Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Maggie Hassan (D-NH) urged HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to clarify what they believe to be contradictory statements regarding the nation’s vaccine policy.
“For nearly a year, you have publicly framed the [Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices] purge as your own judgment call to restore ‘public trust,’” the senators wrote. “Your testimony tells a different story, one in which the most consequential gutting of America’s vaccine infrastructure in decades was greenlit by political appointees at the White House, with the President’s blessing.”
“This was not a routine personnel action,” they continued, calling the move a “deliberate dismantling of the nation’s vaccine advisory body,” that Kennedy replaced with “handpicked allies, several of whom have built careers, and earned profits, undermining the very vaccines they are now charged with evaluating.”
“Make no mistake: this is your anti-vaccine agenda,” the senators continued. “You have spent your career sowing doubt about vaccines, profiting from litigation against their manufacturers, and pledging to use the powers of HHS as Secretary to validate theories the scientific community has long since rejected. Your reconstruction of ACIP is the culmination of that project, and you have embedded personal allies into the operations of a federal advisory committee to deliver the policy outcomes you have spent decades pursuing.”
“According to your testimony, you presented the White House with a calculated plan to dismantle the nation’s vaccine advisory council, replacing its members with cynics who profit from sowing distrust in vaccines, and President Trump signed off,” the senators wrote. “This from the very President who pledged to ‘drain the swamp’ and remove undue influence of special interests in policymaking.”
The senators gave Kennedy until July 17 to provide records and communications pertaining to the vaccine advisory committee as they “assess the legality” of Kennedy’s actions.
The ACIP’s activities are currently frozen as a judge ruled in March that Kennedy illegally appointed 13 members to a vaccine advisory panel, invalidating their votes and blocking a new vaccine schedule for children.
“First, the Government bypassed ACIP to change the immunization schedules, which is both a technical, procedural failure itself and a strong indication of something more fundamentally problematic: an abandonment of the technical knowledge and expertise embodied by that committee,” Judge Brian Murphy wrote. “Second, the Government removed all duly appointed members of ACIP and summarily replaced them without undertaking any of the rigorous screening that had been the hallmark of ACIP member selection for decades.”
