Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday expanded a key federal vaccine advisory panel to include more critics of vaccines who have contradicted mainstream medical guidance, including one who has described herself as an “anti-vaxxer.”
Both of his new appointments, Kimberly Biss and Adam Urato, are OB/GYNs who were outspoken critics of coronavirus vaccines during pregnancy. A Washington Post review of their past comments in interviews, podcast appearances and social media found their criticism of vaccines, particularly for pregnant women, goes deeper.
Kennedy has directed a wholesale change in the composition and direction of the once-obscure committee that influences which vaccines doctors administer and compels insurers to cover them. Departing from long-standing federal immunization guidance, the advisers last year made changes to recommendations on hepatitis B, influenza and covid. The shifts have alarmed medical groups, state health departments and public health experts who say the changes put children at greater risk for vaccine-preventable diseases.
Biss is a physician based in St. Petersburg, Florida, who, according to federal officials, has held leadership positions at Bayfront Health/Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital. Biss has broadly questioned the safety of vaccines.
In a December 2022 podcast interview, Biss said “prior to covid I was not an anti-vaxxer, but I am now because I’ve gone down the rabbit hole and I would love to be able someday to meet Robert F. Kennedy Jr.” She repeated those comments during a May 2023 panel discussion hosted by the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, an organization critical of coronavirus vaccine: “I was not anti-vaccine. I am now.”
In that discussion, she said her two grown children, in their 20s, received all their childhood shots, including for HPV, and she and her husband routinely received flu shots.
“My grandchildren will not get any shots if I can help it,” she said. “The vaccine industry is disgusting.”
Urato, a Harvard-trained specialist in maternal-fetal medicine who has practiced in Massachusetts, has primarily been outspoken on the use of antidepressants and other medication during pregnancy. He has also questioned vaccination during pregnancy and whether Americans are over-vaccinated more broadly.
During a December 2023 podcast interview, he said he asks people to imagine a chemical manufacturing plant and a prenatal clinic outside the gates of the plant. The vaccines and drugs are “coming fresh out of the chemical, manufacturing facility” and “then they’re going into the prenatal clinic and then they’re being injected into the pregnant women,” he said.
Their questioning of vaccines align closely with those of Kennedy and his allies, including some vaccine critics on the committee who have repeatedly questioned the necessity and safety of some vaccines and decried the influence of the pharmaceutical industry. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, has said it plans to review the safety of vaccines given during pregnancy, and a committee work group on maternal vaccines has been set up.
Biss and Urato did not return requests for comment.
Andrew Nixon, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services who responded on their behalf, did not answer questions about their past comments. He said Kennedy appointed Biss and Urato “because of their extensive clinical experience and their commitment to evidence-based medicine.”
“ACIP benefits from clinicians who engage patients honestly, respect informed consent, and evaluates the science rigorously,” Nixon said in a statement. “We look forward to their valuable insight and perspective on the committee.”
The new members are expected to participate in the committee’s next meeting, which is scheduled for Feb. 25 to 26.
The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicinehave strongly supported vaccination during pregnancy, saying the science demonstrates the safety and effectiveness.
Biss’s comments
Biss has spoken extensively on podcasts to criticize the use of coronavirus vaccines during pregnancy, claiming they increased the risk of miscarriages, a connection that has been rebutted by several studies. She shared these claims while speaking at a November 2023 congressional hearing held by then Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) on alleged injuries caused by coronavirus vaccines. The HHS announcement of her appointment highlighted her publications on coronavirus vaccine safety for pregnant women.
Biss has also questioned the practice of giving flu shots to pregnant women. In a June 2025 interview, she said warnings that pregnant women are more likely to get sick from the virus because they have suppressed immune systems are a “shtick to get all these women injected with flu vaccines for many many decades.” She said she never had a pregnant patient die of the flu.
In August, ACOG released updated clinical guidance about vaccination during pregnancy against covid-19, influenza and RSV, recommending immunization.
“It is well documented that respiratory conditions can cause poor outcomes during pregnancy, with pregnant women facing both severe illness and threats to the health of their pregnancy,” ACOG president Steven J. Fleischman said in a statement. “Thanks to vaccines, severe outcomes from respiratory infections are largely preventable.”
In a May 2024 interview, Biss questioned the practice of vaccination during pregnancy to pass along antibodies from mother to baby, arguing that the antibody component of the immune system is “not really the important one.”
“Maybe we’re causing a lot of these things that women have problems with in pregnancy simply because we’re giving them these vaccines,” Biss said, naming the flu and Tdap (Tetanus, Diphtheria, Pertussis) shots.
Biss has expressed regret for providing patients with the Gardisil vaccine for HPV, questioning the safety and efficacy data. As part of an unprecedented overhaulof the childhood immunization schedule last week, federal health officials maintained the recommendation for adolescents to be vaccinated for HPV but to receive one dose instead of two.
Urato’s comments
When ACOG promoted vaccination for respiratory viruses during pregnancy in October 2024, Urato replied on X by raising concerns about the four vaccines during pregnancy recommended by ACOG and CDC: Flu, respiratory syncytial virus, covid and Tdap.
“My patients often ask: ‘How do we know that all these vaccines won’t have adverse effects on my baby & me?’ The answer is: ‘We don’t,’” Urato tweeted. “Women’s vax concerns should be acknowledged & their choices supported.”
In a June 2025interview, Urato said there is a “battle” between the forces that prioritize medical interventions and those who want to do “more watchful waiting or less intervention.”
“This is a huge problem for us just with over-intervention in medicine, too much testing, too many drugs, too many vaccines,” Urato said, later comparing vaccine makers to cigarette manufacturers.
“They’re going to underplay the risks,” he said. “Often you find out that it wasn’t as safe as first promoted. It wasn’t as effective as they said it was going to be and that it was causing real damage and real harm. And a lot of these products go onto the dust bin of history.”
He also said pharmaceutical companies stoke fear to promote their products, including vaccines.
“What they’ve been doing is often selling sickness or selling the illness,” Urato said in an April 2025 interview. “And this is true, certainly with a lot of the pharmaceuticals, the vaccines, this idea of pushing like you could die, you could be dead tomorrow if you get this disease, so you’ve got to do what pharma wants.”
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