The vaccine safety panel reconstituted earlier this month by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Wednesday that the committee would begin a systematic review of the “cumulative effects” of vaccines for children and adolescents, a main wish of the Make America Healthy Again coalition. 

Dr. Martin Kulldorff, the new chairman of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, announced as one of the first orders of business during Wednesday’s meeting that the advisory panel would convene two new working groups to examine the safety of the cumulative effects of the childhood vaccine schedule.

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Examining the interactions between the vaccines given to children in the United States has been a rallying cry for the MAHA movement since Kennedy began his independent presidential campaign for the 2024 election season. 

Earlier this month, Kennedy fired the 17 long-standing members of the ACIP board due to alleged conflicts of interest with pharmaceutical companies. Two days later, he appointed eight new members, two of whom have been vocal vaccine skeptics.  

Kulldorff is a former Harvard University physician-scientist who based his career around studying post-market vaccine safety data. He was terminated from his post at Harvard after refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine, citing his natural immunity from having already had the virus. 

During the ACIP meeting, Kulldorff said, “It is important to evaluate the cumulative effects of the recommended vaccine schedule.”

“This includes interaction effects between different vaccines, the total number of vaccines, cumulative amounts of vaccine ingredients, and the relative timing of different vaccines,” he continued. 

Before age 2, children in the U.S. receive between 11 and 14 vaccinations with more than 25 different injections, according to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Children between the ages of 3 and 18 receive an additional eight shots, in addition to the recommended annual influenza and COVID-19 vaccines.

Kulldorff also said that an additional working group would be established to examine vaccines that had not been subject to ACIP review for more than seven years. 

“This was supposed to be a regular practice of the ACIP, but it has not been done in a thorough and systematic way,” said Kulldorff. “We will change that.” 

Kulldorff specifically noted that the working group would examine the Hepatitis B vaccine given to newborns in the hospital. 

The Hepatitis B vaccine for newborns, in particular, has been a point of contention for vaccine skeptics, since the infection is sexually transmitted. Vaccine skeptics say that it is only necessary for newborns whose mother tests positive for the infection. 

At the start of the meeting, Kulldorff criticized some members of the media for being “very harsh on the new members of this committee” and attempting to put members in “either a pro- or anti-vaccine box.”

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), chairman of the Senate health committee, has been critical of Kennedy’s move earlier this month to remake the ACIP and for keeping the June meeting on the schedule so soon after the new members were appointed. 

Cassidy addressed his concerns on Wednesday during the confirmation hearing for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director nominee Susan Monarez, coinciding with the opening of the ACIP’s two-day meeting. 

Cassidy expressed concerns about “the rushed nature of this process” and stressed the need for a confirmed CDC director. 

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“To be clear, there is a difference between reviewing recommendations about the appropriateness of a patient receiving an immunization and broadly declaring a vaccine to be dangerous or unsafe if received without the evidence to support such a declaration,” said Cassidy.

On Wednesday, 78 professional medical organizations, including 38 state medical associations, wrote an open letter supporting the safety and efficacy of vaccines as a public health tool.