Just minutes into the first meeting of new scientific advisers appointed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., it was clear that the skeptical panelists intended to upend longstanding vaccine recommendations in the United States, particularly those pertaining to children.
The meeting on Wednesday marked a remarkable and fraught moment in public health. Mr. Kennedy has replaced the gatekeepers of immunization policy in the United States, mostly scientists with deep expertise, with people who often have been critical of vaccine safety and efficacy.
The panel, called the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccine policy. Its determinations have a powerful impact.
Insurance companies and government programs like Medicaid are required to cover immunizations that the C.D.C. recommends, and states base their school mandates on the agency’s guidance.
Martin Kulldorff, formerly a professor of medicine at Harvard University and the committee’s chair, began the meeting by inviting people to share their criticism of vaccines and chastising the media for fanning the “flames of vaccine hesitancy” by labeling some new panelists as anti-vaccine.
Dr. Robert Malone, a chair of the panel, has said he considers the label “anti-vaxxer” to be “high praise.” At the meeting, Dr. Kulldorff noted that he had been fired from Harvard for refusing to get a Covid-19 shot because he “already had immunity” from infections.
Dr. Kulldorff added that the panel would evaluate the effect of all the shots given to children and adolescents, including a vaccine for hepatitis B given at birth that is credited with nearly eliminating maternal transmission of that disease.
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