Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday announced eight members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, populated mainly by critics of the nation’s COVID-19 vaccine policies or those who don’t specialize in vaccine science.
In a post on the social platform X, Kennedy said the members will attend the panel’s June 25 meeting, describing them as “highly credentialed scientists, leading public health experts, and some of America’s most accomplished physicians.”
The news comes after he abruptly fired the 17 former sitting members of the advisory panel as part of a “clean sweep” the secretary said was necessary to restore confidence in public health.
The new members who have been critical of past vaccine policy are:
- Robert W. Malone, who downplayed the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic and elevated unfounded claims about the disease, according to factcheck.org. A physician and biochemist, he was involved in some early research of mRNA technology. He served in advisory roles for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense, with expertise in molecular biology, immunology and vaccine development. The New York Times reported in 2022 that he overstated the level of his involvement with mRNA research. He has advocated for the use of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin to treat COVID-19, and had been banned from social media platforms for spreading misinformation about the pandemic.
- Martin Kulldorff, who was part of the Great Barrington Declaration along with Jay Bhattacharya, now the NIH director. The declaration called for the lifting of COVID-19 lockdowns before vaccines were available, citing the harm of isolation to society. He also said in 2021 that COVID-19 vaccines were not necessary for children or people with prior natural infection. Kulldorff, who had stints at Harvard as well as on previous government advisory committees, is the only member whose listed credentials include epidemiology.
- Vicky Pebsworth, who holds doctorates in nursing and public health and also previously served on the FDA vaccine committee as a consumer representative. She has been a board member at the National Vaccine Information Center, an organization that has been broadly identified by health experts as promoting disinformation about vaccine risks and safety.
Some others on the panel don’t appear to have significant experience with vaccine science.
Retsef Levi, a professor at MIT Sloan School of Management, specializes in supply chains and logistics. His credentials list him as working on vaccine safety studies in the past.
James Pagano is described as an emergency medicine physician.
Joseph R. Hibbeln is the former acting chief of the Section on Nutritional Neurosciences at the National Institutes of Health. He is a psychiatrist, and brings a research background on neuroscience and nutrition, with a particular focus on the effects of Omega-3 consumption.
Also named to the committee were Michael Ross, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at George Washington University and Virginia Commonwealth University with expertise in HPV vaccination efforts, and Cody Meissner, who also signed the Barrington declaration. Meissner specializes in pediatric infectious diseases and also previously served on ACIP and the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.
Most of the former ACIP members had backgrounds directly in infectious disease or immunization, according to an archived webpage.