Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced on Wednesday eight new members to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s independent vaccine advisory committee, some of whom have been critics of shots — especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It comes just two days after Kennedy removed all 17 sitting members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), claiming the panel was plagued by conflicts of interest and was a “rubber stamp” for all vaccines.
The ACIP makes recommendations on the safety, efficacy and clinical need of vaccines, and the CDC has the final say on whether or not to accept the recommendations.
Kennedy said in a post on X that the new members include “highly credentialed scientists, leading public-health experts, and some of America’s most accomplished physicians. All of these individuals are committed to evidence-based medicine, gold-standard science, and common sense.”
The new members will be at an upcoming ACIP meeting scheduled to be held between June 25 and June 27, according to Kennedy. The meeting is to discuss new recommendations for several vaccines, including the HPV vaccine and the COVID-19 vaccine.
“The committee will review safety and efficacy data for the current schedule as well,” Kennedy wrote in the post on X.
The new eight members appear to have strong credentials related to medicine, public health, epidemiology and statistics, but with less of an emphasis on credentials related to immunology, virology and vaccinology in comparison with previous committees.
Kennedy told ABC News on Tuesday that the replacements for ACIP would not be “anti-vaxxers.” However, some of the new members have previously espoused anti-vaccine sentiments, especially around COVID-19 vaccines and mRNA technology.
One of them, Dr. Robert Malone — who made some early contributors to mRNA vaccine technology — spread misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic, claiming people were “hypnotized” into believing mainstream ideas about COVID-19, such as vaccination.
Retsef Levi, another newly appointed member, has previously published non-peer reviewed research alongside Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo on COVID-19 vaccines, suggesting healthy people have died from the shots.
Another of the new members, Dr. Martin Kulldorff, was a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, along with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health.
Published in October 2020 and named after the Massachusetts town in which it was drafted, the Great Barrington Declaration called for COVID-19 lockdowns to be avoided and a new plan for handling the pandemic by protecting the most vulnerable individuals but allowing most to resume normal activities, achieving herd immunity naturally — a plan criticized as “unethical” by Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization.
At least four of the eight members appear to have been influential to Kennedy’s beliefs. Stat News reported that Malone, Kuldorff and two other new members, Vicky Pebsworth and Dr. Cody Meissner, are all listed in the dedication in the secretary’s book, “The Real Anthony Fauci,” which attempts to undermine the former health official’s work and questions his motivations before and during the pandemic.
It remains unclear if Kennedy plans to appoint any more members to ACIP
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