The health and human services secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., announced the first eight new members of the Centers for Disease Control’s vaccine panel just days after the wholesale removal of the previous board of medical experts.  

Among those chosen for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, an external panel that approves new vaccines for the recommended childhood schedule, are a physician-scientist, Robert W. Malone, and a Swedish epidemiologist, Martin Kulldorff, both outspoken critics of Covid-19 vaccine mandates. 

Mr. Kennedy appointed both despite his earlier pledge to name “credentialed physicians and scientists” to the board instead of “ideological anti-vaxxers.”

Dr. Malone was involved in the foundational work behind the messenger ribonucleic acid vaccine in the 1980s but came under fire after making unsubstantiated claims about the Covid-19 vaccines, including that the vaccines were “damaging T cell responses” and “causing a form of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, that’s what AIDS stands for,” as he said in 2022.

Dr. Kulldorff, a former professor of medicine at the Harvard Medical School, co-wrote the “Great Barrington Declaration” with Jay Bhattacharya, now director of the National Institutes of Health. The 2020 open letter argued that mass lockdowns and school closures were doing more harm than good, advocating instead for “focused protection.”

“The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk,” Dr. Kulldorff and his co-authors wrote. 

“All of these individuals are committed to evidence-based medicine, gold-standard science, and common sense. They have each committed to demanding definitive safety and efficacy data before making any new vaccine recommendations,” Mr. Kennedy said on X. 

Other new ACIP members include the acting chief of the Section on Nutritional Neurosciences at the National Institutes of Health, Joseph R. Hibben; a professor of operations management at MIT Sloan School of Management, Retsef Levi; and a professor of pediatrics at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Cody Meissner. 

Mr. Kennedy said the new board members would review the safety and efficacy data of all vaccines on the current schedule. 

A pulmonologist and NBC News medical analyst, Vin Gupta, in a social media post called the new ACIP board members “charlatans that have nothing to lose and will rubber stamp ludicrous policies.” 

In a lengthy post on X Tuesday night, Mr. Kennedy defended his decision to go for the “clean sweep” of the advisory board and pledged to staff it with “highly credentialed physicians and scientists who will make extremely consequential public health determinations by applying evidence-based decision-making with objectivity and common sense.”

Mr. Kennedy’s removal of all 17 board members marked a reversal from his Senate confirmation hearing promise to Senator Cassidy, a Republican of Louisiana, to maintain ACIP “without changes.”

Mr. Cassidy said on social media that he had spoken with Mr. Kennedy about his decision.

“Of course, now the fear is that the ACIP will be filled up with people who know nothing about vaccines except suspicion,” Mr. Cassidy said on X. “I’ll continue to talk with him to ensure this is not the case.”

In his post on X, Mr. Kennedy defended his move by citing what he called the “historical corruption at ACIP.”

“The most outrageous example of ACIP’s malevolent malpractice has been its stubborn unwillingness to demand adequate safety trials before recommending new vaccines for our children,” Mr. Kennedy wrote. 

A former surgeon general, Jerome Adams, said he was “deeply concerned” by both Mr. Kennedy’s decision and his justification for it.

“For decades, ACIP’s independent, evidence-based recommendations have saved countless lives by guiding vaccine policy with transparency and scientific rigor. This move risks undermining public trust in vaccines at a time when declining immunization rates and outbreaks of preventable diseases, like measles, warrant steady leadership,” Dr. Adams posted on X.

Since Mr. Kennedy took control of HHS, the agency has appointed William “Reyn” Archer III, a vaccine critic, to review the previous ACIP’s recommendations for RSV and meningitis vaccines.

Mr. Kennedy also hired David Geier, who argues that vaccines can cause autism, as a data analyst for the health agency. 

Mr. Geier, who was disciplined by the Maryland State Board of Physicians for practicing medicine without a license, is reportedly leading a study examining the potential link between vaccines and autism. 

A former CDC director, Tom Frieden, called Mr. Kennedy’s move “a dangerous and unprecedented action that makes our families less safe.”

“Politicizing the ACIP as Secretary Kennedy is doing will undermine public trust under the guise of improving it. If this leads to vaccines not being recommended, millions of people could lose access, pay more for vaccines and for preventable illnesses, and children will be at greater risk of diseases we haven’t faced in decades,” Dr. Frieden said on X.