In advance of this week’s CDC vaccine advisory meeting, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. restacked the committee, claiming problematic industry ties within the previous group. Experts say ACIP had long navigated COIs appropriately and that the new appointees risk the apolitical nature of membership.
In pushing out all 17 members of a critical vaccine advisory board, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said trust needed to be restored in vaccines, in part by addressing widespread conflicts of interest among the advisors. But the industry is now raising concerns about the eight replacements he named two days later—who are set to meet this week, June 26–27.
The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which makes recommendations on new vaccines and seasonal vaccine updates, is usually made up of medical experts in vaccinology and public health. On occasion, these researchers have worked with vaccine manufacturers in the form of collaboration on clinical trials, research funding or payments for consulting services. “Historically, membership on the ACIP was reserved for national leaders in disciplines and fields directly related to vaccine science and epidemiology,” Jason Schwartz, associate professor of public health at the Yale School of Public Health, told BioSpace. “These were the foremost experts in the decisions that ACIP faces.”
Because of the limited number of vaccine manufacturers, this top tier of experts had often crossed paths with them, Schwartz added. “That model meant that the people invited [to join ACIP] might have connected their research to the handful of vaccine manufacturers who are the only game in town for making vaccines.”
To ensure such industry ties would not influence agency decisions, the CDC has long had ACIP members declare all conflicts of interest (COIs) and recuse themselves from voting on matters where COIs existed. This information is shared on the CDC website as a browsable database.
“CDC has continued to tighten things in terms of what relationships with vaccine manufacturers are permissible . . . and people would often recuse themselves,” Schwartz said.
He added that “there was a lot of vetting” of the 17 ACIP members who were just let go to ensure they “had limited vaccine conflicts.” Those who did have COIs recused themselves as per CDC protocol.
Yvonne Maldonado, a professor of infectious disease at Stanford University and one of the ACIP members recently let go by Kennedy, is one example. She has previously worked with Pfizer on RSV and COVID-19 vaccine trials, so at a June 2024 ACIP meeting, she recused herself from a vote on COVID-19, and abstained from one on RSV.
“My sense was that ACIP navigated those challenges as well as could be expected,” Schwartz said. “Long story short, I didn’t think there were any meaningful COIs in the previous 17 people. I think it’s been largely a red herring.”
The new ACIP members do not appear to be free from the COIs that Kennedy is hunting. Martin Kulldorff and Robert Malone, for instance, have conflicts with the vaccine manufacturer Merck but not in terms of research or consulting fees. Both have appeared as paid expert witnesses in suits against the company for harms plaintiffs claimed were caused by its HPV and mumps vaccines. The HPV case was ruled in Merck’s favor and the mumps case dismissed.
Additionally, Joe Ross, professor of medicine and public health at the Yale School of Medicine, asserted that many of the newly appointed members of the committee have “intellectual conflicts of interest” relating to their views on vaccines. “Many of the members have clearly established fears on the role of vaccines,” he told BioSpace on the sidelines of the BIO2025 conference.
Beyond focusing on a COI issue that the CDC has already been prioritizing, Kennedy’s approach politicizes what has historically been seen as a neutral scientific board, according to Peter Lurie, president of the advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest.
“The administration’s rationale said that most people on ACIP were appointed under Biden, which is a highly politicized approach,” Lurie told BioSpace. “This is not the Supreme Court, people are not looking at who was appointed by who. No one thought of it that way. No one thought of it as who was appointed by Biden or Trump. The overall perception of the committee was that it was politically neutral but scientifically strong.”
“It’s quite rare for ACIP people to have political bents,” Lurie added.
On the ACIP Agenda This Week
The eight new members of the ACIP board—appointed just two days after the previous roster was pushed out—will meet on June 25 and 26 for the reconstituted committee’s first session.
The draft agenda for the meeting, published by the CDC on Wednesday, contains some unsurprising topics, including updates on COVID-19 vaccine safety, updates on uptake of maternal and pediatric RSV vaccines and anti-RSV monoclonal antibodies and recommendations for the upcoming 2025–2026 flu season.
There are also some more unexpected topics on the agenda. The measles-mumps-rubella-varicella (MMRV) vaccine is slated to be discussed after a presentation from a yet-to-be-announced speaker. The MMRV vaccine has not been discussed by ACIP since June 2022, when GSK’s vaccine Priorix was approved. There has not been a new MMRV vaccine approved recently, though a measles outbreak, caused by low vaccine uptake numbers, continues to spread across the U.S. and Canada.
Also on the agenda is a vote on influenza vaccines containing the preservative thimerosal. The mercury-based preservative was the target of a previous round of debunked theories that, like similar debunked theories about the MMR vaccine, linked it to autism. Most vaccines available to children under the age of six no longer contain thimerosal.
“Thimerosal use in vaccines and other medical products has a record of being very safe. Data from many studies show no evidence of harm caused by the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines,” reads a CDC page on influenza accessed on June 20.
Editor’s note: Heather McKenzie contributed reporting from BIO to this story.
