Fired ACIP members: RFK Jr. has ‘critically weakened’ U.S. vaccine program

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The mass firing of vaccine reviewers has “left the U.S. vaccine program critically weakened,” said the 17 former members of the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).

The members stated their case in a joint Viewpoint editorial article in JAMA, published June 16. They cited federal law and committee tenure of more than 60 years advising the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccines that have prevented illness for decades.

The 17 members said that history had earned the trust of America’s doctors and patients, and the national process for reviewing vaccines has become a world standard of science and safety,. That has been jeopardized by the June 9 dismissal ordered by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and his appointments of eight new members two days later. The panel is scheduled to meet later this month.

“These actions have stripped the program of the institutional knowledge and continuity that have been essential to its success over decades,” the editorial said. “Notably, the ACIP charter specifies that committee members serve overlapping terms to ensure continuity and avoid precisely the disruption that will now ensue. The termination of all members and its leadership in a single action undermines the committee’s capacity to operate effectively and efficiently, aside from raising questions about competence.”

Who’s on the panel?

The former panel members said ACIP committee members were tapped through a rigorous selection process for experts in immunology, epidemiology, pediatrics, obstetrics, internal and family medicine, geriatrics, infectious diseases and public health. They worked in hospitals, clinics, health departments, universities and organizations devoted to caring for patients, researching disease, and helping prevent and treat it.

They spent “significant time” preparing for meetings, and did not participate when there was a conflict of interest. Disclosures were required to reveal potential conflicts, and the meetings and disclosures were open to public scrutiny, the panelists said.

“The newly stated strategy to replace ACIP members with individuals who will ‘exercise independent judgment, refuse to serve as a rubber stamp, and foster a culture of critical inquiry’ is already leading to warnings by academic and scientific institutions, professional organizations, and the public who for decades have known well that these sought-after qualities precisely characterized the now-dismissed members of the ACIP,” the former members said.

COVID-19 vaccine changes

Also concerning was Kennedy’s action to change national vaccine policy for COVID-19 shots, announcing on social media website X, formerly Twitter, that the shot was removed from CDC’s recommended immunization schedule. “Bottom line: it’s common sense and it’s good science,” moving the nation a step closer to President Donald J. Trump’s promise to Make America Healthy Again, that post said.

“Such actions reflect a troubling disregard for the scientific integrity that has historically guided U.S. immunization strategy,” the former ACIP panelists wrote. They cited “An Evidence-Based Approach to COVID-19 Vaccination,” by Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Martin A. Makary, MD, MPH, and Vinayak Kashyap “Vinay” Prasad, MD, MPH, director of FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, published May 20 in The New England Journal of Medicine. Developing the vaccine so quickly was a major accomplishment, but benefits are uncertain when it comes to repeat dosing of low-risk people who had multiple doses, COVID-19 infections, or both, Makary and Prasad said.

“The American people, along with many health care providers, remain unconvinced,” they wrote.

Apart from the ACIP members, physician organization leaders criticized the COVID-19 decision for the potential health threats to women and babies, and for causing confusion and eroding public trust in vaccines, and medicine and science generally. The directives are confusing not only for patients, but physicians, insurers and hospitals that are responsible for administering COVID-19 vaccines, said Paul A. Offit, MD, a vaccine researcher and co-author of “Changed Recommendations for COVID-19 Vaccines for Children and Pregnant Women: A Failure of Process, Policy, and Science,” published June 13 in JAMA.

Gaining or losing trust?

Kennedy said he hoped to restore public trust in the national vaccine review process. In one X social media post, he said: “The most outrageous example of ACIP’s malevolent malpractice has been its stubborn unwillingness to demand adequate safety trials before recommending new vaccines for our children.”

As of 2025, American children may receive up to 92 routine vaccines, depending on brand and dictated dosage, before age 18. That is up from 11 shots in 1986, and since then, childhood chronic illness has exploded, Kennedy said. ACIP recommended the shots without requiring placebo-controlled trials for any of them. “This means that no one can scientifically ascertain whether these products are averting more problems than they are causing,” Kennedy wrote, specifically arguing against reports by news outlet CNN.

The ACIP former members said rules surrounding had earned trust, as did results.

“In this age of government efficiency, the U.S. public needs to know that the routine vaccination of approximately 117 million children from 1994-2023 likely prevented around 508 million lifetime cases of illness, 32 million hospitalizations, and 1,129,000 deaths, at a net savings of $540 billion in direct costs and $2.7 trillion in societal costs,” they wrote.

The panelists said they remain committed to evidence-based vaccine policy.

“As former ACIP members, we are deeply concerned that these destabilizing decisions, made without clear rationale, may roll back the achievements of U.S. immunization policy, impact people’s access to lifesaving vaccines, and ultimately put U.S. families at risk of dangerous and preventable illnesses,” they wrote.

The co-authors

The former ACIP members and co-authors of the article were:

• Chair Helen Keipp Talbot, MD, MPH, an ACIP member from 2018 to 2023.
• Edwin Jose Asturias, MD, professor of pediatrics and infectious diseases epidemiology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Colorado School of Public Health.
• Noel T. Brewer, PhD, Gillings Distinguished Professor in Public Health at the Gillings School of Global Public Health in North Carolina.
• Oliver Brooks, MD, FAAP, chief medical officer of Watts HealthCare Corp. in Los Angeles, California.
• Lin H. Chen, MD, FACP, FASTMH, FISTM, director of Mount Auburn Travel Medicine Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• Helen Y. Chu, MD, MPH, FIDSA, professor of medicine at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle, Washington.
• Sybli Cineas, MD, FAAP, FACP, associate professor at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.
• Denise J. Jamieson, MD, MPH, vice president for medical affairs and dean at Carver College of Medicine at University of Iowa.
• Mini Kamboj, MD, FIDSA, FSHEA, attending physician at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York.
• George Kuchel, MD CM, FRCO,AGSF, FGSA, FAAAS, professor and travelers chair, geriatrics and gerontology, UConn Center on Aging in Farmington, Connecticut.
• Jamie Loehr, MD, FAAFP, owner of Cayuga Family Medicine in Ithaca, New York.
• Karyn Lyons, MS, RN, immunization section chief of Illinois Department of Public Health in Springfield, Illinois.
• Yvonne (Bonnie) Maldonado, MD, senior associate dean for faculty development and diversity, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford.
• Charlotte A. Moser, MS, co-director of the Vaccine Education Center, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania.
• Robert Schechter, MD, MSc, chief of the immunization branch of the California Department of Public Health.
• Albert C. Shaw, MD, PhD, FIDSA, professor of medicine at Yale School of Medicine.
• Jane R. Zucker, MD, MSc, FIDSA, adjunct professor at SUNY Downstate School of Public Health in New York.