Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday named eight doctors and researchers, including four who have spoken out against vaccination in some way, to replace roughly half the members he fired from an expert panel that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Mr. Kennedy made the announcement Wednesday on the social media platform X, two days after he fired all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Arriving at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for a performance of “Les Misérables” that President Trump also attended, the health secretary told reporters that the firings were “a long time coming.”
Mr. Kennedy said on X that his picks included “highly credentialed scientists, leading public-health experts, and some of America’s most accomplished physicians.” In a post on X late Tuesday night, a day after he removed the panel members, Mr. Kennedy promised he would not appoint “ideological anti-vaxxers.”
After the new list was announced, infectious disease and vaccine experts immediately accused the health secretary of breaking his word. When Mr. Kennedy fired the entire committee, known as the A.C.I.P., he cited financial conflicts of interest and said a clean sweep was necessary to restore public trust in vaccination.
But a White House official and a person close to Mr. Kennedy said on Tuesday that ideology was also at work. In addition to supposed financial conflicts, Mr. Kennedy was concerned that all of the members had been appointed by former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and that some had donated to Democrats. The disclosure was shocking to public health leaders, who say that scientific advisers are chosen for their expertise, without consideration of party affiliation.
“The biggest hit here is the irony of him, RFK, talking about regaining the public’s trust,” said Dr. Paul Offit of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who has served as a committee member and has frequently tangled with Mr. Kennedy.
“What he just did was, he lost the trust of the medical community,” Dr. Offit added, “so much so that people are thinking, ‘Should we try and create our own A.C.I.P., our own vaccine advisory committee?’ Because you can’t trust this one.”
The eight members Mr. Kennedy named — seven men and one woman — have varied credentials. All are either medical doctors or have doctorates. They include a psychiatrist; a biostatistician; an expert in health care analytics; a biochemist; a pediatrician; an emergency medical doctor; a public health and critical care nurse; and an obstetrician.
Richard H. Hughes IV, who teaches vaccine law at George Washington University Law School, called out one of the new committee members — Dr. Cody Meissner — as a “legitimate vaccinologist.” Dr. Meissner, a professor of pediatrics at Dartmouth, has previously held advisory roles both with the C.D.C. and the Food and Drug Administration. Dr. Offit and other experts praised Dr. Meissner for his depth of knowledge about vaccines.
Mr. Hughes said three of the new members are “legitimate physicians” who have “no discernible expertise” in immunology or vaccines. But he characterized the remaining four as “Covid-19 deniers, skeptics and outright anti-vaccine individuals.”
By far the most contentious pick, and the one with the highest profile, is Dr. Robert Malone. He played an early role in mRNA research and has claimed to be the inventor of the technology. He became a right-wing star after a 2021 appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience” that exposed both him and Mr. Rogan to criticism that they had spread misinformation. Dr. Malone was a vocal critic of the Biden administration’s Covid response.
“Malone has a well-documented history of promoting conspiracy theories and unproven treatment like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19,” said Dr. Jeffrey D. Klausner, an epidemiologist and infectious disease expert at the University of Southern California.
Dr. Klausner, who is also a neighbor of Mr. Kennedy’s in Los Angeles and has spoken with the health secretary about possible candidates for advisory committees, said he was “disappointed” in Dr. Malone’s appointment, which he said was likely “a political move to maintain support of some Americans and demonstrate diversity, equity and inclusivity.”
Martin Kulldorff, a Swedish biostatistician and former Harvard professor, has been generally supportive of vaccines, and has advised the C.D.C. on vaccine safety. But he opposed Covid vaccine mandates and Covid vaccination for children, and became caught up in pandemic politics in 2020 as a lead author of the Great Barrington Declaration, a document that opposed lockdowns.
The declaration, whose lead authors also included Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the current director of the National Institutes of Health, garnered nearly one million signatures from more than 40 countries. Dr. Meissner, the new A.C.I.P. member, was an early signer. But it drew intense backlash from Dr. Anthony S. Fauci and other public health leaders, who branded it dangerous.
Dr. Francis S. Collins, the N.I.H. director at the time, called the authors “fringe epidemiologists.”
Dr. Kulldorff was later fired from his hospital, Mass General Brigham, and from Harvard, in a dispute over the hospital’s requirement for staff to be vaccinated against Covid-19. He has said that he has an immune deficiency, which made him wary of the Covid shot, and that he already had natural immunity from a previous infection.
While Dr. Malone and Dr. Kulldorff are the best known of the new members, two other picks — Retsef Levi and Vicky Pebsworth, a nurse — are also likely to come under scrutiny from public health leaders.
Dr. Levi, an expert in analytics, risk management and health systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has criticized school closures and Covid lockdowns, and warned against mRNA vaccines.
In a 2023 post on X, he wrote, “The evidence is mounting and indisputable that mRNA vaccines cause serious harm including death, especially among young people.” He has said the evidence for vaccinating against Covid-19 in pregnancy “is particularly thin.”
After Mr. Kennedy’s announcement, Dr. Levi said on Wednesday on X that he was “honored with this opportunity and humbled by the responsibility” to serve on the panel.
Dr. Pebsworth, who has a Ph.D. in public health, serves on the board of the National Vaccine Information Center, founded in 1982 to promote awareness of the risks of vaccination. She has served as a consumer representative to an expert panel that advises the F.D.A. on vaccination and has advised the government in other capacities.
In its early years, the vaccine information center worked with federal authorities to promote vaccine safety, and to create a system to address vaccine injuries. But today, advocates for vaccination consider it an anti-vaccine group.
Dr. Pebsworth’s bio on the center’s website says she is the parent of a vaccine-injured child. “Her son — her only child — experienced serious, long-term health problems following receipt of seven live virus and killed bacterial vaccines administered during his 15-month well-baby visit, which sparked her interest in vaccine safety research and policymaking, and chronic illness and disability in children,” the site says.
It is unclear how the committee will move forward with an entirely new membership. Its next meeting is set for later this month. Committee members had expected to discuss, among other things, a change in the vaccination schedule for the human papillomavirus vaccine, but it does not appear as though there is an agenda on the committee’s website.
“This is a very differently constituted committee than what we’ve had before,” said Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, a pediatrician and professor at Stanford University who was among the members fired on Monday. She predicted it would be “very difficult to get through the agenda in a smooth way,” given that the new panel will have only two weeks to prepare.
Javier C. Hernández and Apoorva Mandavilli contributed reporting,
Sheryl Gay Stolberg covers health policy for The Times from Washington. A former congressional and White House correspondent, she focuses on the intersection of health policy and politics.
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