Originally published by our sister publication Pharmacy Practice News
By Gina Shaw
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s June 9 announcement that he had dismissed all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which guides the agency on vaccine recommendations, has been met with near-universal condemnation from top infectious disease experts and medical organizations.
In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece announcing the decision, Mr. Kennedy claimed the move was de-signed to restore public trust. “The public must know that unbiased science—evaluated through a transpar-ent process and insulated from conflicts of interest—guides the recommendations of our health agencies,” he wrote. “A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science. ACIP's new members will prioritize public health and evidence-based medicine. The committee will no longer function as a rubber stamp for industry profit-taking agendas.”
However, experts say the established process is very transparent, and removing members of the committee would not be the best option for the nation’s health.
“This is devastating. The members of ACIP are a group of the country's smartest people who have dedi-cated their careers to studying vaccines and figuring out the best ways to use them,” said Elizabeth Dodds Ashley, PharmD, a professor in medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and International Health at Duke University, in Durham, N.C. “There is such respect for all of these individuals. We all follow their meet-ings closely and greatly value what those scientists have to say. They should not be silenced.”
The American Public Health Association agreed in a statement from Executive Director Georges C. Benjamin, MD. “Today’s ACIP members are some of the most qualified individuals to evaluate vaccines. They possess deep understanding of science and were vetted for conflicts of interest prior to appointment. Removing all ACIP members at once is not how democracies work, and it’s not good for the health of the nation,” Dr. Benjamin said. “R.F.K. says he wants to restore trust and transparency. This action immediately raises concern over the ability of any slate of committee members appointed by the Trump administration to be viewed as impartial to R.F.K.'s views on any decision, and therefore, their actions will be suspect and likely mistrusted.”
Other organizations that have issued public statements on the gutting of ACIP include the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP).
“With an ongoing measles outbreak and routine child vaccination rates declining, this move will further fuel the spread of vaccine-preventable illnesses,” declared AMA President Bruce A. Scott, MD. As of June 5, 2025, 1,168 U.S. measles cases have been confirmed in 34 jurisdictions, and three people have died. Most of the cases occurred in those who are unvaccinated or not fully vaccinated.
“We are witnessing an escalating effort by the administration to silence independent medical expertise and stoke distrust in lifesaving vaccines. Creating confusion around proven vaccines endangers families' health and contributes to the spread of preventable diseases,” said AAP President Susan Kressly, MD. “This move undermines the trust pediatricians have built over decades with our patients and leaves us without critical scientific expertise we rely on.”
In a post on X, Sen. Cassidy said: "Of course, now the fear is that the ACIP will be filled up with people who know nothing about vaccines except suspicion. I've just spoken with Secretary Kennedy, and I'll continue to talk with him to ensure this is not the case."
Mr. Kennedy has claimed that “97% of the people” on the ACIP panel have conflicts of interest. That claim, however, is based on a 2009 audit of ethics paperwork involving all of the CDC’s advisory committees at the time (17 including ACIP). That report did not, in fact, find serious conflicts. Instead, the 97% figure referred to errors or omissions in disclosure forms, such as information being entered in the wrong section of the form, or reviewers failing to initial and date amendments.
Furthermore, an investigation published in March 2025, in ScienceInsider, by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, found limited payments from industry to ACIP panel members. “The consulting, honoraria, speaking, travel and ‘in-kind’ research payments that eight members received from drugmakers averaged just over $4,000 a year, nearly $3,000 less than the average for all U.S. specialist physicians,” they noted. “For all but one member, these payments came be-fore their terms started last year; data since they joined the committee are not yet available. Five others re-ceived no such payments.”
ACIP’s conflict-of-interest policy requires that members file financial disclosures annually; divest from any personal or family investments in vaccine manufacturer stock; and remove themselves from vaccine company scientific advisory boards and consulting roles with vaccine companies. They may not hold patents or collect royalties on any vaccine product or process.
ACIP members are permitted to participate in industry-funded vaccine clinical trials and can serve on data safety monitoring boards, but they must disclose that involvement at ACIP public meetings and are required to remove themselves from any discussion and votes on those vaccines or any potential competitor.
“Secretary Kennedy’s allegations about the integrity of CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Prac-tices are completely unfounded and will have a significant negative impact on Americans of all ages,” said IDSA President Tina Tan, MD, FIDSA, FPIDS, FAAP. “Scientific recommendations about infectious diseases and vaccines that the public can trust require established experts to make them. ACIP is a highly qualified group of experts that has always operated with transparency and a commitment to protecting the public’s health.”
SHEA’s statement also defended the integrity of the panel. “[W]e have consistently observed through both our role as an advisory member of ACIP and as a professional medical society, that the committee’s recommendations were rooted in rigorous, evidence-based deliberations,” it said. “SHEA has confidence in the integrity of ACIP’s conflict of interest policies and processes, which are designed to ensure transparency and uphold public trust in its decision-making. The ACIP has long served as a trusted body guiding national immunization policy. We are proud to have worked alongside them in advancing public health and encour-aging a transparent and deliberative process of vaccination recommendations. We are deeply concerned that efforts to restructure or replace ACIP risk undermining a trusted, science-driven process that has long guided national immunization policy.”
Paul Offit, MD, the director of the Vaccine Education Center and an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, called it “a sad day for public health in this country” in an interview with IDSE. “I think R.F.K. Jr. Is trying to solve a problem doesn't exist. He’s a conspiracy theorist. He believes that ACIP members are deeply in the pocket of the pharmaceutical industry, for which he has no evidence-just innuendo. There has never been a vote on that committee where people did not put the data first and chil-dren first,” he said. He predicted that Mr. Kennedy’s actions and “hand-picked” board would actually be the one that could not be trusted.
Dr. Offit pointed to a June 9 tweet from top Kennedy advisor Aaron Siri, whose law firm litigates cases of claimed vaccine injury, praising the decision to move COVID-19 vaccines off the CDC’s routine vaccination schedule and calling for the same to be done with “every other vaccine that does not prevent transmission-DTaP, Tdap, IPV, etc.”
“That’s a ridiculous thing to say,” Dr. Offit noted. “The goal of vaccines is to keep people out of the hospital and to keep them from dying.” There is still some transmission among vaccinated people, he said. “But eliminating transmission entirely is not the goal. To say that we’re not going to recommend any vaccine that does that is absolutely designed to undermine all public trust in vaccines.”
ACIP’s recommendations also guide health insurance coverage: Vaccines listed on the CDC’s routine vaccination schedule are typically required by the Affordable Care Act to be covered by insurers, and are provided free of charge to people without insurance through the CDC's Vaccines for Children program.
The decision could not have come at a worse time, Dr. Dodds Ashley said. “Summer is when we plan so we can implement our large respiratory virus vaccination campaign in the fall and our teams are already stretched with other vaccine-preventable diseases on the rise, like measles. Time is such a precious resource in healthcare, and now every hospital is having to redo or create a measles plan. We shouldn’t have to be talking about measles in 2025. There’s no question that this is going to hurt people.”
The next meeting of ACIP is scheduled for June 25 to 27, but it is unclear whether a new panel can be as-sembled in such a short time—or whether health professionals would put their trust in that panel. “Whomever would be there in the near term will not have gone through nearly the rigorous screening that this panel had. The [CDC] already had found the best vaccine scientists there are,” Dr. Dodds Ashley said.
She suggested that it might be time for professional organizations such as IDSA, SHEA and the Society of Infectious Disease Pharmacists to band together and try to stand the committee back up. “I certainly can’t speak on behalf of any of the professional organizations, but I wonder if that would be a path going forward. I would prefer that we get to continue with guidance from the vaccine scientists we trust.”
The sources reported no relevant financial disclosures.
