Like the first batch of appointees to the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, several of the new panelists have documented histories of vaccine and COVID-19 skepticism.
Ahead of its next scheduled meeting this week, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has formally named five new members to serve on the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices—though it appears the panel is minimizing at least one key stakeholder at the talks.
Kennedy’s new appointees, announced Monday, include Kirk Milhoan, medical director of the Hawaii-based international mission group For Hearts and Souls Free Medical Clinic. Milhoan, who is a pastor, holds a PhD in “the mechanisms of myocardial inflammation,” according to a Health and Human Services release. Alongside Milhoan, Case Western Reserve University’s Catherine Stein will also sit on the reformed ACIP, bringing more than two decades of research experience in epidemiology.
Rounding out the group are Evelyn Griffin, obstetrician and gynecologist at the Baton Rouge General Hospital; Hillary Blackburn, director at the Catholic pharmacy non-profit AscensionRx and podcast host; and Raymond Pollak, surgeon and transplant specialist. Notably, two other people previously reported to be added to the committee, Joseph Fraiman, an emergency medicine physician and John Gaitanis, a pediatric neurologist, are not on this list.
Like the first batch of Kennedy’s ACIP appointees, many of these new committee members have previously publicly expressed anti-vaccine views. Stein, for instance, was called a “COVID-19 truther” by the Ohio Capital Journal in 2021 for saying that the pandemic is “’not the scary killer the media and government portray it to be.’”
Meanwhile, both Milhoan and Griffin appeared in separate events in 2024 to cast doubt on the public health measures to curb the virus, including vaccines, as per reporting from CNN.
The appointment of these COVID-19 critics to the ACIP come just days before the panel is scheduled to convene later this week. According to the meeting’s agenda, the two-day program will see the committee discuss and make recommendations on several vaccines. The entire second day of the meeting is dedicated to COVID-19.
Of note, the agenda includes an update on the safety of COVID-19 vaccines, to be presented by CDC scientist John Su and another session on “additional COVID-19 vaccine safety presentations,” though the designated presenters have yet to be revealed.
At the same time, ACIP seems to be distancing itself from vaccine makers. According to reporting from Endpoints News on Monday, citing multiple anonymous sources, three major COVID-19 vaccine developers—Pfizer, Moderna and Novavax—will be given a few minutes to provide updates for their products. However, the ACIP and HHS will first need to review their presentations for transparency purposes, according to Endpoints.
