After wiping out all the previous ACIP members early last week, Mr. Kennedy promptly appointed eight new members (just enough for the Committee to have a quorum).
As expected, most of the new appointees are known for their anti‑vaccine views or skepticism of mainstream immunization policy. With the next meeting scheduled for June 25, the new committee poised to dismantle the current evidence-based recommended child and adult vaccine schedules.
They know they’ve got 3.5 years to unravel the system – so expect them to take it slow at first before they step on the accelerator.
Kennedy Plows the Field to Eliminate Vaccines from the Recommended Schedule, Making them Inaccessible – AZ Public Health Association
Who are the new appointees?
- Vicky Pebsworth: A board member of the National Vaccine Information Center (a misnomer because they don’t provide evidence-based information). This is an anti-vax group notorious for advocating vaccine exemptions and raising vaccine safety alarms without evidence.
- Dr. Martin Kulldorff: A co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, who has consistently recommended against vaccinating children and champions natural infection.
- Dr. Robert Malone: A leading COVID‑19 vaccine critic, peddling conspiracy theories and misrepresenting mRNA science.
- Retsef Levi: An ‘influencer’ and vocal mRNA vaccine skeptic who claims, without evidence, that vaccines inflict “serious harm and death,” in children.
- Joseph Hibbeln, Cody Meissner, James Pagano, Michael Ross: These people are relatively unknown in the public sphere. Meissner has prior ACIP and FDA advisory experience. The others appear to have little vaccine expertise and have shown skepticism in related health areas – but these 4 don’t seem to be as bad as Pebsworth, Kulldorff, Malone and Levi (at least so far).
Historically, ACIP members examine data without bias. Those decades are over. Under Kennedy, the new appointees will be predisposed to confirm their anti‑vaccine stance, interpreting evidence through via “confirmation bias” – which means folks only want advice or information if it supports what you already want to do.
The upshot is ACIP will begin recommending that the CDC remove several vaccines from the child and adult vaccine schedule. The CDC director (whoever that will be) will rubber stamp the recommendations. That will prompt health plans and Medicaid (through VFC) to stop covering those vaccinations (making them cash pay) – resulting in much lower vaccination rates for the shots they remove from the schedule.
In some cases, ACIP/CDC may not totally pull vaccines off the recommended schedules – they might move the vaccine to a ‘shared clinical decision-making’ category – meaning VFC providers won’t have to stock it.
These actions may not happen right away. Kennedy knows he has 3.5 years to complete his dismantling of vaccination, and I expect him to be methodical about it.
As a public health community, we have an obligation to be a watchdog for the new ACIP’s recommendations and the CDC’s likely rubber stamping of those biased recommendations.
While we may not be able to influence the outcome of Kennedy’s decisions over the next 3.5 years – we can remain a powerful force that will be there to pick up the public health pieces in early 2029.
