by Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. and Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. at the Defender
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,…
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