A vaccine expert who has frequently criticized Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been removed from the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory committee.
Dr. Paul Offit, the co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine and an infectious disease specialist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told the Daily Beast that he was abruptly dismissed from the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biologics Products Advisory Committee last week, after serving two four-year terms beginning in 2017.
An outspoken critic of Kennedy who has called the health secretary a “dangerous man” and an “agent of chaos in the vaccination world,” Offit said that a senior FDA official had previously asked for him to stay on for a third term.
His removal comes amid major turmoil at agencies overseen by Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic.
The Department of Human and Health Services last week fired Susan Monarez as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after clashes over Kennedy’s vaccine plans, sparking a cascade of senior CDC resignations.
The upheaval followed a bombshell report by the Daily Beast, in which a close adviser to Kennedy claimed that the administration plans to pull the COVID vaccine from shelves in a matter of months.
Offit said that he was not given a specific reason for his dismissal from the vaccine committee. He said that he had previously agreed to serve a third term on the committee, which reviews and evaluates vaccines and advises the FDA Commissioner.
But after submitting the necessary paperwork for special government employees, he was told it had stalled at HHS. On Thursday, he received a call thanking him for his service.
“I’m not sure why I was asked to leave,” he told the Daily Beast.
The Daily Beast understands that the FDA issued notifications to advisory committee members whose special government employee terms had expired.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the HHS and FDA for more details on the decision.
Offit, who appears to be the only committee member to be removed, expressed confidence in the capability of the remaining experts on the panel.
“If you look at who’s on the current advisory committee, we’re in good shape,” he told the Daily Beast.
Offit has frequently admonished Kennedy since President Donald Trump tapped the anti-vaccine activist to become the nation’s top health official.
He often writes about Kennedy on his Substack, slamming the health secretary for his response to the measles outbreak in Texas, and for slashing federal funding for mRNA vaccine development earlier this month.
“RFK Jr. is laser-focused on making vaccines less available, less affordable, and more feared,” Offit wrote Tuesday on his Substack.
Kennedy previously fired all 17 members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee in June, replacing them with a motley crew of allies and anti-vaccine activists.
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