Five new advisers will join the vaccines committee for the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) later this week, the agency and the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on Monday, in a move that underscores the increasingly anti-vaccine stance of the committee.
Some of the new members have little to no documented experience with vaccines, while others have repeatedly undermined the safety and effectiveness of vaccines and other measures to control infectious disease.
The news comes on the heels of resignations by senior health leaders who say they were ignored or pressured to participate in unscientific processes, including changes to Covid vaccine eligibility and access.
“It looks like they’ve been chosen not because of any deep expertise in vaccination, but because they’ve been vocal as ‘skeptics’, particularly of Covid vaccines,” said Tara Smith, a professor of epidemiology at the Kent State University College of Public Health.
“I’m concerned they’ll use this to further restrict vaccine access given the posted agenda.”
Jessica Steier, a public health scientist and founder of Unbiased Science, pointed out that “what’s notable” isn’t “individual members, but the systematic replacement of career vaccine experts with appointees who have publicly questioned established vaccine science”.
“The timing is quite bad,” she added. “We have measles outbreaks happening now. Respiratory virus season is coming. Policy changes based on misinterpreted data will have immediate, real-world consequences. Frankly, even if the votes end up in favor of these vaccines, so much damage is being done through these public shows of vaccine skepticism and anti-vaccine rhetoric.”
On Thursday and Friday, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) plans to vote on three shots – the measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox vaccine; the hepatitis B vaccine given at birth; and Covid vaccines.
“The upcoming votes threaten parental choice,” Steier said. “Without ACIP recommendations, insurance may not cover vaccines. The Vaccines for Children program could stop providing them. Families who want to protect their children may lose that option.”
The former top official in charge of vaccination at the CDC says the hepatitis B vaccine recommendation, for example, may be pushed from birth to four years of age, which could mean the virus, which has dropped by 99% among young people, begins spreading in greater numbers in the US.
The committee may also further narrow Covid vaccine recommendations.
“We’re expecting them to present unverified VAERS reports as if they’re confirmed vaccine deaths,” Steier said, comparing that tactic to “treating every 911 call as proof of a crime.”
Several new members have a history of opposing vaccines, especially Covid vaccines and precautions.
“Remember, the Lord Jesus did not fear lepers, and leprosy was (and continues to be) a highly contagious infectious disease,” Catherine Stein, a professor in the department of population and quantitative health sciences at Case Western Reserve University’s School of Medicine, wrote in January 2021. “Not only did He heal them, but He touched them. He showed no fear, nor did He ‘socially distance’.”
Stein wrote that she was motivated by her religious ideology to reject precautions like wearing face masks, which she said function as a “symbol of fear” while also harming the wearer’s health, which is not true.
She argued that “as Christians, we should not fear death”. She also claimed that “this virus is not the scary killer the media and government portray it to be”, even in the midst of deadly waves.
In her off-work hours, Stein has worked as a researcher for Health Freedom Ohio, an antivax group aligned with Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine organization previously helmed by Robert F Kennedy Jr, who is now head of HHS.
In February 2020, she signed on to a letter urging Trump to reexamine school and daycare vaccine mandates and to focus on “ending the persecution of the unvaccinated people of faith”.
Kirk Milhoan is a pediatric cardiologist who has advocated against Covid vaccines because of the extremely rare possibility of myocarditis, or swelling of the heart.
“We should stop it and test it more before we move forward,” Milhoan told KFF Health News in March.
Milhoan is a senior fellow at the Independent Medical Alliance, formerly known as the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance, which has promoted ineffective and often unsafe ivermectin treatments for Covid.
The Hawaii medical board filed complaints and challenged his medical license, though his license was ultimately upheld.
Evelyn Griffin, once an obstetrician/gynecologist who shifted to “holistic health”, implied at a “Louisiana health freedom day” event in May 2024 that vaccines are unsafe.
“When the [Covid] vaccine came out, they blindly believed that the vaccine had no harm,” she said of other doctors. “In medical school, we were taught the childhood vaccines – we were taught that they were harmless, and we were taught to just memorize the schedule.”
Griffin participated in a “Stop Vax Passports” webinar, speaking about her personal experience “treating post-injection women” and “defeating vaccine mandates for children in Louisiana.”
Hillary Blackburn, the daughter-in-law of Sen. Marsha Blackburn, is a pharmacist who recently suggested vaccines may cause autoimmune issues.
Raymond Pollak is a transplant surgeon about whom little is known.
The new advisers will join eight others chosen by Kennedy in June after he fired the previous 17 advisers in an unprecedented move. A group called the Evidence Collective documented more than 50 falsehoods from the first meeting of the new ACIP group.
The vaccine committee may have up to 19 members, which means there are still six potential spots to be filled. Usually, the vetting and training process for new advisers takes months or years.
