Kennedy's Vaccine Panel Picks Include Vaccine Skeptics

All those reassuring promises Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made before he was confirmed as President Trump's health secretary appear to have gone up in a puff of smoke, with Kennedy choosing an anti-vaccine activist and other well-known vaccine skeptics to join the CDC's independent vaccine advisory committee, which he just stripped of all 17 members. The eight new members he's settled on include, per NBC News, a doctor who has asserted without evidence that medical error is to blame for the deaths of children amid the current measles outbreaks, and a leader at an organization considered to be a leading source of vaccine misinformation. The new panel is being called a win for the "medical freedom" movement, NPR reports.

Kennedy's choices also include a professor who criticized COVID-19 public health measures, members who spoke out against Anthony Fauci, and members who questioned the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines—including one who has called to end them entirely. "Kennedy did not pick people with strong, current expertise in vaccines," says a professor who studies vaccine policy. "It tells me that Kennedy is setting up a committee that would be skeptical of vaccines, and possibly willing to implement an anti-vaccine agenda." In the past, members of the panel in question have undergone vetting that has taken months or even years. (More Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stories.)