RFK Jr. Catches Senators Off-Guard With Mass Firing at CDC’s Vaccine Advisory Board

The secretary of health and human services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is raising concerns among Republican senators after he announced he would fire all 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control’s vaccine advisory board. Mr. Kennedy says the firings will allow the Trump administration to fill the board with those who view all vaccines with skepticism, rather than industry insiders who he has long accused of being corrupt. The health secretary made the announcement in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece on Monday afternoon, saying he was “retiring” all members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, which provides recommendations on which vaccines are safe for use. “Under my direction, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is putting the restoration of public trust above any pro- or antivaccine agenda,” Mr. Kennedy writes. “The public must know that unbiased science guides the recommendations from our health agencies.”Senators who serve on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee were caught off-guard by the move shortly after the announcement was made. It was especially surprising because the committee’s chairman, Senator Cassidy, long withheld his support from Mr. Kennedy after he was nominated, though the senator backed him once the nominee promised to not make changes at ACIP. Senator Collins, who sits on the HELP Committee, had no idea the move was coming. “I did not know that that had happened today,” Ms. Collins told reporters after she was asked to comment on the development. “But it seems to me to be excessive to ask for everybody’s resignations.”“I’m just learning about it now, so I don’t know what the facts are,” she added. “To cancel all the people … raises serious questions.”Mr. Cassidy, flanked by aides as he walked to the Senate floor for votes, pointed reporters to a post he put out on X shortly after Mr. Kennedy’s op-ed in the Journal was posted. “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. Cassidy writes on the social media platform. Back in February, after weeks of refusing to commit to backing Mr. Kennedy, the Lousiana senator said in a speech from the Senate floor that he would support the health secretary nominee only after he had made a number of assurances — including to not make changes at ACIP. From the Senate floor, Mr. Cassidy said that Mr. Kennedy had told him that he would “maintain” ACIP “without changes.”When asked by the Sun if he felt he had been lied to, Mr. Cassidy simply referred to his X post on Monday afternoon, and said that he was “not going to [talk] any more about that.”A Democratic member of the committee, Senator Kaine, stopped short of saying that Mr. Kennedy outright lied to his HELP Committee colleagues, though he felt the secretary had questions to answer after the abrupt firings. “I think he misled [senators]. You know, lying is a tough charge,” Mr. Kaine says. “I think he definitely misled the committee and he owes the chairman and the whole committee an explanation.”Mr. Kennedy claimed in his opinion piece that the advisory committee has been nothing more than a “rubber-stamp” for all vaccines regardless of their efficacy or safety. He also accused some members of the vaccine advisory panel of being captured by pharmaceutical companies.“The problem isn’t necessarily that ACIP members are corrupt,” Mr. Kennedy writes. “The problem is their immersion in a system of industry-aligned incentives and paradigms that enforce a narrow pro-industry orthodoxy.”“The new members won’t directly work for the vaccine industry. They will exercise independent judgment, refuse to serve as a rubber stamp, and foster a culture of critical inquiry,” the health secretary added.

RFK Jr. Catches Senators Off-Guard With Mass Firing at CDC’s Vaccine Advisory Board

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