In early February, when there was still some question as to whether or not the Senate would confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Sen. Bill Cassidy delivered a closely watched speech on the Senate floor. The Louisiana Republican, a physician by trade, not only endorsed the anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist during his remarks, he offered assurances about the future.
“If confirmed, [Kennedy] will maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — without changes,” Cassidy declared with confidence, pointing to assurances he’d received directly from RFK Jr.
Four months later, as NBC News reported, Cassidy has been proven wrong.
The 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s independent vaccine advisory committee are being removed from their posts, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Monday afternoon.
In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Kennedy defended the radical move, accusing the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (better known as ACIP) of featuring members “plagued with persistent conflicts of interest” who’ve become “little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine.”
Dr. Sean O’Leary, an infectious disease expert with the American Academy of Pediatrics, told NBC News that Kennedy’s evidence-free accusations are “deeply insulting to the many scientists who contribute countless hours to the process.” The doctor noted that the ACIP panel is “a model for the rest of the world,” adding that Kennedy is now responsible for “manufactured chaos.”
O’Leary told The New York Times that Kennedy’s move should be seen as “an unmitigated public health disaster.”
Dr. Jerome Adams, who served as Donald Trump’s surgeon general in the president’s first term, also denounced Kennedy’s move. “Our children and communities deserve policies grounded in science, not politics and populism,” the physician wrote.
As for Cassidy, who was left looking rather foolish after Kennedy did exactly what the GOP senator said he would not do, the Republican was pressed on whether he regrets his confirmation vote. Cassidy apparently didn’t want to talk about it.
Complicating matters is the degree to which these new developments add to a radical and dangerous pattern. Indeed, Kennedy’s announcement came just days after pediatric infectious disease expert Dr. Lakshmi Panagiotakopoulos resigned from her position as the co-leader of a CDC working group that advises outside experts on Covid vaccines.
In an email to colleagues, Panagiotakopoulos said, “My career in public health and vaccinology started with a deep-seated desire to help the most vulnerable members of our population, and that is not something I am able to continue doing in this role.”
Around the same time, The Associated Press reported that there’s some ambiguity as to who, exactly, is currently leading the CDC.
A New York Times report added:
Under Mr. Kennedy’s leadership, the F.D.A. has narrowed availability of Covid vaccines to adults 65 and older and Americans with certain underlying conditions. Mr. Kennedy later announced that the C.D.C. would no longer recommend the vaccines for healthy children or pregnant women, a decision that normally would have come from the agency’s A.C.I.P. … He also oversees the National Institutes of Health, which halted funding for researchers who study vaccine hesitancy and canceled programs intended to discover new vaccines to prevent future pandemics. The department has also ended work crucial to developing an H.I.V. vaccine and a contract for a vaccine against bird flu.
As unsettling as the news has been, none of it is surprising. RFK Jr.’s anti-science reputation was well established long before Trump nominated him. That an unqualified, anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist is behaving like an unqualified, anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist is painfully predictable.
The fact remains, however, that 52 Senate Republicans were given an opportunity to protect Americans from Kennedy — and they failed spectacularly.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
