Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Wednesday he’s naming eight new advisers to serve on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine recommendations committee, after firing the committee’s entire previous roster of 17 advisers.
“All of these individuals are committed to evidence-based medicine, gold-standard science, and common sense. They have each committed to demanding definitive safety and efficacy data before making any new vaccine recommendations,” Kennedy said Wednesday in a post on X.
Kennedy’s picks circumvented the usual CDC process for selecting members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, known as ACIP. In previous administrations, career agency officials — not political leaders — vetted potential experts before forwarding them to the department for the secretary’s approval.
The CDC also removed the career officials tasked with overseeing the committee and its agenda, effectively replacing them with an appointee of the Trump administration.
The panel’s influential recommendations are closely watched because they are directly tied to federal policies, like which vaccines insurers are required to cover.
The picks announced by Kennedy include some close allies of the secretary and his inner circle. Several have a history of criticizing vaccine recommendations or questioning their safety. Some have ties to lawsuits against vaccine makers. One says he previously invested in a vaccine.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services said that Kennedy “has replaced vaccine groupthink with a diversity of viewpoints” on the panel and said that ethics agreements would be made public for the new members before they begin work for the ACIP.
“The speed with which these members were selected, and the lack of transparency in the process, does not help to restore public confidence and trust, and contributes to confusion and uncertainty,” Dr. Jason Goldman, president of the American College of Physicians, said in a statement.
Here is a look at those named:
Dr. Robert Malone
One of the Kennedy allies named to the committee, Dr. Robert Malone, worked on early research related to mRNA vaccine technology but was accused during the COVID-19 pandemic of spreading misinformation about the mRNA vaccines. He was with Kennedy and President Trump at the Trump election night celebration in Florida.
“On the basis of data from all over the world, approximately three years ago it was my impression that the risk/benefit ratio of these products did not merit continued use in any cohort,” Malone posted last month on his Substack about the mRNA COVID vaccines.
Like Kennedy, Malone has questioned the benefits of measles vaccines during the recent record outbreak in Texas, which killed two children, and he has promoted unproven treatments for the virus.
Dr. Martin Kulldorff
Another member picked by Kennedy is Dr. Martin Kulldorff, an epidemiologist who co-authored the pandemic-era Great Barrington Declaration criticizing COVID-19 restrictions, along with now-NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya. Bhattacharya has described Kulldorff as a close friend.
Kulldorff previously worked with the CDC’s outside vaccine advisers, before authoring an opinion piece in 2021 criticizing the agency’s decision to pause use of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine over safety concerns.
He claimed he was fired from working with the committee over the opinion piece. Kulldorff later claimed he was fired from Harvard University for criticizing COVID-19 vaccine requirements.
He also previously testified as an expert witness in a lawsuit by a law firm tied to Kennedy against Merck’s HPV vaccine Gardasil. Kulldorff was being paid $400 an hour, he said in 2024. Reuters previously reported Kulldorff’s work for the firm, WisnerBaum.
During Kennedy’s confirmation process, Senate Democrats had accused him of a conflict of interest for his ties to WisnerBaum and its litigation against Merck’s vaccine, calling on him to amend his ethics agreement to avoid cashing in on any settlements or judgments from the lawsuit.
Dr. Cody Meissner
Dr. Cody Meissner, a pediatrics professor who previously served as a member of the Food and Drug Administration’s own vaccines panel — the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee — was also named to the committee.
Meissner opposed COVID-19 vaccine requirements for children. He also co-authored an opinion piece with now-FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary speaking out against masking of children during the pandemic.
Dr. Kathryn Edwards, who previously worked as the chair of the FDA vaccine panel that Meissner served on, described Meissner as the only person she knew from Kennedy’s list with credible experience in pediatric infectious diseases and analyzing the illnesses and deaths prevented by vaccines.
Meissner was previously listed in April as a consultant to the RSV vaccines work group for the CDC committee, before Kennedy fired its advisers.
“He’s a card-carrying infectious disease person who knows the burden of these diseases, and he knows the risk and the benefit. And I think it will be a challenge for him, but obviously, he knows what he’s getting into,” Edwards said.
Vicky Pebsworth, Ph.D., R.N.
Vicky Pebsworth, a regional director of the National Association of Catholic Nurses, was also a former member of the FDA vaccines panel.
Pebsworth spoke at a 2020 meeting of the FDA vaccines committee, where she identified herself as the research director for the National Vaccine Information Center and “mother of a child injured by his 15-month well-baby shots in 1998.” She said the center’s position was that any “coercion and sanctions to persuade adults to take an experimental vaccine, or give it to their children, is unethical and unlawful.”
Pediatrician Dr. Vincent Iannelli questioned Pebsworth’s objectivity in a post Wednesday on his Vaxopedia website, citing a 2009 blog post where she described her advocacy on the issue.
“For those of us within the vaccine-injured communities who are fighting on behalf of our children for the basic human right to make voluntary, informed vaccination decisions that are based on sound science rather than ideology, it is a battle. And it is personal,” Pebsworth wrote.
Retsef Levi, Ph.D.
Kennedy also praised another pick, MIT professor Retsef Levi, saying: “Dr. Levi has collaborated with public health agencies to evaluate vaccine safety, including co-authoring studies on mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and their association with cardiovascular risks.”
In an interview Levi shared on social media after the announcement, he said he would “keep an open mind,” but also stood by his previous call for mRNA vaccines like Pfizer and Moderna’s COVID-19 shots to be suspended.
“I think it’s obvious that these mRNA vaccines should not be given to anybody young or healthy. It is also not at all clear to me that they should be given to anybody, based on the evidence,” he said.
Levi previously called for more detailed data from the COVID-19 vaccine trials, suggesting that changes to how Pfizer’s shot was produced may have caused side effects.
In 2021, Levi spoke at a meeting of the FDA’s outside vaccine advisers during its public comment session, opposing a broad authorization of COVID-19 boosters.
An article co-authored by Levi in 2022 raised “concerns regarding vaccine-induced undetected severe cardiovascular side-effects” based on data from Israeli emergency calls.
He faced criticism this year for a paper co-authored with Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, which was cited in the state’s move to recommend that young men not get mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. Experts condemned the paper for misleading methods that could inflate the risk.
Dr. Michael A. Ross
Kennedy said Dr. Michael A. Ross “contributed to national strategies for cancer prevention and early detection, including those involving HPV immunization,” working with the CDC’s breast and cervical cancer committee.
Ross is described by Kennedy as an obstetrics and gynecology professor at George Washington University and Virginia Commonwealth University, though his name does not appear on directories for either university.
“Dr. Michael Ross has not held a faculty appointment at the George Washington University since 2017,” Katelyn Deckelbaum, a spokesperson for the university, told CBS News in an email.
Deckelbaum said that Ross was previously a clinical professor, but stopped teaching medical students or residents at the university.
A spokesperson for Virginia Commonwealth University, Leila Ugincius, said Ross “was an affiliate faculty member” through the university’s regional campus at Inova, a hospital system in the D.C. area, before a partnership with the hospital ended in 2021.
Ross is listed as cosigning an open letter during the COVID-19 pandemic that criticized a study that concluded ivermectin was ineffective for treating the disease. The University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy previously reported Ross had backed the letter.
“We oppose this fixation on randomized controlled trials at the expense of other clinical and scientific evidence and urge medical policymakers to restore balance to the practice of medicine,” the letter said.
The investment firm Havencrest Capital Management lists Ross as a partner. The firm said Ross is a pediatrics professor, not an obstetrics and gynecology professor.
Maryland-based Manta Pharma had until Thursday listed Ross as a medical adviser. On a LinkedIn profile that had been linked by the company, Ross said he worked for and served on advisory boards for several medical companies, including “an investment in a vaccine company.”
HHS, Havencrest Capital Management and Manta Pharma did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Dr. James Pagano
Dr. James Pagano, described by Kennedy as a “strong advocate for evidence-based medicine,” has published two fiction titles about hospital medicine.
“Over the course of his medical career he has worked in a number of emergency departments in the greater L.A. area, including major trauma centers as well as smaller community hospitals. He has been the medical director of one ER or another for many years,” describes an Amazon listing for one of his books in 2012.
A blog and X account with Pagano’s name from several years ago wrote about a range of issues, like voicing disappointment over Republicans failing to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, but says little about vaccines.
Records from the Medical Board of California list Pagano as being retired.
Dr. Joseph Hibbeln
Another Kennedy pick, Dr. Joseph Hibbeln, retired from the National Institutes of Health in 2020. His research portfolio previously covered nutritional intake of fatty acids like omega-3. He previously participated in federal panels related to his work, including the federal Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee.
Kennedy described him as bringing “expertise in immune-related outcomes, psychiatric conditions, and evidence-based public health strategies.”
Hibbeln previously co-authored a study probing whether exposure during pregnancy to mercury was linked to autism, in the wake of now-debunked research that falsely suggested a mercury-based preservative that was previously used in vaccines was causing autism.
They concluded that there was “no consistent evidence from this study to implicate prenatal exposure to mercury” in causing autism, and that “the benefits of nutrients in fish counteract any possible adverse cognitive and behavioral differences” caused by mercury exposure.
A 2023 presentation by Hibbeln about seafood intake in pregnancy listed him as a professor at the University of Bristol and a psychiatrist for California-based Mindful Health Solutions.
Kennedy’s monthslong search for new members
Kennedy’s picks cap a monthslong search that the secretary and his aides have conducted for replacements to the committee.
Former CDC official Jeffrey Klausner, a professor at the USC Keck School of Medicine, said he was among those approached for suggestions early this year. He said none of his suggestions were among Kennedy’s picks.
Klausner criticized Kennedy’s pick of Malone, calling him a “a well-known promoter of various conspiracy theories and was advocating for use of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine in the treatment of COVID.”
“Seems like his appointment is not consistent with some of Secretary Kennedy’s public commitments,” Klausner said.
Kennedy told reporters on Monday that he was picking “highly credentialed” experts for the panel.
“We’re going to bring people onto the ACIP panel, not anti-vaxxers, who are bringing people on who are credentialed scientists, who are highly credentialed physicians, who are going to do evidence-based medicine,” he said.
In an “FAQ” document shared with stakeholder groups, HHS said the department intended “to ensure balanced membership in terms of the points of view represented.”