Robert Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, named new members to serve on a key panel of vaccine advisers on Wednesday after abruptly firing all 17 sitting members of the independent panel of experts, according to a post on X.
The eight new members of the advisory committee for immunization practices (ACIP) are: Joseph R Hibbeln, Martin Kulldorff, Retsef Levi, Robert W Malone, Cody Meissner, James Pagano, Vicky Pebsworth and Michael A Ross.
“All of these individuals are committed to evidence-based medicine, gold-standard science, and common sense,” Kennedy said in a post on X. The panel is part of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Kennedy said the new members are committed to demanding definitive safety and efficacy data before making any new vaccine recommendations.
The group of eight includes four who have previously worked on committees associated with either the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration, or both. Others have published papers, posted on social media, or written online biographies with anti-vaccine views, including against the mRNA vaccine technology used in some of the newest immunizations such as the Covid-19 vaccine.
Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, has alleged that the prior panel members, many of whom were appointed by former President Joe Biden, had conflicts of interest, without providing evidence of specific members’ conflicts, and said the move was necessary “to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science”.
It is unclear how new members of the panel were vetted for any potential conflicts of interest, or when the vetting process began.
Meissner and Pebsworth have served on the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, and Meissner also previously served on the ACIP. Pebsworth is now associated with the National Vaccine Information Center, a group that advocates for vaccine exemptions and educates about vaccine injury.
Kulldorff is an architect of the Great Barrington Declaration, which called for a lighter public health response to Covid-19 in October 2020, and previously served on an ACIP vaccine safety subgroup.
Malone is one of the most prominent voices opposing mRNA vaccines and Levi has in the past said mRNA vaccines can cause serious harm and death, especially among children, and called for their immediate withdrawal.
Numerous physician groups have expressed concern and suspicion over Kennedy’s unprecedented removal of all the panel’s prior members.
The American Medical Association, the nation’s largest physician group, has called for a Senate investigation into their dismissal, and sent Kennedy a letter calling for an immediate reversal of the changes.
