One day after the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced plans to restructure the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) by firing the 17 experts who currently sit on the committee, professional organizations and lawmakers are issuing statements of fear, disagreement, and deep concern for the future of vaccine use and safety in the United States.
“We are witnessing an escalating effort by the Administration to silence independent medical expertise and stoke distrust in lifesaving vaccines. Creating confusion around proven vaccines endangers families' health and contributes to the spread of preventable diseases,” said Susan Kressly, MD, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics in a statement.
The American College of Physicians (ACP) called for an about face in a statement released last night.
“Today’s announcement will seriously erode public confidence in our government’s ability to ensure the health of the American public and it will endanger the safety, welfare and lives of our patients. We call on the administration to immediately reverse course,” the ACP wrote.
In a post on X, the American Public Health Association called the move a “coup.”
Former Trump Surgeon General calls out Kennedy
Jerome Adams, MD, who served as the US Surgeon General during the first Trump administration, voiced distress about Kennedy’s move. “For decades, ACIP’s independent, evidence-based recommendations have saved countless lives by guiding vaccine policy with transparency and scientific rigor,” he wrote. “Our children and communities deserve policies grounded in science, not politics and populism.”
Kennedy said the decision was made to make a “clean sweep” and reestablish trust in public health in the country. He announced the changes in an opinion piece yesterday afternoon in the Wall Street Journal.
“ACIP's new members will prioritize public health and evidence-based medicine,” Kennedy said in a HHS statement. “The Committee will no longer function as a rubber stamp for industry profit-taking agendas.”
Kennedy had promised to not touch ACIP
Earlier this year, during his contentious Senate confirmation hearing, Kennedy promised Bill Cassidy, MD, a physician and Republican Senator from Louisiana, that he would not touch ACIP if confirmed. At the time Cassidy felt confident in Kennedy’s promise, he said, and was the deciding vote to confirm Kennedy.
On February 4, Cassidy addressed the Senate and gave a speech about why he was voting to confirm Kennedy, a lawyer with extreme anti-vaccine views.
“If confirmed, he will maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices without changes,” Cassidy said.
Yesterday Cassidy took to X to share Kennedy’s Wall Street Journal piece. “Now the fear is that the ACIP will be filled up with people who know nothing about vaccines except suspicion. I’ve just spoken with Secretary Kennedy, and I’ll continue to talk with him to ensure this is not the case,” he wrote.
Act introduced last week aimed to protect ACIP
Another physician-lawmaker, Representative Kim Schrier, MD, a Democrat from Washington, wrote on X, “Today, RFK Jr. fired all committee members, paving the way to make up his own recommendations or fill those positions with conspiracy theorists and social media influencers.”
Today, RFK Jr. fired all committee members, paving the way to make up his own recommendations or fill those positions with conspiracy theorists and social media influencers.
Schrier, a pediatrician, said doctors in her field have trusted the ACIP for 61 years to make recommendations about vaccine use and childhood vaccine schedule. Last week Schrier, with Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Rep Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), introduced the Family Vaccine Protection Act, which seeks to legally protect the current childhood vaccine schedule in the United States.
In describing the bill, Pallone wrote, “Dr. Schrier and I are introducing this legislation to keep Secretary Kennedy’s conspiracy theories out of the doctor’s office and to protect moms and their kids.”
The bill proposed the HHS Secretary to adopt the official vaccine decision as set by ACIP. If changes are made, it required Kennedy to publish the basis for the agency action, including an explanation as to how the action is supported by the best available, peer-reviewed scientific evidence.
Yesterday in a press release Pallone said, “It’s clear that Secretary Kennedy does not intend to uphold the commitments he made during Senate confirmation to not take away people’s access to vaccines. Instead, he intends to use his position to advance his dangerous pseudo-science agenda.”
HHS said ACIP will continue to have a meeting June 25 through June 27 at CDC headquarters in Atlanta. It’s unclear who will be serving on the committee at that time.
