Children's Health Defense
In its final days in office, the Biden administration quietly stacked a key committee that reviews vaccine safety and efficacy with several new pro-vaccine members, a move intended to “insulate the scientific integrity of the panel from the incoming administration,” STAT News reported today.
Outgoing Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Xavier Becerra made the last-minute appointments to the Advisory Committee of Immunization Practices (ACIP). They include four new members and four replacements for current members whose terms expire in June.
According to STAT, the appointments were a response to President Donald Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., founder of Children’s Health Defense (CHD), to lead HHS. Kennedy, who has not yet been confirmed as HHS secretary, faced two confirmation hearings in the U.S. Senate earlier this week.
“The advisory committee plays an important role of independent eyes on the science,” said Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist at CHD. “Biden just made ACIP a political appointment, trampling the idea of independent scientists.”
Whether the new appointments will hamper Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda, if he is confirmed to lead HHS, is unclear. According to STAT, while the new members’ terms expire in 2027, ACIP members are “at-will appointments” and can be dismissed at any time.
Kennedy, or any new secretary of HHS, would also have the option to fire other existing members of ACIP, cancel or postpone vaccine-related meetings or disband ACIP altogether. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), under a Trump-appointed director, could also override ACIP’s recommendations.
According to STAT, ACIP “plays a pivotal role in the setting of vaccination policy” in the U.S. ACIP reviews the safety and efficacy data of vaccines that are newly approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and issues recommendations to the CDC.
The CDC must formally accept ACIP’s recommendations before the vaccines are allowed on the market…
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE… (childrenshealthdefense.org)
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