The immediate removal of all 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) vaccine advisory committee drew diverse reactions, with some applauding the move as a necessary first step to root out corruption in the vaccine regulation process, and others claiming the action was “reckless, shortsighted and severely harmful.”
U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the move late Monday in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. “Today, we are taking a bold step in restoring public trust by totally reconstituting the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP),” he wrote.
Children’s Health Defense CEO Mary Holland applauded Kennedy’s decision to remove all current ACIP members and “start fresh.” She said:
“ACIP has been a mindless rubber stamp for an almost endless number of new vaccines. The committee has been riddled with financial conflicts of interest, through research grants, stock portfolios and patent stakes. This change is critical if this committee is to have any future role in advising on vaccines without bias.”
Dr. Meryl Nass wrote on Substack that changing the ACIP membership is “only a first step in achieving honest medical science.”
Nass cited an X post by John Macgregor in which he laid out data showing how “The vaccine development pipeline is corrupt from beginning to end — from lab to jab.”
Nass told The Defender:
“Until this chokehold on every part of the drug/vaccine system is upended, honest science does not have a chance. The potential profits are simply too great for the pharmaceutical industry to not interfere in the process. They can earn a 40% profit on a new vaccine, equating to billions of dollars — especially if the vaccine is placed on the childhood schedule and mandated for children to attend school.”
ACIP is the group that recommends vaccines be added to the CDC’s child and adolescent immunization schedule, “so it is a particularly important target for Big Pharma,” Nass added.
Earlier this month, U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary called the ACIP Committee a “kangaroo court.” Makary told Endpoints News today that he was not involved in Kennedy’s decision to fire the committee members.
‘System is slowly being cleaned up’
In his X post about the change in ACIP membership, Macgregor, a former New York Times journalist and author of “The Mechanics of Changing the World: Political Architecture to Roll Back State & Corporate Power,” wrote that it was “good that the system is slowly being cleaned up.”
Kennedy noted in his op-ed that the committee has “never recommended against a vaccine — even those later withdrawn for safety reasons.” He said the committee has failed to “adequately scrutinize” vaccines for babies and pregnant women.
“A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science,” Kennedy wrote. “In the 1960s, the world sought guidance from America’s health regulators, who had a reputation for integrity, scientific impartiality and zealous defense of patient welfare. Public trust has since collapsed, but we will earn it back. “
Some medical professional organizations decried Kennedy’s decision.
Infectious Diseases Society of America President Tina Tan said in a statement that Kennedy’s allegations about ACIP’s integrity were “completely unfounded and will have a significant negative impact on Americans of all ages.”
According to Tan, the ACIP members were “a highly qualified group of experts” that “always operated with transparency and a commitment to protecting the public’s health.”
Tan said the unilateral removal of “an entire panel of experts is reckless, shortsighted and severely harmful.”
Dr. Bruce Scott, president of the American Medical Association, said in a press release that ACIP had been a “trusted national source of science- and data-driven advice and guidance on the use of vaccines to prevent and control disease.”
He said removing the committee’s 17 members “undermines that trust and upends a transparent process that has saved countless lives.”
Similarly, Dr. Sean O’Leary, chair of the infectious disease committee for the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), told the Times, “I don’t think there’s any way to put this, other than saying that this is an unmitigated public health disaster.”
The AAP said in a June 9 X post, “Today’s decision is about undermining independent medical expertise and will only further endanger the health of the American public, especially children.”
None of these groups provided evidence to refute the claim that many past and present ACIP members had financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry.
Journalist Paul Thacker responded to the AAP’s statement on X, with an image depicting Big Pharma donations:
Could all this Big Pharma money be influencing AAP? https://t.co/0ZFGX5avlI pic.twitter.com/YnIRPknFU4
— Paul D. Thacker (@thackerpd) June 10, 2025
Attorney Aaron Siri also criticized AAP’s statement:
There is nothing independent about the members of ACIP – hasn’t been for decades. Say the truth: as a trade association representing pediatricians, AAP is worried that the evidence regarding vaccine products will be exposed and will harm the financial interests of AAP’s members.… https://t.co/uc4Pc7zPLy
— Aaron Siri (@AaronSiriSG) June 10, 2025
Vaccine makers wait to see who the new ACIP members are
Global vaccine shares were muted yesterday in response to Kennedy’s announcement as investors consider what the news will mean for pharmaceutical sales, according to Reuters.
Analysts and investors told Reuters that although the sudden dismissal of all ACIP members represented a risk for vaccine makers, vaccine stocks had already been performing weakly in 2025, suggesting that Kennedy’s vaccine skepticism had already been factored into financial projections.
According to CNBC, Merck CEO Rob Davis, who was attending the Goldman Sachs Healthcare Conference when Kennedy made the announcement, said it’s too early to unequivocally say what this means for the company. “We will wait and see who the new ACIP members are.”
Merck is hoping the ACIP will recommend its RSV shot for babies at its next meeting, scheduled for June 25-27.
The committee is also expected to vote on the COVID-19, HPV, flu and meningococcal vaccines. The group will also vote on whether to include vaccines for COVID-19, HPV, flu and RSV in the Vaccines for Children Program, according to the Federal Register.
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‘ACIP members have never seen a vaccine they didn’t like’
The U.S. surgeon general created ACIP in 1964, when the government expanded its immunization programs, according to a Congressional Research Service report released in December 2024.
Since then, the committee has been responsible for shaping U.S. vaccine policy by issuing recommendations that become official CDC policy once adopted by the CDC director.
The committee members vote on whether to recommend specific vaccines and, if so, the dosages and target age groups.
ACIP’s recommendations also affect which vaccines are covered by insurance companies and given to children through the federal Vaccines for Children Program.
According to the congressional report, the HHS secretary appoints the committee members, who serve overlapping terms of up to four years.
Nass called the process for appointing committee members “opaque.”
The congressional report states that anyone can apply and that selection is based on meeting “certain qualifications.”
According to STAT News, ACIP candidates typically undergo a vetting process that takes a year or more.
The vetting is “presumably to be sure they will perform as desired,” Nass said. “And sure enough, on almost every ACIP vote the outcome has been identical: unanimity in favor of what CDC has proposed. The ACIP members have never seen a vaccine they didn’t like.”
Holland agreed, referencing a CHD parody of an actual 2018 meeting in which members unanimously recommended an adjuvanted vaccine even after the vaccine maker could provide no safety data on what happens when the shot is administered in conjunction with other adjuvanted vaccines, and after hearing that Europe didn’t recommend multiple adjuvanted vaccines.
“It goes to the heart of the absurdity of what ACIP has become,” Holland said.
Related articles in The Defender- Breaking: RFK Jr. Removes All Members of CDC Vaccine Advisory Committee
- Biden Administration Stacked Key Vaccine Review Committee With Pro-vaxxers
- 9 New ‘Independent’ Advisers to CDC Publicly Promoted Vaccines or Took Money From Pharma — or Both
- 14 ACIP Members Who Voted to Jab Your Young Children — and Their Big Ties to Big Pharma
