Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Monday that he is “retiring” all 17 members of a controversial government panel of vaccine advisors “to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science.”

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the safety, efficacy and clinical need of the nation’s vaccines.

Kennedy has long accused members of the panel of having ties to the pharmaceutical industry,  which has led them to “rubber stamp” new vaccines.

“The committee has been plagued with persistent conflicts of interest and has become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine,” the secretary wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Monday. “It has never recommended against a vaccine—even those later withdrawn for safety reasons.”

Kennedy pointed out that ACIP has “failed to scrutinize vaccine products given to babies and pregnant women.”

In October 2022, for instance, the committee of doctors unanimously voted in favor of recommending that mRNA COVID-19 injections be added to immunization schedules for adults and children,  starting at six months old, despite research that consistently showed the risks of the jabs outweighed the benefits in children and young adults.

Under Kennedy’s direction, HHS in May stopped recommending routine Covid-19 vaccines for healthy children and healthy pregnant women.

Kennedy noted in the WSJ that the “the groups that inform ACIP meet behind closed doors, violating the legal and ethical principle of transparency crucial to maintaining public trust.”

Even worse, he continued, “most of ACIP’s members have received substantial funding from pharmaceutical companies, including those marketing vaccines.”

The problem isn’t necessarily that ACIP members are corrupt. Most likely aim to serve the public interest as they understand it. The problem is their immersion in a system of industry-aligned incentives and paradigms that enforce a narrow pro-industry orthodoxy.

The secretary promised that the new members “won’t directly work for the vaccine industry” and will exercise independent judgment, refuse to serve as a rubber stamp, and foster a culture of critical inquiry—unafraid to ask hard questions.”

He added that public trust in vaccines has “collapsed” since the 1960s, when “the world sought guidance from America’s health regulators” and vowed to earn that trust back.

“A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science,” Kennedy wrote.