After US health secretary and hardline anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all 17 highly respected vaccine experts from the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) last month, he vetted their replacements not by medical and scientific expertise, but by their political leanings, according to a lawsuit filed by medical organizations Monday.
Under Kennedy, to qualify to be on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's nationally influential and historically apolitical ACIP, candidates had to be registered as a Republican or independent and could not have any history of publicly criticizing President Trump or Kennedy, the lawsuit claims.
Just two days after dismissing all 17 ACIP members—who had all gone through an extensive vetting process that lasted up to two years—Kennedy announced eight new members. One later dropped out during last-minute financial vetting the day before an ACIP meeting. Of the remaining seven, only one has the scientific and medical qualifications described under ACIP's charter.
As Ars has previously reported, the six other members have little to no relevant background for ACIP and several have expressed anti-vaccine and/or contrarian public health opinions that align with Kennedy's anti-vaccine views.
When Ars reached out to the US Department of Health and Human Services about the alleged political vetting, spokesperson Andrew Nixon did not explicitly confirm or deny the vetting, saying only that "the Secretary stands by his CDC reforms."
New dimension
That new ACIP members were required to be friendly to Trump and Kennedy, and could not be aligned with Democrats is unlikely to be surprising—even though Kennedy previously ran as a Democratic presidential candidate. Ars has also previously reported on the Trump administration requiring new federal employees to praise Trump's agenda and demonstrate loyalty.
However, the political vetting of ACIP members adds a new dimension to the perceived biases and illegitimacy of Kennedy's newly installed panel—one largely seen as a tool to help Kennedy dismantle the country's vaccine policy and further erode public confidence and uptake of lifesaving vaccines.
In the lawsuit filed Monday, leading medical organizations allege that since Kennedy's February confirmation, he has "demonstrated a clear pattern of hostility toward established scientific processes, a disregard for expert guidance, an affinity for placing persons who align with his anti-vaccination views in positions of authority at HHS, and a reliance on bias and pretext to further his apparent agenda: to undermine trust in vaccines and reduce the rate of vaccinations in this country."