"Vaccines have become a divisive issue in American politics," asserted Health and Human Services Secretary (HHS) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in his June 9 Wall Street Journal op-ed. "Public confidence is waning." This is true. But the HHS secretary bears responsibility for much of that division and waning confidence. And he's just made it worse.
How? Kennedy has politicized the U.S. vaccine approval process by summarily firing all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) earlier this week. Typically appointed to four-year terms, Kennedy has taken the unprecedented step of prematurely sacking the entire panel. Two days later, he announced his selection of eight new members, many of whom are chiefly famous for espousing contrarian views with respect to vaccine safety and efficacy.
So what did Kennedy find wrong with the original ACIP panel? The secretary asserted that it "has been plagued with persistent conflicts of interests" stemming from members' "immersion in a system of industry-aligned incentives and paradigms that enforce a narrow pro-industry orthodoxy." At least in his Journal op-ed, the secretary offers no evidence of any unreported or improper conflicts of interest among those he just fired. It is worth noting that the fired ACIP members were vetted before they were appointed and that they each declare any conflicts that later emerge before each of the committee's meetings.
