Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has named eight people to serve on the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP), a highly influential vaccine panel he gutted earlier in the week.
The new members include Dr. Robert Malone, who worked on early research for mRNA vaccine technology and is a vocal critic of the mRNA COVID vaccines, as well as other medical experts who took dissenting positions from the medical establishment during the COVID pandemic.
Kennedy announced on X Wednesday evening that the eight new members are “highly credentialed scientists, leading public-health experts, and some of America’s most accomplished physicians.”
“All of these individuals are committed to evidence-based medicine, gold-standard science, and common sense,” he said. “They have each committed to demanding definitive safety and efficacy data before making any new vaccine recommendations.”
In addition to Malone, who’s the most well-known, the other members include Dr. Joseph R. Hibbeln, Martin Kulldorff, Retsef Levi, Dr. Cody Meissner, Dr. Michael A. Ross, Dr. James Pagano, and Vicky Pebsworth.
On Monday, I took a major step towards restoring public trust in vaccines by reconstituting the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP). I retired the 17 current members of the committee. I’m now repopulating ACIP with the eight new members who will attend ACIP’s…
— Secretary Kennedy (@SecKennedy) June 11, 2025
Kennedy noted Malone’s work on mRNA vaccine technology, specifically his “foundational research in the late 1980s on lipid-mediated mRNA delivery, which laid the groundwork for later developments in mRNA-based therapeutics.”
Thank you for the honor of serving my country in this way, @SecKennedy. I will do my best to serve with unbiased objectivity and rigor. https://t.co/mO0a3eGcjb
— Robert W Malone, MD (@RWMaloneMD) June 11, 2025
Dr. Martin Kulldorff, another panelist, is an epidemiologist who co-authored the pandemic-era Great Barrington Declaration, which criticizes lockdown restrictions, CBS News noted. Additionally, Dr. Cody Meissner opposed COVID vaccine requirements for children and spoke out against masking them.
Kennedy said the new eight members will attend a scheduled ACIP meeting on June 25, which is set to discuss the COVID vaccine.
Explaining his reasoning for gutting the panel on Monday, Kennedy wrote in the Wall Street Journal that ACIP had lost the trust of the American people, effectively becoming a “rubber-stamp” for all vaccines while ignoring safety concerns and conflict of interest rules.
RFK Jr. wrote that ACIP has “never recommended against a vaccine—even those which were later withdrawn for safety reasons,” adding that the panel “failed to scrutinize vaccine products given to babies and pregnant women.”
ACIP is highly influential. The panel meets a few times a year and makes recommendations to the CDC, thereby basically setting the childhood vaccine schedule and other vaccine-related recommendations, like flu shots and COVID vaccines. ACIP also heavily influences which vaccines are covered by both public and private insurance.
Related: RFK Jr. Guts CDC Vaccine Panel, ‘Retiring’ All 17 Members