The decision by United States Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr to fire all members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) vaccine advisory group is “a dangerous and unprecedented action that makes our families less safe”, according to Dr Tom Frieden, CEO of Resolve to Save Lives.  

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) develops recommendations on how to use vaccines to control disease in the US, according to the CDC.

“Seventeen dedicated doctors, paediatricians, scientists, and parents who served on the ACIP  were just fired by Secretary Kennedy based on false claims of conflicts of interest,” said Frieden, a former head of the CDC, late Monday.

Kennedy announced the move a few hours earlier in an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, claiming that “a clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science”.

He added that “vaccines have become a divisive issue in American politics”, and that the “committee has been plagued with persistent conflicts of interest and has become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine.”

But Dr Tina Tan, president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America President, said that “unilaterally removing an entire panel of experts is reckless, short-sighted and severely harmful”.

“This is one of the darkest days in modern public health history,” said Dr Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP). “Science does not matter to Mr Kennedy.” 

17 dedicated doctors, pediatricians, scientists, and parents who served on the Advisory Committee of Immunization Practices (ACIP) were just fired by Secretary Kennedy based on false claims of conflicts of interest – a dangerous and unprecedented action that makes our families…

— Dr. Tom Frieden (@DrTomFrieden) June 9, 2025

Frieden warned that “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.”

There have been 17 measles outbreaks in the US this year so far, and by 5 June, a total of 1,168 confirmed measles cases had been reported by 34 jurisdictions, according to the CDC. Some 95% of cases were either unvaccinated or their vaccination status was unknown.

The measles caseload is four times higher than in 2024 and is nearing a 30-year high, according to ABC news. The rise in measles cases stems from waning vaccination levels, with a vaccination rate of over 95% required to keep the highly infectious disease in check.

Anti-vax ‘empire’

Biomedical scientist and science communicator Dr Andrea Love said that Kennedy, not ACIP, “is the one who has created distrust around vaccines and legitimate scientific experts”,  adding that he has spent “over 20 years systematically attacking vaccines for profit”.

“RFK Jr has built a multi-million dollar empire manufacturing vaccine distrust. His organisation, Children’s Health Defense (CHD), raked in over $16 million in 2021 alone – money made by terrifying parents, undermining public health, and selling false solutions,” Love wrote in her Immunologic newsletter.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centre for Countering Digital Hate identified Kennedy as the second biggest purveyor of anti-vaccine disinformation, based on its analysis of  Facebook and Twitter during March 2021.

Eleven of the 12 “disinformation dozen” were selling alternative remedies for COVID-19, while the non-profit CHD, which Kennedy founded and ran until his presidential bid, receives donations to question vaccines.

“Every vaccine controversy he fabricates, every conspiracy theory he spreads, every scientific institution he attacks leads to donations, book sales, legal fees, speaking fees, and supplement partnerships,” said Love.

New members are ‘under consideration’

Replacement committee members are “currently under consideration” by Kennedy, and ACIP is still scheduled to meet on 25 June, according to an announcement by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

“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,” according to HHS.

Until Monday, ACIP was chaired by Dr Helen Talbot, professor of Medicine and Health Policy at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, who also co-leads the university’s Emerging Infections Program that is working on understanding viral respiratory disease epidemiology. Other members were also primarily medical experts based at universities and research institutions.

ACIP members are “required to declare any potential or perceived conflicts of interest” during their tenure, and recuse themselves from deliberations and voting should they have such conflicts, according to the CDC, which publishes members’ disclosures.

Kennedy and Trump’s recent high-level health appointees give an indication of the likely direction of the new appointees.

Last month, President Donald Trump nominated Casey Means, who has linked vaccines to autism, as Surgeon General on the advice of Kennedy.

Her brother, Calley Means, co-founder of an online wellness sales platform, is Kennedy’s special advisor. 

The Means siblings co-authored Good Energy, in which they argue that all chronic conditions are caused by metabolic dysfunction linked to lifestyle.

The Means, like new National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Dr Jay Bhattacharya; Food and Drug Authority (FDA) head Dr Marty Makary; and Dr Mehmet Oz, head of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, are critical of mainstream medicine and how the COVID-19 pandemic was handled.

Image Credits: WHO, Facebook.