RFK Jr. names new vaccine advisers after firing previous advisory committee

U.S. Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday named eight members to serve on a key panel of vaccine advisers after abruptly firing all 17 sitting members of the independent panel of experts.
They will sit on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP). Eight is the minimum number allowed by law.
Four of the new members have previously worked on committees associated with either the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration, or both.
Kennedy named Joseph R. Hibbeln, Martin Kulldorff, Retsef Levi, Robert W. Malone, Cody Meissner, James Pagano, Vicky Pebsworth and Michael A. Ross.
Meissner and Pebsworth have sat on the FDA's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, and Meissner also previously served on ACIP.
Kulldorff is an architect of the Great Barrington Declaration, which called for a lighter public health response to COVID-19 in October 2020, and previously served on an ACIP vaccine safety subgroup.
"All of these individuals are committed to evidence-based medicine, gold-standard science and common sense," Kennedy said in a post on X.
Kennedy said the new members are committed to demanding definitive safety and efficacy data before making any new vaccine recommendations.
Kennedy, who has long questioned the safety of vaccines contrary to scientific evidence, alleged that the prior panel members, many of whom were appointed by President Joe Biden, had conflicts of interest, without providing evidence of specific members' conflicts. He said the move was necessary "to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science."
WATCH | Expert speaks on Kennedy firing vaccine panel:
RFK Jr. 'gutting' vaccine advisory panel could erode public trust, says expert
1 day ago
Duration 9:09
U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has removed every member of a scientific committee that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccination. Infectious diseases specialist Dr. Isaac Bogoch says the move lacks transparency and risks eroding the public's trust in vaccines.
Committee members said their ACIP work follows rigorous vetting of their financial ties and that they must abstain from votes on any vaccine for which they have a conflict.
Numerous physician groups have expressed concern and suspicion over Kennedy's unprecedented removal of all the panel's prior members.
The American Medical Association, the nation's largest physician group, has called for a Senate investigation into their dismissal, and sent Kennedy a letter calling for an immediate reversal of the changes.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

CBC

22 minutes ago

• CBC

How a coastal Maine town almost became part of Canada

Social Sharing When U.S. President Donald Trump started talking about annexing Canada to make it the 51st state, people in Castine, Maine, took notice. The town, after all, was twice occupied by Great Britain two centuries ago. The British wanted to carve out a new colony that would be part of British North America — in effect doing the opposite of what Trump has been musing about. "When I do walking tours, I jokingly tell people that this could have been Canada very easily," said Lisa Lutts, the recently retired executive director of the Castine Historical Society. "If the War of 1812, if the Treaty of Paris had been different, this would have been Canada. And I always joke and say, well, I would have had better health care. That's my joke, and people love it." Castine's history of occupation is visible in the historical markers and remnants of British forts that dot its small grid of streets overlooking Penobscot Bay. Kamala Harris beat Donald Trump here by 47 percentage points in the presidential election last fall, and the president's aggressive comments about Canada were deeply unpopular in Castine and nearby coastal communities. "This isn't how you treat your allies," said Pete O'Brien, a resident of nearby Rockland who was showing relatives from California the earthworks of Fort George, built by British troops in 1779. "We're about as close as it gets to you politically, culturally, geographically." Liam Riordan, a historian at the University of Maine at Orono and an expert on the revolutionary period, said Trump's rhetoric represents "a failure to understand the close ties and close relationships that we share." "I think in Maine, the reaction to that has really been one of being appalled and embarrassed." WATCH | 'I see us as a borderland': Occupied Maine then and now: The Maine town that almost became a Canadian border community 1 hour ago Duration 4:58 The British occupied eastern Maine twice. Americans who live there have thoughts on U.S. President Donald Trump's annexation talk. Castine's elevated geographical location at the tip of a peninsula on the eastern side of Penobscot Bay made it a strategic location for colonial powers fighting over North America. A newspaper correspondent referred to its capture in 1814 as "perhaps one of the most admirable military positions in the world." In the 1600s, present-day Castine was the western edge of the French colony of Acadia, with the British-held Massachusetts Bay Colony on the other side of the bay. France gave up all its North American territory in 1763, but when it backed the rebels in the American Revolution, the British seized Castine in case the French decided to take it back. A revolutionary fleet sailed to Castine to push out the British but failed miserably. "A lot of Americans have no idea about the Penobscot expedition and the battle that took place here, because we lost," Lutts said. "We remember the ones that we won." When the revolution ended and the British recognized U.S. independence, "any reasonable person during the treaty negotiations … would have said almost certainly the Penobscot River would be the border," Riordan said. But John Adams, one of the negotiators, pushed for the St. Croix River to be the border because he recognized how Castine would give the Americans better access to lucrative fish stocks and trade routes. Four hundred loyalists who had come to Castine during the Revolution to remain under the British Crown moved again, this time settling what would become Saint Andrews, N.B. Several even moved their houses there on boats and placed them on a street grid similar to Castine's, the reason the two towns resemble each other. Three decades later, during the War of 1812, the British returned to capture Castine again. The story goes that American troops at Fort Madison knew they were outnumbered, fired one perfunctory cannon shot for honour's sake and quickly fled. A local pastor, William Mason, grabbed a white table cloth from his dining room and headed down to the harbour to wave it as a signal of surrender. Castine was a boomtown under British occupation thanks to trade with other British ports such as Halifax and Saint John. "Business is brisk and speculators are daily flocking in from every quarter," the Hartford Courant reported in November 1814. "The war, or rather peace, with the British is becoming very popular here." But the treaty that ended the War of 1812 returned Castine to the U.S. again. Thousands of pounds collected by the British customs house in Castine remained with the British and was used by Nova Scotia's governor, Lord Dalhousie, to establish a college that later became Dalhousie University. "Another reason why we feel very close to Canada is that our money is up there at that university," Lutts joked. "They're not letting us in for free though. They should let Castiners in for free, don't you think?" The end of that war also marked the end of Castine changing hands, but the town's history remains a touchstone for residents to this day. "We understand ourselves by thinking about our relationship with the past," Riordan said. "And Castine really leans into this more than many other local towns." Some local residents aren't sure life would be that different here if history had taken a different turn. "If the Canadian border had been here, I don't think a lot would have changed, because when I look at Maine, I see us as a borderland between Canada and the United States anyway," O'Brien said. "I think there's also a lot of understanding and acceptance and appreciation of the Canadians down here as well. And so it would have just pushed all of that a little farther south, right?"

National Post

32 minutes ago

• National Post

J.D. Tuccille: Politicians must shoulder much of the blame for America's political violence

On June 14, as Minnesota police sought a man who allegedly murdered a state lawmaker and her husband and shot another and his wife, I was working security in front of an Arizona synagogue, wearing body armour and packing a pistol and pepper spray. As they arrived, members of the congregation, worried by a recent Molotov cocktail attack on Jews in Boulder, Colo., the double murder at the Jewish museum in Washington, D.C. and tensions over the war between Israel and Iran, thanked me for accepting the rabbi's request to help out. Well, of course; my wife was inside. Adding to fears were the 'No Kings' protests — some of which turned into riots — scheduled that day nationwide. Article content Article content Which is to say, sweating through my bullet-proof vest under the southwestern sun wasn't directly connected to the Minnesota incident, but both are evidence of the country's problem with political violence. Article content Article content Article content Reporting on the assassinations in Minnesota, the BBC turned for comment to Jenna Stocker, editor of Thinking Minnesota, a political publication in a state that's known for its niceness. According to Stocker, 'Some people even here in Minnesota have really let politics guide their thinking and how they feel about their neighbours, their friends and their relatives,' and this has fractured society and driven people into hostile camps. Article content The BBC added that Thinking Minnesota's parent organization, the Center of the American Experiment, 'was firebombed last year in what think-tank officials called a politically motivated attack.' Stocker is right that political partisanship is dominating people's identities and poisoning relationships. A study published in February in the journal Political Psychology reported that, in America, 'Political identity outweighs all other social identities in informing citizens' attitudes and projected behaviours towards others.' That is, being a Republican or a Democrat is more important to Americans than shared racial, religious or class identities. Interestingly, the researchers also found that hostility towards political opponents motivates people more strongly than loyalty to their own side. Anger drives political polarization, and Americans can see the results in the arson attacks, bombings, shootings and riots throughout the country. Article content Article content Concern for the deteriorating political climate in the United States led my wife and I to take a week-long defensive pistol training course at Gunsite Academy, one of the top-ranked firearms training schools in the United States. As a political writer, correspondence in my inbox can get a little — or a lot — hostile. My wife, who is Jewish, has similar concerns about surging antisemitic violence, which is often carried out by people who convince themselves that every person wearing a Star of David is responsible for all the flaws, real or imagined, of the State of Israel. Those were reasons enough for us to spend days in the desert running through shooting techniques and combat simulations. Article content

Globe and Mail

2 hours ago

• Globe and Mail

Threat of wider war looms after U.S. bombs Iran nuclear sites

This weekend, the U.S. struck three Iranian nuclear facilities, as it warned Iran about its nuclear capabilities and attacks against Israel. U.S. President Donald Trump called the bombing mission 'a spectacular military success' and threatened 'future attacks' if a nuclear peace deal was not made. The Globe's international affairs columnist, Doug Saunders, joins The Decibel. He explains how the U.S. got involved in this conflict, what's at stake for the leaders of the U.S., Israel and Iran, and why there are concerns this could become a wider war. Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at thedecibel@