How vaccine critics appointed by RFK Jr. could limit access to shots

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s overhaul of a federal immunization panel has created uncertainty around how widely vaccines will be available this fall and if they’ll be free, according to six current and former health officials.

After Kennedy purged the influential committee that recommends vaccines and appointed his own picks, staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who provide the panel with research have now been pushed aside, according to the officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. With the new advisers scheduled to meet in less than two weeks, other CDC staff are also uncertain whether they will be able to present the necessary scientific and medical data to help the committee make informed decisions, officials said.

It’s unclear what direction this new group, which includes vaccine critics, will go, and whether they’ll be able to give the stamp of approval needed for Americans to get free vaccines against coronavirus and other pathogens in time for the fall vaccine season.

“If we have a system that has been dismantled — one that allowed for open, evidence-based decision-making and that supported transparent and clear dialogue about vaccines — and then we replace it with a process that’s driven largely by one person’s beliefs, that creates a system that cannot be trusted,” Helen Chu, a professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine who was ousted from the vaccine committee, said in a news conference Thursday.

HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said the previous members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices had become a rubber stamp for any vaccine. “This group will go where the science takes them,” he said in a statement, noting half of the eight new appointments have previously served on federal health boards. “Secretary Kennedy has replaced vaccine groupthink with a diversity of viewpoints on ACIP.”

The new group could vote on recommendations for coronavirus, influenza, meningococcal and HPV as well as RSV vaccines for adults, pregnant women and infants, according to the Federal Register notice posted this week. The committee may also discuss other vaccines, including for Lyme disease and anthrax.

The committee’s recommendations, if approved by the CDC director, determine who can get the vaccines and which ones insurers cover. While the CDC director position has been vacant, Kennedy has signed off on recommendations.

The CDC official overseeing the operations of the panel and the staff who gather and present vaccine data was removed from her role this week, according to two current and one former federal health official. Melinda Wharton, who has nearly 20 years experience in vaccines and immunization at the agency, has been replaced by the director of scheduling and advance in the immediate office of the CDC director. The new official now reports to CDC’s chief of staff, a political appointee, the officials said.

“The biggest fear is that science and data won’t be the primary drivers of decisions,” said one federal health official. “The largest public health concern is that this move will end up broadly restricting vaccine access.”

A group working to finalize coronavirus vaccine recommendations for ACIP to consider could not meet Thursday because of the purge of the ACIP members, according to Stanley Perlman, a University of Iowa professor of microbiology and immunology who is a consultant for the work group.

The agenda finalizing which vaccines the committee would vote on recommending has yet to be released.

“Not sure what the plan is now,” the federal health official said. “At this point, anything is possible.”

Former panel members said it’s hard to get up to speed quickly on complicated issues.

“New ACIP members have in the past faced a steep learning curve,” said Noel Brewer, a public health professor at the University of North Carolina who was terminated Monday. “They see truckloads of complex data. And it takes time to learn how to best take it all in.”

Nixon, the HHS spokesman, did not address questions about CDC personnel and other changes related to the panel and the upcoming meeting.

The concerns over the federal vaccine panel prompted some state health officials to offer their own recommendations instead.

Illinois said it is convening its own immunization advisory committee and national experts “to ensure we continue to provide clear, science-backed vaccine guidance for our residents,” according to a social media post Wednesday.

Wisconsin last week said it would continue to recommend the coronavirus vaccine because Kennedy-directed changes to CDC guidance “were not made based on new data, evidence, or scientific or medical studies, nor was the guidance issued following normal processes.”

But those states do not have the same power as the federal panel to compel insurers to cover recommended vaccines, said Jason Schwartz, a Yale University health policy researcher.

Without insurance, coronavirus vaccines can cost nearly $150, and the HPV vaccine can exceed $300, according to listed prices. Pharmacies and retailers could charge even more.

Existing federal recommendations still allow consumers to get vaccines and have them be covered by insurance, experts have said.

The vaccine advisory panel can vote to accept, reject or change a vaccine recommendation, which could remove the vaccine from the CDC’s childhood and adult immunization schedules, said Jamie Loehr, a family practice physician who was terminated Monday. For a vaccine to be removed, a question has to be put before the panel.

That would have enormous consequences for the federally funded Vaccines for Children program, which provides free ACIP-recommended vaccines to uninsured and underinsured children. Roughly half of all children in the United States are eligible.

While the charter for the group stresses the need for members to have knowledge of immunizations and public health, as well as consumer and social aspects of vaccination, many of Kennedy’s appointees appear to offer a different strain of qualifications: contrarianism.

His picks include Vicky Pebsworth, a board member of an anti-vaccine group; Retsef Levi, a management professor who called for the end of mRNA coronavirus vaccination; and Robert Malone, a controversial scientist who said millions of Americans were “basically being hypnotized” into taking coronavirus vaccines. Pebsworth and Levi did not respond to requests for comment, and Malone declined to comment beyond saying he was honored to be selected.

Kennedy, who founded an anti-vaccine group and has long spread false claims about vaccines, misstated the credentials of one of his picks.

In his announcement on the social media platform X, Kennedy said that Michael Ross, a physician, “is a Clinical Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at George Washington University and Virginia Commonwealth University.”

According to spokespeople for the universities, Ross has not held faculty positions at George Washington University since 2017 and Virginia Commonwealth University since 2021.

A spokesman for Kennedy did not address the discrepancy. When reached by phone Thursday, Ross hung up.

While Kennedy has assailed previous members of the vaccine committee for having received money from pharmaceutical companies, two of his picks have been paid for their testimony against vaccine manufacturers.

Martin Kulldorff, a Swedish biostatistician, testified that he received thousands of dollars as an expert witness in a lawsuit filed against the maker of the human papillomavirus vaccine, which was first reported by Reuters. Kennedy was involved to identify plaintiffs for that litigation alleging vaccine injuries.

In his testimony, Kulldorff declined to comment on whether the vaccine could be causing adverse events, but he called some of the safety studies the manufacturer presented “fatally flawed.”

A judge sided with the pharmaceutical company, Merck. Kulldorff did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Malone also testified against the mumps vaccine by Merck, claiming it “failed to provide a reliable or clinically relevant measure of protection against mumps,” which was first reported by Endpoints.

He posted on social media Thursday about his involvement: “My hourly rate at that time was $350. My hourly rate for expert witness work is now $450. This is actually modest for my level of experience and qualifications, and this type of work.”

In response to questions about the committee members involved in vaccine lawsuits, Nixon, Kennedy’s spokesman, said, “every ACIP member will be vetted in accordance with their ethics agreement before they are permitted to participate in each meeting agenda item.”

At least two of Kennedy’s picks appear to not have extensive backgrounds in vaccine research, according to his announcement and other online biographies: James Pagano, who has worked as an emergency medicine doctor, and Joseph R. Hibbeln, a neuroscientist known for nutrition research. Pagano did not respond to a request for comment. Hibbeln declined to comment.

Pagano describes himself on his personal website as an “author, musician and doctor.” He has written two fictional novels about ER doctors.

Aaron Schaffer and Rachel Roubein contributed to this report.