HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. named eight new members to the CDC panel that oversees vaccine recommendations June 11.
The appointments come two days after HHS terminated all 17 members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices.
Mr. Kennedy said the panel’s restructuring will restore public trust in vaccine science and ensure members are free of conflicts of interest with pharmaceutical companies. However, numerous industry groups have scrutinized the move, arguing it will undermine vaccine confidence and threaten public health.
“The slate includes highly credentialed scientists, leading public-health experts and some of America’s most accomplished physicians,” Mr. Kennedy wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “All of these individuals are committed to evidence-based medicine, gold-standard science, and common sense.”
Several new committee members have previously shared anti-vaccine rhetoric or made unfounded claims about vaccines, according to CNBC.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether Mr. Kennedy planned to add more members, though in past years, the committee typically consisted of at least 15 people. Several ACIP members who were terminated told MedPage Today the vetting and training process is comprehensive, noting concerns about new members being rushed through the process.
The new appointments come ahead of a committee meeting slated for June 25, where members are expected to review immunization recommendations and schedules for a wide range of vaccinations, including COVID-19, influenza, respiratory syncytial virus and HPV, according to a briefing document published in the federal register earlier this month.
Preparing for meetings typically takes at least three weeks, former ACIP members told MedPage Today, raising questions about how much time newly appointed members would have ahead of the June 25 meeting.
The eight new members of ACIP are:
- Joseph Hibbeln, MD, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist who served as acting chief of the section on nutritional neurosciences at the National Institutes of Health from 2007 to 2021.
- Martin Kulldorff, MD, PhD, a biostatistician and epidemiologist who formerly served as a professor of medicine at Boston-based Harvard Medical School.
- Retsef Levi, PhD, a professor of operations management at the MIT Sloan School of Management in Cambridge, Mass.
- Robert Malone, MD, a physician-scientist and biochemist. While he has touted his involvement in inventing mRNA vaccine technology, experts told The New York Times his role in developing the novel technology was minimal.
- Cody Meissner, MD, a professor of pediatrics at Dartmouth College’s Geisel School of Medicine in Hanover, N.H.
- James Pagano, MD, a board-certified emergency medicine physician based in California.
- Vicky Pebsworth, PhD, RN, a nurse leader and board member of the National Vaccine Information Center — one of the nation’s oldest anti-vaccine groups, according to The Washington Post.
- Michael Ross, MD, a clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond.
