RFK Jr. purged the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee claiming they were in the pocket of the pharmaceutical industry. But who is really conflicted?
| PAUL OFFIT JUN 24 (thanks to Ed M.) |
On June 9, 2025, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), fired all 17 voting members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which advises the CDC. In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, RFK Jr. wrote, “The committee has been plagued with persistent conflicts of interest and has become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine… A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science.”
RFK Jr. cited a 2009 report that—as described by Jessica Steier and her team at Unbiased Science—“fails to give the true context of the report,” which “did not find serious conflicts of interest. Instead, it showed that many forms (97%) had errors and omissions due to form errors, such as putting information in the wrong section, or failing to initial and date in the correct places. Furthermore, recent independent investigations into ACIP members found ‘no substantial conflicts or disclosure errors’.” (continued on Page 2 at www.skyline725.com)