The Biden administration — in its final weeks — quietly stacked a key health committee in a move that could sabotage Robert F Kennedy Jr’s vaccine plans.
The former President approved the appointments of eight pro-vaccine candidates to a critical committee that helps set America’s immunization policy.
Sources say the flood of 11th-hour appointments, with terms lasting until 2027, is an attempt to block RFK Jr from rolling out his antivax agenda.
At his senate confirmation hearing this week, RFK Jr repeatedly assured members he would not do anything ‘that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking’ the polio or measles vaccines.
However, he has often argued the risks outweigh the benefits of many childhood vaccines and this week he refused to rule out that some may cause autism in children.
A former senior Health and Human Services Department official told STAT News the flurry of confirmations no the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) was ‘very intentional.’
They added: ‘It was our goal to fill every vacancy on every [federal advisory committee] the department has, with particular focus on ones like ACIP where maintenance of our scientific expertise was critical.’
But sources fear Kennedy — or whoever replaces him, should the Senate reject his nomination to be head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) — could fire the committee members, who all have at-will appointments.
In its final months, the Biden administration blocked the Trump administration’s health agenda, which vaccine skeptic RFK Jr would lead, by approving eight new appointments to a key committee shaping US vaccination policy
The ACIP consists of clinicians and scientists who recommend schedules, dosing, and vaccine approval.
When the FDA approves a new vaccine, the ACIP is responsible for evaluating its safety and efficacy data.
It submits its recommendations about whether the vaccine should be approved to the CDC, which does not have to agree with their verdict but often does.
The ACIP also regularly reviews the safety data on already-approved vaccines, looking for signs of injuries of adverse effects.
But the HHS Secretary has full authority to reshape ACIP, including its membership, mandate, scope, meeting frequency, or even its existence.
RFK Jr has insisted that, as head of HHS, he would not restrict access to lifesaving vaccines for polio, measles, and other shots.
But Democrats in the Biden administration and scientists fear he could do an about-face when appointed.
Possible actions include canceling or delaying meetings, blocking outgoing HHS boss Xavier Becerra’s appointees, removing current members, overriding ACIP recommendations more often, or dissolving the committee entirely.
The former President’s move was ‘very intentional’, sources have revealed
Measles vaccinations stalled before the pandemic and since then, rates have continued to fall
New members could also disrupt ACIP’s recommendations by reclassifying certain childhood vaccines as requiring ‘shared clinical decision-making,’ meaning they would be given only after a parent consults a doctor rather than as part of routine immunizations.
Dr Larry Gostin, director of Georgetown University’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, said: ‘You can have ACIP questioning certain vaccines and casting doubt in the public’s mind about them.
‘That’s going to particularly affect state policymakers in red states, who will then loosen childhood vaccination laws.’
Softening recommendations for vaccines might not take them away, but public health experts fear that it will still lead to fewer parents getting their children vaccinated because the shots seem unimportant.
According to Dr Paul Offitt, a pediatric infectious diseases expert at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said: ‘He could do a lot of things. If the FDA chooses to license a drug or a vaccine, he could say, I don’t think enough studies have been done. He could gut the drug advisory committees.
‘Kennedy would be an agent of chaos when it came to vaccines and the people who would suffer the most are children because it’s always the most vulnerable among us who suffer our ignorance.’
The new ACIP members will join officially at the committee’s next meeting February 26-28. Whether it actually happens or not is up in the air.
A meeting of the National Vaccine Advisory Committee, another vaccine advisory group within HHS, scheduled for early February has already been canceled, while members of the Health Information Technology Advisory Committee were told that future meetings of the group have been postponed indefinitely.
If RFK Jr is approved, he’ll be responsible for overseeing several agencies, including the FDA and CDC, as well as child refugee resettlement, and has a budget of about $140 billion.
