Health secretary RFK Jr. abruptly fires CDC vaccine advisory panel

Health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has taken the extraordinary step of firing the expert panel that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on immunizations, saying the action is needed to restore faith in vaccines.

“A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science,” Kennedy said in an op-ed published Monday afternoon in the Wall Street Journal. 

Proponents of vaccines have feared Kennedy, who is openly skeptical of vaccines and has long been critical of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, might take such a step. ACIP studies vaccines in the regulatory pipeline and ones that have recently been licensed by the Food and Drug Administration, advising the CDC on who they should be offered to once they have been approved. 

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