Pushback rises against RFK Jr's new ACIP membership

Medical organisations have criticised Robert F Kennedy Jr's newly constituted CDC vaccine advisory panel as it emerges that two of the picks were expert witnesses in a trial claiming injury caused by an MSD vaccine.

The Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary named eight hand-picked members of the Advisory Committee on Immunisation Practices (ACIP) yesterday, after firing all 17 of the panel's previous roster earlier this week, claiming conflicts of interest and rubber-stamping decisions favourable to pharma companies.

Digging into the profiles of the new committee members has revealed that epidemiologist Martin Kulldorf and biochemist Robert Malone both served as expert witnesses in a class action lawsuit brought against MSD over its human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil, used to protect against cervical cancer, according to reports from Reuters and Endpoints.

Kennedy played a role in organising the litigation against MSD and – according to testimony in his confirmation hearings held before being named HHS Secretary – earned millions of dollars in referral fees from a legal firm bringing lawsuits against vaccine producers and is in line for contingency fees if they win the cases. In March, a judge ruled in MSD's favour in the lawsuit, which is being heard in North Carolina.

Kulldorf and another of the new panellists – paediatrics specialist Cody Meissner – were also signatories to the Great Barrington Declaration in 2020, which questioned measures to control the spread of COVID-19 and called for the lifting of restrictions to allow the virus to spread and generate herd immunity. Meanwhile, it has been reported that nursing specialist Vicky Pebsworth was a member of the board for the National Vaccine Information Center, a group that is known to disseminate information questioning the safety of vaccines.

Responding to the new ACIP membership, the American College of Physicians (ACP) said it was "troubled" by the selection process and is calling for the previous roster to be reinstated. The organisation's president, Jason Goldman, said: "The speed with which these members were selected, and the lack of transparency in the process, does not help to restore public confidence and trust, and contributes to confusion and uncertainty."

That view was echoed by American Medical Association (AMA) president Bobby Mukkamala, who also slammed the selection of members "without transparency and proper vetting" and promised that the organisation will "closely monitor the developments of ACIP and encourage the administration to recommit to maintaining vaccine access for all Americans." He also called for the fired ACIP experts to be reinstated.

Meanwhile, former CDC director and chief executive of the Resolve to Save Lives (RTSL) global health charity Tom Frieden posted on social media that, "given the changes on ACIP, I worry about what advice doctors will be able to get from the federal government to share with their patients. We're all less safe if we can't get fact-based information about vaccines."