WASHINGTON, DC – A medical panel appointed by US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. held its first meeting Wednesday (Thursday Manila time), pledging to revisit the childhood vaccine schedule and promoting themes long embraced by anti-vaccine activists.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, an independent group that reviews scientific evidence to determine who should receive vaccines and when, rarely draws headlines.
But that changed after Kennedy — who spent decades spreading vaccine misinformation before becoming President Donald Trump’s top health official — abruptly fired all 17 sitting members earlier this month, accusing them of industry conflicts of interest.
He replaced them with eight new appointees, including scientist Robert Malone, known for promoting false claims during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The panel’s new chair, Martin Kulldorff, co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration, which called for ending lockdowns in October 2020, even though it was known Covid vaccines were nearing approval.
Kulldorff opened the meeting by announcing a new working group to re-examine the childhood vaccine schedule. He raised questions about the potential cumulative effects of vaccine interactions and the wisdom of administering the Hepatitis B shot “on the day of birth.”
Experts met the announcement with skepticism.
“The rationale for Hepatitis B vaccination prior to hospital discharge (not ‘day of birth’) for neonates is well documented and established — but it’s another pet cause of the anti-vaccine movement,” Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University, told AFP.
The panel’s first major test comes Thursday, when it votes on whether to recommend a newly approved antibody shot against RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, for infants whose mothers did not receive an RSV vaccine during pregnancy.
