After replacing the Big Pharma-tied members of the vaccine advisory committee at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a systematic review of the childhood immunization schedule to determine its “cumulative effects.”
Kennedy announced the review at a meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) on Wednesday, along with the committee’s new chairman, Dr. Martin Kulldorff. It will consist of two working groups to determine the safety and overall effects of the vaccine schedule for children and adolescents.
ACIP makes recommendations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) regarding which vaccines should be taken, by whom, and whether they should be covered by health insurance. That includes guidance for schools as to vaccine requirements for attendance.
Previous members of the board, all of whom were appointees of former President Joe Biden, had deep monetary ties to big pharmaceutical companies, and some also donated to Democrats. They acted as a rubber stamp for vaccines, as The Federalist reported, making it virtually impossible to look at vaccines — singularly or cumulatively on the schedule — through a critical lens.
“Secretary Kennedy has given this committee a clear mandate to use evidence-based medicine,” Kulldorff said. “We’re making vaccine recommendations, and that is what we will do. Vaccines are not all good or bad.”
After firing each of the 17 Biden-appointed rubber stamps, Kennedy appointed eight new members, two of whom have been critical of vaccines. Kulldorff criticized the media for being “very harsh on the new members of this committee” as dishonest reporters keep trying to say people are “either pro- or anti-vaccine,” instead of understanding that it is totally reasonable to ask questions and do thorough reviews of medical interventions that affect human life.
Kulldorff himself was formerly employed by Harvard University, where he studied vaccine safety data, but was fired from the school for refusing to take the coronavirus injection.
“It is important to evaluate the cumulative effects of the recommended vaccine schedule,” Kulldorff said at the Wednesday meeting. “This includes interaction effects between different vaccines, the total number of vaccines, cumulative amounts of vaccine ingredients, and the relative timing of different vaccines.”
The health care system in the United States follows a regimen that gives children between 11 and 14 vaccines, totaling more than 25 injections, before the age of 2 years old. Then, between ages 3 and 18, children get eight more injections, and are recommended to get yearly flu and coronavirus shots, according to the Washington Examiner.
One major vaccine in focus is the Hepatitis B vaccine for newborns — one of the first things babies encounter when they enter the world. The vaccine is administered for a sexually transmitted infection. Those skeptical of that vaccine in particular have argued that it is unnecessary unless the mother has Hepatitis B, which mothers are typically tested for prior to giving birth. Kulldorff said the review would look specifically at the Hepatitis B vaccine.
He also said that ACIP would create a working group to review vaccines that the committee had not evaluated in seven years, adding, “This was supposed to be a regular practice of the ACIP, but it has not been done in a thorough and systematic way. … We will change that.”
Breccan F. Thies is a correspondent for The Federalist. He previously covered education and culture issues for the Washington Examiner and Breitbart News. He holds a degree from the University of Virginia and is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. You can follow him on X: @BreccanFThies.