This is an adapted excerpt from the June 29 episode of "Velshi."
Every summer, a little-known but critically important panel of public health experts, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, meets to fine-tune vaccine guidelines. Typically, those recommendations go straight to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who usually approves them without issue.
While the committee rarely draws public attention, its work is vital to protecting Americans — and the world — from vaccine-preventable diseases. Countries around the world have modeled their immunization programs on ACIP’s guidance. That is, until now.
In a matter of weeks, the committee’s credibility has been upended after Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. removed all 17 of its highly respected members and replaced them with just seven new appointees, many of whom public health experts have warned are unqualified or openly hostile to vaccines.
While the committee rarely draws public attention, its work is vital to protecting Americans — and the world — from vaccine-preventable diseases.
Take the new committee co-chair, Martin Kulldorff. In October 2020, at the height of the Covid pandemic, he co-authored a public letter urging the immediate reopening of schools and businesses, well before vaccines were available.
Then there’s Vicky Pebsworth, volunteer director of research at the National Vaccine Information Center. Despite its name, NVIC is widely recognized as one of the nation’s leading sources of vaccine misinformation.
Perhaps the most infamous new addition is Robert Malone, a man who gained notoriety during the pandemic by promoting conspiracy theories, including the false claim that Covid vaccines cause a form of AIDS.
These are now the people — people who have spent years casting doubt on vaccines and promoting junk science — deciding how to control infectious disease outbreaks in America, deciding when and how our children should be vaccinated.
When he was nominated by Donald Trump as health secretary, Kennedy told NBC News he wasn’t going to “take away anybody’s vaccines.” But actions speak louder than words, and Kennedy has now stacked the federal vaccine committee with anti-vaccine activists.
Last week, Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a medical doctor and the top Republican on the Senate Health Committee, called on ACIP to delay its first meeting. Cassidy warned that the appointees “do not have significant experience studying microbiology, epidemiology, or immunology,” and that some appear to “have a preconceived bias” against new technologies like mRNA vaccines. He added: “The meeting should be delayed until the panel is fully staffed with more robust and balanced representation — as required by law — including those with more direct relevant expertise.”
Perhaps the most infamous new addition is Robert Malone, a man who gained notoriety during the pandemic by promoting conspiracy theories.
But the meeting went ahead anyway. Among the presenters was Lyn Redwood, a former president of Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine nonprofit founded by Kennedy himself.
During Thursday's meeting, Redwood had planned to present a study that alleged thimerosal, which is a preservative used in some vaccines, causes autism. However, Redwood removed that information from her presentation after the scientist listed as the co-author of the study said the research expected to be presented did not exist. In the end, the panel voted against flu vaccines that contain thimerosal.
One infectious disease epidemiologist told The Los Angeles Times the panel spent the entire time “platforming” misinformation and manipulating data.