New U.S. vaccine panel includes members who have criticized vaccines and spread misinformation

Dr. Robert Malone gestures as he stands in his barn on his horse farm July 22, 2020, in Madison, Va. (AP Photo/Steve Helber, File)

NEW YORK — U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday named eight new vaccine policy advisers to replace the panel that he abruptly dismissed earlier this week.

They include a scientist who researched mRNA vaccine technology and became a conservative darling for his criticisms of COVID-19 vaccines, a leading critic of pandemic-era lockdowns, and a professor of operations management.

Kennedy’s decision to “retire” the previous 17-member Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices was widely decried by doctors’ groups and public health organizations, who feared the advisers would be replaced by a group aligned with Kennedy’s desire to reassess — and possibly end — longstanding vaccination recommendations.

On Tuesday, before he announced his picks, Kennedy said: “We’re going to bring great people onto the ACIP panel – not anti-vaxxers – bringing people on who are credentialed scientists.”

The new appointees include Vicky Pebsworth, a regional director for the National Association of Catholic Nurses, who has been listed as a board member and volunteer director for the National Vaccine Information Center, a group that is widely considered to be a leading source of vaccine misinformation.

Another is Dr. Robert Malone, the former mRNA researcher who emerged as a close adviser to Kennedy during the measles outbreak. Malone, who runs a wellness institute and a popular blog, rose to prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic as he relayed conspiracy theories around the outbreak and the vaccines that followed. He has appeared on podcasts and other conservative news outlets where he’s promoted unproven and alternative treatments for measles and COVID-19.

He has claimed that millions of Americans were hypnotized into taking the COVID-19 shots and has suggested that those vaccines cause a form of AIDS. He’s downplayed deaths related to one of the largest measles outbreaks in the U.S. in years.

Other appointees include Dr. Martin Kulldorff, a biostatistician and epidemiologist who was a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, an October 2020 letter maintaining that pandemic shutdowns were causing irreparable harm. Dr. Cody Meissner, a former ACIP member, also was named.

Abram Wagner of the University of Michigan’s school of public health, who investigates vaccination programs, said he’s not satisfied with the composition of the committee.

“The previous ACIP was made up of technical experts who have spent their lives studying vaccines,” he said. Most people on the current list “don’t have the technical capacity that we would expect out of people who would have to make really complicated decisions involving interpreting complicated scientific data.”

He said having Pebsworth on the board is “incredibly problematic” since she is involved in an organization that “distributes a lot of misinformation.”

Kennedy made the announcement in a social media post on Wednesday.

The committee, created in 1964, makes recommendations to the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC directors almost always approve those recommendations on how vaccines that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration should be used. The CDC’s final recommendations are widely heeded by doctors and guide vaccination programs.

The other appointees are:

—Dr. James Hibbeln, who formerly headed a National Institutes of Health group focused on nutritional neurosciences and who studies how nutrition affects the brain, including the potential benefits of seafood consumption during pregnancy.

—Retsef Levi, a professor of operations management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who studies business issues related to supply chain, logistics, pricing optimization and health and health care management. In a 2023 video pinned to an X profile under his name, Levi called for the end of the COVID-19 vaccination program, claiming the vaccines were ineffective and dangerous despite evidence they saved millions of lives.

—Dr. James Pagano, an emergency medicine physician from Los Angeles.

—Dr. Michael Ross, a Virginia-based obstetrician and gynecologist.

Of the eight named by Kennedy, perhaps the most experienced in vaccine policy is Meissner, an expert in pediatric infectious diseases at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, who has previously served as a member of both ACIP and the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory panel.

During his five-year term as an FDA adviser, the committee was repeatedly asked to review and vote on the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines that were rapidly developed to fight the pandemic. In September 2021, he joined the majority of panelists who voted against a plan from the Biden administration to offer an extra vaccine dose to all American adults. The panel instead recommended that the extra shot should be limited to seniors and those at higher risk of the disease.

Ultimately, the FDA disregarded the panel’s recommendation and OK’d an extra vaccine dose for all adults.

In addition to serving on government panels, Meissner has helped author policy statements and vaccination schedules for the American Academy of Pediatrics.

ACIP members typically serve in staggered four-year terms, although several appointments were delayed during the Biden administration before positions were filled last year. The voting members all have scientific or clinical expertise in immunization, except for one “consumer representative” who can bring perspective on community and social facets of vaccine programs.

Kennedy, a leading voice in the anti-vaccine movement before becoming the U.S. government’s top health official, has accused the committee of being too closely aligned with vaccine manufacturers and of rubber-stamping vaccines. ACIP policies require members to state past collaborations with vaccine companies and to recuse themselves from votes in which they had a conflict of interest, but Kennedy has dismissed those safeguards as weak.

Most of the people who best understand vaccines are those who have researched them, which usually requires some degree of collaboration with the companies that develop and sell them, said Jason Schwartz, a Yale University health policy researcher.

“If you are to exclude any reputable, respected vaccine expert who has ever engaged even in a limited way with the vaccine industry, you’re likely to have a very small pool of folks to draw from,” Schwartz said.

The U.S. Senate confirmed Kennedy in February after he promised he would not change the vaccination schedule. But less than a week later, he vowed to investigate childhood vaccines that prevent measles, polio and other dangerous diseases.

Kennedy has ignored some of the recommendations ACIP voted for in April, including the endorsement of a new combination shot that protects against five strains of meningococcal bacteria and the expansion of vaccinations against RSV.

In late May, Kennedy disregarded the committee and announced the government would change the recommendation for children and pregnant women to get COVID-19 shots.

On Monday, Kennedy ousted all 17 members of the ACIP, saying he would appoint a new group before the next scheduled meeting in late June. The agenda for that meeting has not yet been posted, but a recent federal notice said votes are expected on vaccinations against flu, COVID-19, HPV, RSV and meningococcal bacteria.

A HHS spokesman did not respond to a question about whether there would be only eight ACIP members, or whether more will be named later.

Associated Press reporters Matthew Perrone, Amanda Seitz, Devi Shastri and Laura Ungar contributed to this report.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Mike Stobbe, The Associated Press