RFK Jr. fires CDC expert panel on vaccines to ‘restore trust’

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed column Monday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he would restore faith in vaccines by firing all the experts on a panel that sets vaccine recommendations.

The Health and Human Services secretary said he will fire all 17 members of the panel that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccines.

As Politico reported, “Nearly two hours after Kennedy’s column was published, members of the panel received termination notices from the CDC, according to a copy of the email seen by Politico.”

“Per the June 9, 2025 directive from the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, this email serves as a formal notice of your immediate termination as a member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP),” the article quoted the emails.

Typically, the members of that committee are appointed to four-year terms. Their termination means that they can be replaced en masse by Kennedy, who is known to be a longtime vaccine skeptic.

Kennedy said he is changing the membership of the group for the purpose of “putting the restoration of public trust above any pro- or anti-vaccine agenda.”

The move, as Deseret News has previously reported, follows a series of changes already made to the national vaccine landscape.

What is the ACIP?

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is a federal advisory group that develops the federal recommendations on vaccine use in the U.S. civil population, per CDC. The public health giant bases its adult and child immunization schedules on the recommendations made by the committee, which is often referred to simply as ACIP.

Per its charter, “The Committee shall provide advice for the control of diseases for which a vaccine is licensed in the U.S. The guidance will address use of vaccines and may include recommendations for administration of immune globulin preparations and/or antimicrobial therapy shown to be effective in controlling a disease for which a vaccine is available. Guidance for use of unlicensed vaccines may be developed if circumstances warrant.”

The committee is made up of both voting members and non-voting ex-officio members who represent relevant agencies, including the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research in the Food and Drug Administration, the director of the Center for Medicaid and State Operations in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the director of Indian Health Service, among others.

Kennedy fired the voting members, not the ex-officio members.

Per CNN, “Kennedy said that a number of the panel’s members — traditionally pediatricians, epidemiologists, immunologists and other physicians — were ‘last-minute appointees’ of the Biden administration. ‘Without removing the current members, the current Trump administration would not have been able to appoint a majority of new members until 2028.’”

The CNN article added, “ACIP members are not political appointees. However Kennedy, a longtime critic of federal vaccine policy and vaccine safety, argued that the current group is rife with conflicts of interest. ACIP had recently published details on conflicts and disclosures for its members from 2000 through 2024."

The committee’s next meeting will take place as scheduled June 25-27. But a Health and Human Services spokesman said all the members of the group will be newly appointed.

Different reactions to the news

During his confirmation hearing, Kennedy told Sen. Bill Cassidy, chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, that he would “maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices without changes,” according to what the Louisiana Republican said before voting for Kennedy’s confirmation.

Cassidy, R-La., posted on X that there’s fear the committee will now have only those who are vaccine skeptics.

But skeptics of Kennedy don’t seem convinced. And others are vocal in defense of his decision.

The Washington Post reported that “the ouster of ACIP members marks the latest move by Kennedy that raised alarms among proponents of vaccines. He also forced out the Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine scientist, hired a vaccine skeptic to scrutinize CDC vaccine safety data and has offered mixed messages about measles vaccines amid one of the worst outbreaks in decades. In May, Kennedy bypassed ACIP to say federal health officials would no longer recommend coronavirus vaccines for healthy children and healthy pregnant women."

Bruce A. Scott, the president of the American Medical Association, said the committee for generations has been a trusted source for vaccine guidance, according to the Post.

“Today’s action to remove the 17 sitting members of ACIP undermines that trust and upends a transparent process that has saved countless lives,” Scott said in a statement. “With an ongoing measles outbreak and routine child vaccination rates declining, this move will further fuel the spread of vaccine-preventable illnesses.”

One member of the advisory panel told CNN that the committee “has the most rigorous conflict of interest policy of any organization that I know of. Kennedy knows better.” And the former adviser suggested that health care providers will need to create “a parallel committee” they can trust to come up with sound recommendations on vaccinations.

Others suggest that the wholesale remake of the committee and the criticism it drew will ensure the new committee’s integrity.

Del Bigtree, an anti-vaccine activist who worked on Kennedy’s presidential campaign, told The Washington Post that it’s wrong to assume Kennedy would stack the panel with anti-vaccine scientists.

“You’re going to see choices that both liberals and Republicans say, ‘Hey, that looks like a good choice,’” Bigtree said. “They know they have to achieve that if they’re going to achieve their ultimate goal, which is to have science that everyone trusts.”