Alert: RFK Jr. entirely vacates CDC's expert vaccine panel.
Duly elected members learned of terminations by reading the news.
We have some important news regarding the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee. I was able to speak to one of the sacked vaccine experts and another former committee member. I’d characterize their reactions as confused and appalled, respectively.
Let’s get to it. Thanks for supporting Inside Medicine.
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the sudden “retiring” of all 17 current members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the expert body that votes on vaccine recommendations. The move came not by way of the usual process and did not appear in the Federal Register, but, rather, in a Commentary published in the Wall Street Journal on Monday afternoon.
ACIP votes ultimately define which vaccines private insurers are required to cover under the Affordable Care Act’s provisions on preventive care. RFK’s move makes it more likely that his unique and frequently inaccurate views on vaccines will become national policy.
One of the terminated ACIP members spoke to Inside Medicine and said they found out by reading the news in the Wall Street Journal. “We are all hearing via the article too,” the ACIP committee member told me. When asked what else the members had been told, the answer was “Nothing. Literally nothing but what is in the article.”
Dr. Paul Offit, a former member of ACIP, and a current member of the FDA’s vaccine advisory panel reacted strongly, saying, “RFK Junior is doing exactly what you would expect him to do. He’s a conspiracy theorist who believes everybody, but him is deeply in the pocket of the pharmaceutical industry. He is fixing a problem that doesn’t exist. Also, I really worry about who he’s going to bring in and whether we’re going to be able to trust the ACIP moving forward.”
Secretary Kennedy says he has removed all 17 active members, many of whom had terms that were not set to expire for several years. His Wall Street Journal essay imagines ACIP to be some kind a shady cabal, rather than the measured body of experts who serve specific terms following a long and careful nomination process. No evidence regarding ACIP’s current membership was offered to explain the need for this move. The only stated reason for the move, Kennedy said, was to restore trust, and that, because the committee is full, President Trump’s administration would not be able to appoint anyone new for a few years.
This is not how this is supposed to work.
Indeed, becoming an elected voting member of ACIP is not easy. The committee’s members are highly vetted experts who have applied with letters of support, gone through interviews, and undergone background checks. Selection is ultimately determined by the Department of Health and Human Services from a narrowed group of submitted names. The process can take years. ACIP members are required to post any conflicts of interest. In some cases, members recuse themselves from certain votes. The process is transparent and public.
As of Monday afternoon, parts of the ACIP website were down. Here’s a screenshot, one that you’ll recognize from the present administration’s “transparent” approach to things…
Senator Cassidy’s Secretary.
It is worth noting that Secretary Kennedy would not be Secretary Kennedy if his nomination had died in the Senate HELP committee. But based on “assurances” from RFK Jr., Senator Bill Cassidy, a physician who leads the committee, voted to move the nomination forward. Cassidy’s yea vote signaled to other key Republicans that they need not oppose the nomination. That meant that RFK Jr.’s vote in the Senate was cleared. So this all really falls on Senator Cassidy.
Contact Senator Cassidy by email or phone, at (318) 448-7176 (Louisiana), or (202) 224-5824 (DC).
It’s unclear whether Secretary Kennedy has violated the letter of his assurances to Senator Cassidy, the spirit of those assurances, or both. But Senator Bill Cassidy did post the following on Twitter/X earlier, which I also felt the need to respond to.
There will be more to come on this—including a live video I recorded earlier with my friend Dr. Katelyn Jetelina. In the meantime, I would remind you all that visibility and transparency are not the same. Yet again, Secretary Kennedy has gone public with a policy while bypassing the actual transparent steps that are expected if not required for making national health policy.
With the future of our nation’s health on the line, we deserve better.
If you have information about any of the unfolding stories we are following, please email me or find me on Signal at InsideMedicine.88.
Thank you, Dr. Faust, for sounding the alarm. Firing the entire ACIP is not reform. It is a hostile takeover of public health. RFK Jr.’s actions are reckless and dangerous. And Senator Cassidy, who once seemed genuinely concerned during the confirmation hearing, now appears complicit through his silence. This is a direct assault on scientific integrity, and it cannot be normalized.
Thank you for reminding Senator Cassidy of the consequences of his action & urging him to aggressively act to “ fix” this problem. The lack of a functioning Congress, the most important branch of government, IS the ultimate source of the problem. That said, the damage is done. So the real question is what do we do now to protect the public? Personally, I think we need to form an interim private healthcare advisory body of vetted experts to provide credible guidance to the public until some sanity is restored. I think we cannot expect this to be corrected in a timeframe that can avert significant danger to public health ( we are likely looking at years). Don’t we have a duty here whether it is supported by government or not? This is very dangerous. We need to focus on solutions —— both long term definitive solutions & interim steps outside of government control.