The Problem with RFK Jr’s New Vaccine Panel is Not Just Who They Are

It’s who they are not

RFK Jr’s recent picks for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) provide a perfect microcosm of the scientific dystopia of the Trump regime. The best way to understand the wildly inappropriate nature of his selections is to look not at who they are, but rather at who they are not. Last week, he fired the existing board with 17 members. It is hard to know exactly who they fired because their names have largely disappeared from the CDC website in a Stalinesque vanishing act. Here is the former ACIP as well as I can construct it, primarily from a list off the CDC site last October, courtesy of the internet archive. To be objective, I asked ChatGPT to construct a table based on the names.

The list reflects the approach taken to form scientific advisory boards for as long as there have been SAB’s. The process was simple. Assemble leading experts in all the potentially relevant fields to ensure that the current scientific understanding is fully represented. This list includes experts on infectious disease, vaccines, immunology and epidemiology. Expertise in all relevant phases of the life cycle is represented, from fetal development through old age as well as challenges for the immunocompromised. There are experts in vaccine education and practical issues associated with implementing vaccine policies.

This is a well-conceived committee with expertise relevant to the task at hand.

That board was fired. No reasons were given.

Now consider their replacements. First, there are far fewer, which means there is no way for this committee to match the diversity of expertise present on the previous committee. But the problems go far beyond that.

This board has no epidemiologists (unless we consider Kulldorff, but he is really a biostatistician), only one infectious disease physician, no immunologist, no one experienced in implementing vaccine policy, an ob-gyn whose expertise relates to cancer prevention in adult women and several people who have expertise which seems to have little or no direct relevance to vaccines, including:

• A nutritional neuroscientist

• A professor of operations management

• An ER physician with no discernable research experience

The one trait that is well represented here is opposition to vaccines at some level:

Levi, Malone, and Pebsworth were vocal opponents of vaccine mandates for COVID and/or other vaccines. Malone has advocated banning mRNA vaccines and spread misinformation related to the COVID vaccine. Pebsworth helps lead an organization “driving vaccine conspiracy and generally anti vaccine agendas,” according to vaccine expert, Michael Mina. Kulldorff is a paid consultant in an anti-vaccine lawsuit and co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, which advocated for dangerous and unfounded laissez-faire responses to COVID.

RFK Jr. discarded the expertise of the original panel and replaced it with a committee infused with minority viewpoints about vaccines. It would be understandable for to want to add voices that were more skeptical of vaccines to ACIP, but he has all but eliminated voices representing the consensus perspective. The result is a terrifying testament to the anti-science proclivities of the current regime. This is about selecting a version of reality consistent with your beliefs and then assembling the scientists and the science to support them. Conclusion first science based on desired or convenient truths is not science at all. It is the opposite of science and, in this case, will lead to unnecessary death and disease.