Firing the CDC Vaccine Advisory Panel is Exactly the Wrong Way to Restore Trust in Vaccines
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. removed all 17 members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and will replace them with new members who have yet to be announced. All of the 17 sitting ACIP members were appointed during the Biden administration; without replacing them the Trump administration would not have chosen the majority of the committee until 2028.
Public Citizen Health Research Group Director Dr. Robert Steinbrook issued the following statement:
“Removing all the members of the ACIP and replacing them with new members is far more likely to destroy public confidence in the federal government’s approach to vaccines than to restore trust.
“It shouldn’t matter which administration appointed the members of a federal scientific advisory committee. The wholesale firing and replacement of ACIP members is a blatantly political act that will undermine scientific impartiality and integrity, not promote it.”