, M.D., a pediatrician, said he, too, would publish vaccine guidelines, calling Kennedy an “antivaccine activist who is interested in making vaccines less available, less affordable, and more feared.”
On June 9, Kennedy had removed all 17 members of the panel appointed by the Biden administration and replaced them with eight candidates. Michael Ross withdrew his nomination, leaving seven members on the panel.
Other than replacing the ACIP panel, Kennedy has taken little action on vaccines thus far. On May 27, Kennedy announced the government will no longer recommend COVID-19 shots for healthy children and pregnant women.
Industry Ties
In a June 9 press release, Kennedy said a “clean sweep” of the ACIP was overdue. ACIP members have struggled to break ties with the drug industry, leading the committee to function as a “rubber stamp for industry profit-taking agendas,” said Kennedy.
Chartered in 1964 to “provide expert panel advice” to the CDC and the HHS Secretary, the ACIP has faced little scrutiny over the years. The House of Representatives in 2000 found members overwhelmingly ignored conflict-of-interest rules and acted in their financial interest when determining product safety. Nine years later, a report by the HHS inspector-general yielded similar results.
“The problem isn’t necessarily that ACIP members are corrupt—they most likely aim to serve the public interest as they understand it,” wrote Jeff Childers, an attorney and vaccine critic, in his Coffee and COVID Substack. “The problem is their immersion in a system of industry-aligned incentives and paradigms that enforce a narrow pro-industry orthodoxy.”
‘Serious People’
Kennedy appointed people well-acquainted with the drug industry and its political ties and who have been critical of federal vaccine policy.
Chair Martin Kulldorf co-wrote the Great Barrington Declaration, which criticized the COVID-19 lockdowns. Robert Malone holds one of the earliest patents of mRNA technology. Retsef Levi is a researcher at MIT. Other panel members include Cody Meissner, a pediatrics professor at Tufts University, Vicky Pebsworth, Abram Wagner, and James Pagano.
“Some of the appointees on the new ACIP are evidence-based quality people,” said Jeffrey Singer, M.D., a Cato Institute senior fellow. “Cody Meissner, Kulldorf, these are serious people who were unfairly denigrated because they were not touting the company line on the COVID vaccine and the pandemic,” said Singer. “There are a couple of others who have a history of skepticism over all vaccines and are anti-Pharma. The jury is still out.”
The American College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) says it welcomes the new panel. “Although vaccines have been a successful mainstay of preventative healthcare, we welcome a fresh look at their safety and effectiveness,” said Jill Simons, M.S., ACPeds executive director. “We expect the new ACIP committee members to base their vaccine recommendations on sound, science-based research and not upon anecdotal testimonies. We hope that all they do will be with transparency and honesty to the public. This will allow parents to make decisions with true informed consent and to exercise optimal care of their child/children regarding vaccines.”
‘Fear Response’
The appointees all show “scientific integrity and independent thinking,” says Chris Downey, founder of VaxCalc, a software-based tool families can use to evaluate the necessity and safety of vaccines.
“Those traits terrify the power centers behind the U.S. vaccine program,” said Downey. “The system runs on vaccine mythology. It has to, because the pediatric business model and high compliance levels depend on parents not asking hard questions. But highly intelligent, independent experts asking commonsense questions? That’s an existential threat to the system.”
The pharma industry’s influence is evident whenever parents question their children’s doctor about the vaccine schedule, says Downey.
“They don’t lean in for discussion—they kick families out of the practice,” said Downey. “It’s the same fear response playing out at the national level.”
Trust Erosion
The erosion of public trust since the prior administration has diminished the world’s opinion of American health regulators, according to Kennedy.
“Only through radical transparency and gold standard science will we earn it back,” said Kennedy in the press release.
The government has no valid reason for regulating personal health at all, says Singer.
“We’ve had a lot of mission creep in our public health agencies over the years,” said Singer. “I think libertarians and constitutional conservatives can agree that there is a role for the government to get into public health: pollutants, toxic waste, and contagious disease are all legitimate places of involvement. I don’t think that the federal government, or any government for that matter, or any public health agency, should get into personal health recommendations. They tend to become de facto mandates.
“Depending on the government for health advice is like asking a car salesman what vehicle to buy,” said Downey. “You already know what they’re going to say. If you want to see how not to make health decisions, follow government recommendations on vaccines, or diet, or just about anything.”
Ashley Bateman ([email protected]) writes from Virginia.
This article was updated on July 3, 2025, to include a comment from Jill Simons, M.D.
