U.S. Vaccine Policy Is About to Become a Global Laughingstock

During one of their meetings during his confirmation process, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was asked by Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, what his plans were for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), a body of experts that helped the Centers for Disease Control craft vaccine policy. Cassidy was the deciding vote to advance Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services nomination out of committee.

Apparently, Kennedy’s answer on the ACIP satisfied Cassidy, a practicing physician himself, because he specifically cited Kennedy’s answer in his floor speech supporting the nomination.

“He has also committed that he would work within the current vaccine approval and safety monitoring systems, and not establish parallel systems,” Cassidy said. “If confirmed, he will maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices without changes.”

If Cassidy was correct, then Kennedy lied to him. And, on Monday, Kennedy proceeded to make him look like the worst kind of sucker. From NPR:

Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is removing all 17 members of a key advisory committee that helps craft vaccine policy and recommendations for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Kennedy made the announcement on Monday afternoon in a press release from the Department of Health and Human Services and an opinion piece published by The Wall Street Journal. In his role as head of HHS, Kennedy has the legal authority to replace members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), but the decision to scrap the entire committee flies in the face of precedent and has alarmed the public health and medical establishment.

One can only imagine the kind of people Kennedy will appoint to replace the 17 people he just fired. I’m seeing propellers on beanies, big red noses, and hearing the quacking of gather ducks.

“A clean sweep is necessary to reestablish public confidence in vaccine science,” Kennedy said in a statement, “ACIP new members will prioritize public health and evidence-based medicine. The Committee will no longer function as a rubber stamp for industry profit-taking agendas.”

Whatever public confidence was drained from the country’s vaccine science was wholly the responsibility of profiteers and con-men and people who Did Their Own Research on the Internet. One of these people was Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who made a nice buck disestablishing public confidence in vaccine science. And, evidently, he’s not done yet.

Kennedy has previously claimed that ACIP members have serious conflicts of interests. However, as NPR has reported, a government report he has cited to back that up shows they do not. In addition, committee members are required to disclose if they have any conflicts of interest before casting a vote and recuse themselves if they have one. Past members of ACIP warn that gutting the current committee removes an important check on changes in the administration's approach to vaccine policy.

Dr. Jonathan Temte, who served as chair from 2012 to 2015, told NPR that “across the entire world, ACIP has been the paragon of solid, well thought out, evidence-based vaccine policy.”

“I hate to say this, but we are heading in the direction of U.S. vaccine policy becoming the laughing stock of the globe,” said Temte, a professor of family medicine at the University of Wisconsin.

As long as Some Guy On The Internet is cool with it, I guess.