Party politics would have played a role in Kennedy’s resignation of vaccine advisers

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who promised to make decisions rooted in ‘Golden Standard Science’, fired a whole committee of vaccine advisers in part because they were all appointed by a Democratic President and some had made donations to Democrats, according to an official of the Lord Huis.

When he announced the dismissal on Monday, Mr. Kennedy called the financial ties of the members with the industry and their ‘immersion in a system of stamps tailored to industry’. But according to the official of the White House and the other person, who both spoke about the state of anonymity to discuss an internal case, Mr. Kennedy was also concerned with ‘political conflicts’.

The massive shooting was another example of the unusually muscular – and sometimes chaotic – way in which Mr Kennedy has exercised his authority, often during the determination of the vaccine policy. Just like President Trump, Mr. Kennedy joins policy affairs that are usually left to subordinates, and sometimes announces a new policy on social media, with little or no evidence to support them.

Representatives of the American Medical Association, the largest doctors’ group in the country, who will hold its annual meeting in Chicago this week, A resolution accepted On Tuesday to call Mr Kennedy to reverse his decision immediately and ordered his leadership to ask the Senate Health Committee to investigate this.

Two experts in the field of public health rights said on Tuesday that Mr. Kennedy had the authority Fire all 17 members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, or ACIP, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. But both said that the federal law of him was obliged not to act randomly.

“The secretary has the ultimate authority, but he cannot randomly exercise that authority randomly – he should actually use a deliberative process,” said one of those experts, Lawrence O. Gostin, a professor in the worldwide health law at the University of Georgetown. “I think he is very vulnerable to a judicial challenge.”

In one Long mail on x On Tuesday evening, Mr. Kennedy said he would use the social media platform to announce new members. “None of these people will be ideological anti-vaxxers,” he wrote. “They will be highly certified doctors and scientists who will make extremely resulting provisions of public health by applying evidence-based decision-making with objectivity and common sense.”

Mr Kennedy did not mention ideology or party relationship in his position, but said: “I will also tweet examples of historical corruption at ACIP to help the public understand why this beautiful sweep was necessary.”

The immunization committee was founded in 1964 by the surgeon General To “help with the prevention and control of transferable diseases.” It is the task to carefully revise the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, to discuss the evidence and to vote on who should get the shots and when. Insurers and government programs such as Medicaid follow its recommendations.

Experts said it was very unusual for a secretary to take the party politics into account when choosing members, and no one could remember an entire committee that was rejected en masse.

“It is supposed to be an apolitical process that produces the best scientific advice,” said Arthur Caplan, a professor in bio ethics at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine. “It does not bring people to embassies because they give you money. It tries to select the best available expertise.”

Mr. Kennedy – one of the most vocal critics of vaccines, which he has linked to autism despite scientific studies that have not found any proof of a connection – has long claimed that the committee with interest conflicts because some members have worked with the pharmaceutical industry. Members are even obliged to explain whether they have conflicts and are not allowed to vote on matters in which they are in conflict.

He announced the dismissals in one Wall Street Journal Opinion Essay On Monday she called ‘a daring step in repairing public trust’. He also noted that some members ‘last-minute were arranged from the BIDEN administration’, adding to it: “Without removing the current members, the current Trump administration could not appoint a majority of new members until 2028.”

Del Bigtree, a narrow ally of Mr. Kennedy, whose non -profit has supported the efforts to put an end to the mandates of the vaccine and withdraw certain vaccines, said: “These are bold movements that I believe they are expected.

“That is why all the people who supported Robert Kennedy Jr. fully supported him to come to President Trump,” he added. “This is what we wanted to see. We wanted to put an end to the corruption, infiltration of business interests.”

But furthermore Mr. Kennedy was also working on political ideology, according to the person who is familiar with his views. This person pointed out an article In the FederalistThe conservative news output, who had detailed detailed people who had worked with the industry, who had donated to Democrats and had taken those steps to “promote diversity, equity and inclusion (dei) (dei)” – something that Mr Trump has said, will not be allowed in his administration.

One committee member, Noel Brewer, a public health professor at the University of North Carolina, said on Tuesday that he heard that he had been fired when a reporter him Mr. Kennedy’s Wall Street Journal Essay sent on Monday around 4 p.m. Two hours later he received an e -mail who informed him about the “immediate termination” of his appointment.

Dr. Brewer said that he had received subsidy finance from Pfizer or Merck in the past, although not in the last five years. When it became clear that he was a candidate to serve on the committee, he said, “I made sure that I started rejecting every invitation.”

The federalist article identified Dr. Brewer as someone who had donated to Democrats; In 2020, before he served on the committee, he gave $ 1,000 to Joseph R. Biden Jr. And $ 200 to a democratic candidate for Senate in North Carolina.

Asked for the donations, Dr. said Brewer: “I am a behavioral scientist who works on public health. I am not really qualified to make reviews of the political calculus of leaders.”

What happens next is unclear. Kennedy is expected to designate new members of the panel before the next meeting, which is planned for 25 June.

Dr. BREWER noted that the panel considered different importance, including whether the number of doses receiving babies reducing it to protect against human papillomavirus, and whether he should be moved to a “risk-based approach” in which the COVID-19 vaccine may not be recommended for healthy adults.

Mr. Kennedy appeared on the committee last month, through Announcement of new COVID-19 vaccine recommendations For children and pregnant women.

Michael T. Osterholm, expert in infectious diseases at the University of Minnesota who advised health secretaries of both political parties, called the dismissal of all 17 members of the committee “a political response, no scientific effort”. Dr. Osterholm leads a new initiative, the vaccine integrity project, which called it “recklessly” and said they were part pattern In which Mr Kennedy makes decisions with little evidence to support them.

Mr Kennedy did not provide any new scientific evidence when announcing the recommendations of COVID-19. Instead, he trusted A commentary Published by the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and another Top FDA officer. When claiming conflicts of interest in the immunization committee, Mr. Kennedy quoted a report from 2009 and another from 2000.

Previous health secretaries have sometimes exercised their authority in a muscular manner and in some cases have rejected the recommendations of their scientific advisers.

Kathleen Sebelius, who served as a health secretary in the Obama government, rejected the FDA by refusing to make emergency anti -control available to teenage girls younger than 17. Donna E. Shalala, health secretary of President Bill Clinton, was instructed by Mr. Clinton To reject a recommendation to finance clean-needle exchange programs for drug users, the CDC director said it would save lives.

But in interviews on Tuesday, both said that Mr. Kennedy’s involvement in the functioning of the immunization committee was political interference of a different order.

“The scientists have informed my judgment,” said Mrs. Sebelius. She also noted that Mr Kennedy fired the committee members at a time when the CDC director could not weigh because the agency has no director.

Dr. Shalala said that although she had no choice but to go along with Mr. Clinton’s wishes, “we never denied science; we repeated that science was clear and we would have saved lives.”