The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) vaccine advisory group has long had a work group in place to review the latest COVID-19 vaccine science, including weighing the risks and benefits, but a newly constituted group will launch a sweeping new review of the vaccines led by a member who has opposed COVID vaccines.
The Brownstone Institute on August 22 reported that Retsef Levi, PhD, one of seven members appointed to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) by US Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has been appointed to lead the COVID vaccine review. On August 20, the CDC posted updated terms of reference for the COVID vaccine work group, which is lengthy. Some of the topics include impacts from repeated boosting and mapping policies in other countries.
Levi does not have a biomedical degree or clinical medicine experience. He has a doctorate in operations research and is a professor of operations management at MIT Sloan School of Management. On social media, Levi has called mRNA vaccines dangerous and said they should be removed from the market.
Scaled-back involvement of CDC staff
Levi told the Brownstone Institute that the work group hasn’t been fully formed yet but will include fellow ACIP members Robert Malone, MD, and James Pagano, MD. Malone is a vaccinologist and scientist who was involved in early mRNA vaccine research and an outspoken critic of mRNA COVID vaccines. Pagano is a retired emergency medicine physician.
The new terms of reference said CDC staff will not serve as members of the work group but may provide administrative support or technical support as needed and that work group leadership and others will ensure that there is no undue influence from the CDC or any special-interest group.
News of the shift in the COVID vaccine work group is the latest in efforts to steer ACIP toward taking on topics pushed forward by anti-vaccine groups.
At the first meeting of the newly appointed group in June, the leaders of the group signaled there will be changes to the ACIP work groups and that two more will be added: one on the cumulative effect of vaccines on the recommended CDC vaccine schedule for children and adolescents and the other to have another look at vaccines that have been on the market for more than 7 years, such as the measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella (MMRV) vaccine in children younger than 5 years.
A month later, the HHS announced that ACIP’s nonvoting liaison groups from medical and public health organizations are barred from participating in ACIP work groups, saying that they are expected to be biased, based on their constituencies. Groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have often assisted with efficacy and safety reviews, along with risk-benefit analyses.
Concerns about more data misrepresentation under Kennedy
Some experts are casting doubt on whether the new COVID vaccine review will be rigorous and sound. In making unilateral vaccine recommendations and changes to vaccine recommendations, Kennedy and his surrogates have cherry-picked and misrepresented data to fit their anti-vaccine narratives.
Jake Scott, MD, an infectious disease physician and clinical associate professor at Stanford University who has published responses to Kennedy’s critiques on vaccines, including claims that led the HHS to cancel 22 mRNA vaccine projects, told the New York Times, “I'm concerned that it won't be rigorous science, that it's going to be more statistical manipulation.”
Scott is also involved with the Vaccine Integrity Project at the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), publisher of CIDRAP News.
HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon told the Times that though individual group members may have initial personal views, “the task force's work will be guided by data, transparency, open-mindedness and open deliberation—not by any single opinion.”
