ACIP: Who are the new members? Introductions in their own words

Members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices began their two-day meeting on Sept. 18, 2025. This image was taken from the meeting webcast.

Members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) said they have studied, recommended, administered and received vaccines, and are not automatically opposed to people getting inoculated against disease.

On Sept. 18, ACIP began its two-day meeting with five more members than the panel had in June.

The newest five were announced Sept. 15 and all five participated for the start of the two-day meeting. The six current members also introduced themselves to their new fellows. All members expressed gratitude for the opportunity to serve. They stated they had no conflicts of interest and that their expressed opinions were their own, not necessarily those of their employers or affiliated organizations.

Here, in their own words, are the introductions. Chair Martin Kulldorff, PhD, also had an opening statement that described his experience and the spirit of inquiry guiding ACIP.

Hillary Blackburn, PharmD, MBA: “My name is Hillary Blackburn, PharmD, MBA, and I'm honored to join you all as the first pharmacist to serve as a voting member of ACIP. I currently serve as director of medication access and affordability at Ascension RX, and I earned my farm my doctor of pharmacy degree from the University of Mississippi School of Pharmacy and completed a PGY one residency at the University of Mississippi Medical Center,” Blackburn said. “Over the last 15 years, I've worked across hospital communities, specialty pharmacy and health plan settings, and as a practicing pharmacist, I have administered hundreds of vaccines and completed national immunization certification. I've held numerous leadership roles within professional organizations, including at the national and state level, been a dedicated preceptor for student pharmacists from multiple colleges of pharmacy, and serve on the dean's external advisory committee for two colleges of pharmacy. I'm honored to bring a pharmacist perspective to the important work that we do as part of the ACIP.”

Evelyn Griffin, MD: “My name is Dr. Evelyn Griffin. I’m an OB/GYN from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I am board certified in by the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, by the American Board of Lifestyle Medicine and the Institute of Functional Medicine. I was amongst the first to be a gynecologic robotically assisted surgeon in the nation. In my clinical practice in obstetrics, I had been part of initiatives for maternal immunization, including diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus. And in my overall practice, I feel like, if I was to be given a label, I would call myself pro informed consent, because of medical ethics for discussing risk, benefits and alternatives with the patient. During the pandemic, I myself was COVID vaccinated. I am honored to be on this community. Thank you for having me.”

Joseph Hibbeln, MD, ABNP, CAPT USPHS (Ret.): “I'm a board certified psychiatrist coming to this committee in part for the immense mental health aspects of vaccinations and diseases. I'm a distinguished visiting professor at the University of Bristol in the UK. I have 30 years of research experience at the NIH in basic science, animal, human and epidemiological studies and data. I have 285 publications with an impact factor of 30 — had to look that up figure out what that meant. Apparently, it's not only exceptional, but rare. So, I didn't know about that myself. The critical issues I bring to the committee are an appreciation of calculating risks and benefits of getting vaccines and not getting vaccines. Backgrounds in immunology, neurodevelopment and translational sciences. I've been on panels from NATO to WHO, to the National Academy of Sciences twice, to the dietary guidelines twice, to UK parliamentary inquiries and the Department of Defense and the American Psychiatric Association. Thank you. And I have a neutral mind towards vaccines. Approaching this with a scientific equity.”

Kirk Milhoan, MD, PhD: “I first got my PhD from USD UCSD in physiology and pharmacology, with my thesis being on the influence the mechanisms for inflammation and myocardium. I went on to medical school at Jefferson Medical School, did my residency Travis Air Force Base in the United States Air Force then went on to do my pediatric cardiology training at UCSD ready children's hospital in San Diego. Following that, I was served as a pediatrician and pediatric cardiologist in the Air Force. I also served as a flight surgeon and did two tours in Iraq as a flight surgeon. I have been board-certified in pediatrics and pediatric cardiology for over 20 years. I have experience in vaccinating children and international medicine in over 23 countries involving those without access to vaccinations, and I currently care for many of those who are suffering from vaccine, post-vaccine syndrome. Currently, I am a clinical associate professor at Texas A&M College of Medicine, and performing inpatient and outpatient cardiology at a children's hospital in Texas, I have co-authored two articles on the risk and benefits of COVID-19 vaccines, specifically regarding postvaccine myocarditis. And it's an honor to be here.”

Robert Malone, MD, MS: “I'm a Maryland licensed physician. I hold a MD from Northwestern University, master's degree from UC San Diego and the Salk Institute molecular biology and virology laboratories/ I had disclosures and inventions, multiple patents in the late 1980s and early 1990s having to do with DNA and RNA vaccines. I've been involved in both bench research with numerous discoveries while I was teaching pathology to medical students for many years. I've also completed a fellowship in both pathology and a fellowship in global clinical research at Harvard. I've been involved in designing, developing and providing oversight for approximately 40 phase one clinical trials, 20 phase two clinical trials, five phase three clinical trials. Served as medical director and medical monitor on phase one and two and three clinical trials, mostly focused on vaccines. I am a vaccinologist. I've spent most of my career developing vaccines, and that experience includes significant work with the Department of Defense supporting a variety of vaccine products. I originally started off in HIV vaccines. I served here in Georgia as head of clinical for a $330 million BARDA contract for developing cell-based influenza vaccines focused on the clinical aspect of that. I have experience in plague, Anthrax, V tularemia, tuberculosis, Ebola, Zika, ricin toxin, botulinum toxin and engineered pathogen vaccines. I hold a, or have been granted, a secret clearance by DOD. I have over 100 papers, something like 15,000 citations, and have really extensive experience in public policy as it relates to vaccines, including serving in multiple times a study section chair for typically large contracts at NIH, been an advisor to the World Health Organization on multiple topics relating to infectious disease, and made presentations at WHO about vaccine technology, particularly for influenza. I have no conflicts of interest. I thank the CDC and HHS for the opportunity to serve here as a unpaid member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.”

Cody H. Meissner, MD: “I'm delighted to have an opportunity to participate in the discussions today. I am an independent contractor with Tunnell Government Services supporting BARDA, and I'm a professor at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth.” BARDA is the Center for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.

James V. Pagano, MD: “I'm James Pagano, a retired emergency medicine specialist with over 40 years of clinical and administrative experience. Over the course of my career, vaccines have provided significant, and at times, life-saving benefits to hundreds of my patients. These have included tetanus, tetanus toxoid, flu, diphtheria, pertussis, hepatitis B, hepatitis B, immunoglobulin and, yes, COVID. I've also been vaccinated myself numerous times against all these diseases and toxicities. So I'm not antivax. I am pro the intelligent and informed utilization of these potentially life-saving medications in a manner that reflects the current state of the art regarding their benefits, the target populations, optimal dosing and timing, and, yes, of their potential adverse effects in some people and I have no conflicts.”

Vicky Pebsworth, OP, PhD, RN: “My career began over 45 years ago. I started as a bedside nurse, where I took care of patients who were sick with vaccine preventable diseases, and I gave lots of vaccines. I eventually went on to get a degree in public health and health services, organization and policy and also nursing at the University of Michigan. I am recently certified in bioethics. I have previously served on two other vaccine policy making committees for nearly 10 years. I was with the Food and Drug Administration's VRBPAC committee, the vaccines and related biologic Products Advisory Committee, and also served on two subcommittees at the National Vaccine Advisory Committee, the Vaccine Safety Working Group and the 2009 h1 and one vaccine safety risk assessment working group. I've also served as a consultant to the CDC board of scientific counselors and also to the Institute of Medicine on the topic of vaccination and public trust. I have published peer-reviewed literature, and I serve as a peer reviewer for a couple of journals on topics related to vaccination, vaccine uptake, the effects of state laws and vaccine safety. I currently volunteer as a director at the National Vaccine Information Center and the National Association of Catholic Nurses.”

Raymond Pollack, MD, FACS, FRCS: “I'm a semiretired consultant and former professor and head of the abdominal organ transplantation at the University of Illinois. I was also a principal investigator in multiple clinical trial, as well as a principal investigator in NIH-sponsored research in transplant immunobiology. I'm happy to be here, and thank you for the opportunity to be of service.”

Catherine M. Stein, PhD: “I'm a professor of epidemiology. My PhD is in epidemiology and biostatistics, and I have a 20-year career focused in infectious disease epidemiology with public with over 115 peer-reviewed publications and several review papers and other things besides. I've also done some work in bioethics, especially focusing on informed consent, and I've mentored several masters and PhD students who have gone on to careers in public health and medicine. Much of my infectious disease research has been collaborative in the field of immunology, and thus has had implications for vaccine design. I am a professor of epidemiology at Case Western Reserve University.”

Retsef Levi, PhD: “I'm Retsef Levi from MIT, on the faculty there, from 2006. I have a PhD in operations research, and I've been working for most of my career, academic career, on trying to think about risk-benefit, trade-offs and optimization of them in many complex systems that operate under a lot of uncertainty, with the great consideration to risk. And a lot of my work has been focused on human health. I've been working for many, many years with clinical teams on the ground trying to optimize clinical and operational processes in large health care systems, working extensively with health care data. I've been working on using data to optimize the quality and safety of the manufacturing of biologic drugs. Developed the drug safety models, epidemiological models, also worked on issues related to access to healthy food, agriculture and food supply chains and their impact on health. And I am honored to be here and work with my colleagues on the committee and the CDC and FDA today and tomorrow.”