OAN Staff Blake Wolf
4:58 PM – Monday, June 9, 2025

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that he is removing every member of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) independent panel for vaccines, arguing that the committee has become “plagued with persistent conflicts of interest.”

Kennedy’s announcement was made in an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal. He argued that the shift is necessary to “re-establish public confidence in vaccine science.”

“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 began.

“A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science,” Kennedy continued. “The public must know that unbiased science–evaluated through a transparent process and insulated from conflicts of interest–guides the recommendations of our health agencies.”

Kennedy removed all members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which has massive influence in regard to vaccine recommendations, determining which groups are eligible for certain vaccines and whether insurers should cover them.

The ACIP was created in 1964 to advise both the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services on vaccines.

Kennedy maintained that the committee has become “plagued with persistent conflicts of interest,” while adding that it has “never recommended against any vaccine.”

“ACIP evaluates the safety, efficacy and clinical need of the nations’ vaccines and passes its findings on to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 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 It has never recommended against a vaccine–even those later withdrawn for safety reasons.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,” he wrote.

Kennedy went on to say that the 17 individuals on the committee are now being “retired,” as some of them “were last-minute appointees of the Biden administration. Without removing the current members, the current Trump administration would not have been able to appoint a majority of new members until 2028.”

The overhaul represents the most recent move by HHS to root out corruption and conflicts of interest within the federal healthcare apparatus, moving back toward a “gold standard” of vaccine research to ensure “the restoration of public trust above any pro or anti vaccine agenda.”

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