US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is preparing to appoint as many as seven new members to an influential vaccine advisory panel to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, according to a former federal official who said they had seen a list of names under consideration.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, is tasked with reviewing the latest science on vaccines and then making recommendations to the CDC on how they should be used. The CDC director isn’t bound by the panel’s recommendations but usually accepts them. By law, insurance plans must cover vaccines with no cost-sharing if ACIP recommends them, and many states do not allow certain health care providers to give updated Covid-19 shots or other vaccines unless or until ACIP recommends them.
In June, Kennedy abruptly removed all 17 sitting members of the panel, saying it was “plagued with persistent conflicts of interest.” He provided no evidence to back up that claim, and a recent review by researchers at the University of Southern California found that conflicts of interest on ACIP had been at historic lows for years.
Kennedy rapidly replaced the ACIP members with eight of his own candidates, although one withdrew during the vetting process because of financial conflicts of interest. Several of the new members have made unproven claims about vaccines, including one who said Covid shots are causing “unprecedented levels of death and harm in young people.”
The list of new names under consideration was first reported by Dr. Jeremy Faust, an emergency medicine physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, on his “Inside Medicine” newsletter. The list is not final; the people are still going through vetting and ultimately may not be appointed to the panel.
Former ACIP members have said a review of a new candidates, including their conflicts of interest, typically occurs before their appointment and takes two to three months. The next meeting is set for September 18 and 19, when the panel is scheduled to discuss Covid-19 vaccines as well as those against hepatitis B; measles, mumps and rubella; and respiratory syncytial virus.
At least four of the people being considered have cast doubt on vaccines or on the nation’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Calls and emails to several prospective members were not immediately returned.
Dr. Joseph Fraiman, an emergency medicine physician, co-authored a 2022 study published in the journal Vaccine that concluded there was an excess risk of serious adverse events associated with mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccines. Independent fact-checkers have called it a flawed reanalysis of data from the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine trials.
At a roundtable event hosted by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in December 2022 – which was attended by Dr. Jay Bhattacharya and Dr. Tracey Beth Hoeg, who are now both officials in Kennedy’s HHS – Fraiman said “the safe and effective terminology that’s been used” about the Covid-19 vaccines was “a lie, it has to be.”
Another potential new member, Dr. Cathy Stein, a geneticist at Case Western Reserve University, has been critical of the nation’s response to Covid-19, including mask mandates and business closures. Stein co-authored a research paper on flawed models used during the state’s pandemic response for the group Health Freedom Ohio, which is affiliated with Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine nonprofit founded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Court records show that Dr. John Gaitanis, a pediatric neurologist at Hasbro Children’s Hospital whose name also appears on the list of those being considered for ACIP, has filed reports in support of the plaintiffs in a vaccine injury case being considered under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. The case claims injuries to a child after the MMR or DTaP vaccines. Gaitanis was awarded more than $56,000 in fees for his work related to the case, records show.
Potential member Dr. Kirk Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist, appeared at a 2024 panel led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, on injuries caused by Covid-19 vaccines. During the panel, he said the vaccines had caused heart-related deaths and disability, and he cited a study from the Cleveland Clinic that he said showed that the more vaccines a person got, the more likely they were to get Covid-19. Independent fact-checkers said that was a misinterpretation of the findings.
Other names on the list of possible CDC advisers include Dr. Hillary Blackburn, a pharmacist; Dr. Evelyn Griffin, an obstetrician-gynecologist; and Dr. Raymond Pollak, a transplant specialist who was a whistleblower in a case settled by the University of Illinois at Chicago after he reported that its hospital was diagnosing patients as sicker than they were to boost the number of transplants performed there.
Asked to confirm the list of names under consideration, an HHS spokesperson said, “You will hear it from us when there are new members to announce.”
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated Cathy Stein’s employer. She is a professor at Case Western Reserve University.
