Headline Roundup • June 9th, 2025
RFK Jr. Removes All CDC Vaccine Advisory Committee Members
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. removed all members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), according to an announcement on Monday.
The Details: Kennedy stated that the committee had become “little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine” and that a “clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science.” The move was publicly denounced by various medical groups and personnel, including the American Medical Association and some members of the CDC.
For Context: ACIP “comprises medical and public health experts who develop recommendations on the use of vaccines in the civilian population of the United States,” according to its website. Kennedy has been critical of some vaccines as part of his Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) initiative. He most recently announced a halt to Covid-19 vaccine recommendations for pregnant women and healthy children in late May.
How The Media Covered It: The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board (Lean Right bias) published Kennedy’s exclusive commentary as on opinion feature. CBS News (Lean Left) largely highlighted criticisms of ACIP’s reform, as did many outlets on the left. Left-rated outlets also tended to highlight Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who implied Kennedy promised not to alter ACIP. Fox News (Right) focused on Kennedy’s remarks and noted that “All the current members of the committee were brought in under the Biden administration.”
Revised by the AllSides staff (of humans) after a first draft from our custom AI. Learn more. Support our mission. Suggest an improvement to this summary.
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The Department of Health and Human Services dismissed all the members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) on Monday.
The committee’s job was to decide and "make recommendations" related to the necessity and use of vaccines, according to an HHS news release.
All the current members of the committee were brought in under the Biden administration, and 13 of them were put on the committee last year. HHS said it would take until 2028 for most of the members to be replaced if they served their full term...
Vaccines have become a divisive issue in American politics, but there is one thing all parties can agree on: The U.S. faces a crisis of public trust. Whether toward health agencies, pharmaceutical companies or vaccines themselves, public confidence is waning.
Some would try to explain this away by blaming misinformation or antiscience attitudes. To do so, however, ignores a history of conflicts of interest, persecution of dissidents, a lack of curiosity, and skewed science that has plagued the vaccine regulatory apparatus for decades...
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday said he is removing every member of a government panel that makes vaccine recommendations.
Kennedy said he is "retiring" all 17 members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, asserting that it "has become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine."
"A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science," Kennedy wrote in an opinion piece published by the Wall Street Journal...
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