USA: RFK Jr removes entire panel of CDC’s vaccine experts

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has removed all members of a vaccine advisory board to restore "public trust above any pro- or antivaccine agenda,” he announced in a Monday op-ed.

Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic, wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece published late Monday afternoon that America is facing a “crisis of public trust…toward health agencies, pharmaceutical companies or vaccines themselves.”

To restore what Kennedy sees as Americans' distrust in the healthcare system and ensure that they receive “the safest vaccines possible,” the secretary announced that HHS will retire all 17 members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices.

The committee is responsible for evaluating the safety, efficacy and clinical need of vaccines and then presenting its findings to the Centers for Disease Control.

“The committee has been plagued with persistent conflicts of interest and has become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine,” Kennedy claimed in the op-ed.

The current members will be replaced with new members “currently under consideration,” HHS said in a statement.

“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,” Kennedy wrote in the Journal.

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Source: The Independent, 10 June 2025