The 17 experts who were ousted from a government vaccine committee last month say they have little faith in what the panel has become, and have outlined possible alternative ways to make U.S. vaccine policy.
U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. abruptly fired the entire Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, accusing them of being too closely aligned with manufacturers and of rubber-stamping vaccines. He handpicked replacements that include several vaccine skeptics.
In a commentary published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, the former panel members wrote that Kennedy — a leading voice in the anti-vaccine movement before becoming the U.S. government’s top health official — and his new panel are abandoning rigorous scientific review and open deliberation.
