In heated times, ‘who can you trust’ on vaccines? Trust scientists willing to debate, ACIP Chair Kulldorff says

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Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices members are in favor of scientific debate, not against vaccines for health, said ACIP Chair Martin Kulldorff, PhD.

ACIP opened its two-day meeting with voting member introductions and a roll call of ex-officio and liaison organizations. Immediately following, Kulldorff delivered his meeting preamble to explain the panel’s goals and motivations, not unlike his opening remarks in the June meeting.

Martin Kulldorf, MD, PhD
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His opening statement included a challenge to debate to nine former directors of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) who publicly criticized the members of the panel and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Former top leaders at CDC also should be open to public debate, he said.

‘Who can you trust?’

Kulldorff welcomed the five new voting members and those in the public watching and listening to the proceedings.

“We are currently experiencing heated controversies about vaccines, and a key question is, who can you trust?” Kulldorff said. “Here's my advice: When there are different scientific views, only trust scientists who are willing to engage with and publicly debate the scientists with other views. With such debates, you can weigh and determine the scientific reasoning by each side, but without this, without it, you cannot properly judge their arguments.”

Kulldorff said that is the reason he lamented the American Academy of Pediatrics ending organizational participation as an ACIP liaison.

“Neither have they accepted my invitation for an open public debate on vaccines with equal time for each nor an invitation for private conversations,” he said.

No communication with leadership

Kulldorff did not mention the name of Susan Monarez, PhD, the ousted director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Immediately following, some of CDC’s top leaders resigned, citing divergent opinions about vaccines.

“On vaccines, this committee is the key adviser to the CDC director, but during her short tenure, she never contacted me as the ACIP chair about any of her questions or concerns, which would have been natural if she had such concerns,” Kulldorff said. “Neither was I contacted by any of the three CDC leaders who subsequently resigned.”

There were two notable circumstances among the leaders who stepped down. Demetre Daskalakis, MD, MPH, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, contributed to ACIP’s June meeting. Daniel Jernigan, MD, MPH (CAPT, USPHS, RET), was director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases. Kulldorff noted he had done important research on influenza vaccines, but the others were not vaccine scientists.

“Why would these CDC leaders ignore us instead of seeking advice from fellow scientists who have spent decades studying vaccines?” Kulldorff said. “With other CDC staff, I've had frequent and excellent interactions since I became the chair of this committee, as well as going 20 years back working with CDC. Some are very good, and the rest, they are fantastic. All are hardworking, and I cannot thank them enough for the work they're doing.”

An invitation to debate

Kulldorff said nine former CDC directors used a New York Times opinion article to criticize ACIP as “unqualified individuals” with “dangerous and unscientific views.”

“This committee has a wide variety of vaccine expertise,” Kulldorff said. The members listed their credentials, and Kulldorff said as a professor at Harvard Medical School, he developed epidemiological and biostatistical methods for post-market vaccine safety studies that CDC regularly uses, including three methods used for CDC presentation and the June ACIP meeting.

“I have authored dozens of scientific articles about vaccines with vaccine scientists at CDC, FDA, at leading universities, and I dare to think that my contributions to vaccine research is highly regarded by my colleagues,” he said, referring to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Kulldorff asked if his co-authors should be considered unqualified and unscientific vaccine scientists, and the majority of their vaccine safety studies did not find problems with them.

“So by dismissing us as unscientific, the former CDC directors are de facto questioning not only us and our scientific research, but they also questioning the safety of many childhood vaccines that we have shown to be safe,” Kulldorff said. “The fact is that we are honest vaccine scientists that let the data speak, whether there is also in one direction or the other. That is always how science should operate.”

Fired for favoring vaccines

In April 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Kulldorff noted he publicly disagreed with a CDC pause on use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Noticing blood clots in post-vaccination young women, it was reasonable to advise them to take another vaccine, “but the decision to remove the Johnson & Johnson vaccine from all ages must be viewed as one of the most disastrous vaccine decisions ever made by CDC,” leading to unnecessary deaths of older Americans, he said. Kulldorff described himself as the most provaccine scientist in the country, but the first to be fired from a CDC oversight committee for being too provaccine.

Eliminating mercury

Kulldorff also referred to the June meeting deliberations about thimerosal, the mercury-derived vaccine preservative now barred from use in U.S. vaccines.

“As this committee clearly stated at our last meeting, we strongly support the use of vaccines. At our last meeting, all our decisions were provaccine. This includes the vote to remove mercury for vaccines,” Kulldorff said.

“Mercury is a known toxin, just like lead and cigarette smoke, and we should minimize exposure to such toxins as the effect is cumulative,” he said. “If you had to choose between buying similar hotdogs with or without mercury for your kids, raise your hand if you will pick the mercury containing hot dogs. Nobody would. FDA has banned mercury from beauty products such as skin creams and soaps. Vaccines are more important than cosmetics. Since there are equally good mercury-free vaccines, removing mercury has only positive public health consequences while increasing the integrity and trust in the vaccine program.”

Thanking mothers and fathers

One of the CDC leaders that resigned cited the vote to remove toxic mercury from vaccine as a reason for his resignation, Kulldorff said.

“I found that surprising,” he said. “In contrast to that, I want to take this opportunity to thank the many mothers and fathers who, over many years, have fought hard to remove mercury for vaccines. You have falsely been called antivaxxers, but your stance is not only prochildren, but also proscience, propublic health and provaccines. The members of this ACIP committee are committed to reassuring the public and restoring public confidence by removing unnecessary risk and harms whenever possible. That is a provaccine agenda.”

Looking to other countries

All Western countries recommend important vaccines, such as the one against measles, but there is a wide variety in the recommended vaccine schedules, Kulldorff said.

“This does not make some countries antivaccine countries,” he said. “The votes that we will take at this meeting falls well within the national variability seen between countries. We welcome scientific critique of any of our votes, as there are gray areas due to incomplete scientific knowledge. But false accusations that we and other respectable vaccine scientists are unscientific and dangerous antivaxxers, that just adds legitimacy to antivax positions damaging both public health and the confidence in vaccines. Such false accusations are only logical, if their purpose is political. Again, I suggest that you should only trust scientists that are willing to debate fellow scientists with different views.”