All members of a panel that advised the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccines have been kicked to the curb.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced what he called a “clean sweep” in a Monday op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, which noted, in a headline, “We’re reconstituting an advisory committee to avoid conflicts of interest.”

Kennedy framed the change as a need to respond to sagging confidence in America’s public health pronouncements.

“Vaccines have become a divisive issue in American politics, but there is one thing all parties can agree on: The U.S. faces a crisis of public trust. Whether toward health agencies, pharmaceutical companies or vaccines themselves, public confidence is waning,” he wrote.

Kennedy, whose skepticism on vaccines is well-known, said his personal agenda is not driving the change.

Hats off to RFK Jr. for dismantling the CDC vaccine panel. No more pharma puppetry or experimental vaccines, trust must be rebuilt! pic.twitter.com/zLiRDNbBUl

— Brian Babin (@RepBrianBabin) June 10, 2025

“Some would try to explain this away by blaming misinformation or antiscience attitudes. To do so, however, ignores a history of conflicts of interest, persecution of dissidents, a lack of curiosity, and skewed science that has plagued the vaccine regulatory apparatus for decades,” he wrote.

Kennedy wrote that totally overhauling the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices is part of his effort to put “the restoration of public trust above any pro- or antivaccine agenda. The public must know that unbiased science guides the recommendations from our health agencies.”

Kennedy noted that only by removing members could the Trump administration have a meaningful change in the panel before 2028.

RFK Jr.’s extreme anti-vax views — and his related conflicts of interest — were a huge problem during his confirmation process.

So he promised not to change the vaccine advisory panel.

Today, he fired every single expert on that panel. It’s a public health disaster. https://t.co/T8RqAmgw7G

— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) June 9, 2025

Kennedy charged that the committee “has been plagued with persistent conflicts of interest and has become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine. It has never recommended against a vaccine — even those later withdrawn for safety reasons.”

“It has failed to scrutinize vaccine products given to babies and pregnant women. To make matters worse, the groups that inform ACIP meet behind closed doors, violating the legal and ethical principle of transparency crucial to maintaining public trust,” he wrote, citing conflicts of interest that date back to 1997.

“These conflicts of interest persist. Most of ACIP’s members have received substantial funding from pharmaceutical companies, including those marketing vaccines,” he wrote.

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

“A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science,” he wrote, adding that since the 1960s, “[p]ublic trust has … collapsed, but we will earn it back.”

All of the current committee members joined during the Biden administration, with 13 added last year alone, according to the New York Post.

Dr. Tom Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ripped into Kennedy, saying he set “a dangerous and unprecedented action that makes our families less safe” by possibly reducing access to vaccines, according to the Associated Press.

“Make no mistake: Politicizing the ACIP as Secretary Kennedy is doing will undermine public trust under the guise of improving it,” he said. “We’ll look back at this as a grave mistake that sacrificed decades of scientific rigor, undermined public trust, and opened the door for fringe theories rather than facts.”

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