RFK Jr. Reads CDC for changes in vaccine policies

Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., seems to be preparing for potentially essential changes in vaccine policies, specifically about the messages of the federal government and the composition of the advisory panel responsible for making recommendations in vaccination schedules.

Kennedy is planning to remove some members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices because of what he considers as conflicts of interest. ACIP advises the Director of Centers for Control and Prevention of Diseases in which vaccines adopted by the Food and Drug Administration should be used; For example, recommending which groups of people should be vaccinated, in which doses and when. The ACIP guidance is not mandatory, though the CDC almost always follows it and provides recommendations to the public on what should be included in the adult and children’s immunization schedules.

The HHS secretary can hire or replace members of the ACIP Committee, which can lead to new groups of CDC recommendations. The first planned ACIP meeting after inaugurating Trump pushed This week it is not clear at this time exactly what this postponement signals, though in the light of other changes within HHS may be a preface.

For example, the CDC is ordered to accommodate promotions she conducted for numerous vaccines, including a “wild in soft” advertising campaign asking people to vaccinate against the flu. HHS secretary Kennedy says he wants ads that include a stronger version of “informed consent”. Informed consent is the principle that people need to be notified of all risks, as well as the benefits, of any medical intervention they receive or any therapeutic that they are prescribed. Wild to mild advertising emphasizes the functions of decreasing vaccine damage, especially for vulnerable populations such as pregnant women, young children and immunocompromis. Apparently, Kennedy wants messages that are more focused on possible side -related side events.

And this week alone, the FDA canceled a meeting of its advisors for the flu vaccines. The panel was set to meet to discuss the composition of the 2025-2026 flu vaccine.*

Kennedy has previously said that he is concerned about the close relations of the pharmaceutical industry with government agencies and entities such as ACIP that advise them. But it is unclear what Kennedy means when current Acip members include some academics, a major medical officer of a community health center, a higher public health and the owner of a family medicine practice. (We arrived at Kennedy’s office for comment but we didn’t get an answer)

Changes in HHS are developing against the backdrop of a large migrating explosion that began in West Texas and has so far sought the life of a child and hospitalized 19 others. Practically all people who have contracted measles are unjustified. However Kennedy seems to be minimizing the situation in Texas and New Mexico, suggesting that such explosions are not uncommon.

Kennedy vaccine views are known. And while he told Podcaster Lex Fridman in 2023 that some vaccines “may be avoiding more problems than they are causing”, he also claimed that “there is no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.” Kennedy recently informed employees within his department that he pledges to investigate the childhood vaccines that prevent measles, polio and other infectious diseases.

All this does not come as a surprise. Kennedy has been unchanged open to vaccines and what he sees as “suppressing” public health agencies of controversial treatments. Just before the November elections, Kennedy posted on X, warning the FDA that “its aggressive pressure of psychhedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbar therapies, chelating compounds, Ivermectin, [and] Hydroxychloroquine ”was about to end.

Ivermerctin and hydroxyloclore of medicines were embraced in a cultural war during the Covid-19 pandemic that marked unproven treatments against proven measures, such as vaccines. Kennedy defends himself as simply by wanting placebo controlled before licensing and no vaccine mandates. However, the vaccines he bins usually undergo such clinical evidence. Moreover, surely the mandates that Kennedy opposes, which have been in operation since the 1960s, have helped to contribute to a dramatic decrease in infectious childhood diseases.

From the small inoculation-which began in the late 18th century and ended when the disease disappeared in the 1970s in mumps, rubella, tetanus, diphtheria, polio and measles immunizations, vaccinations have saved millions of lives and prevented crime and dangerous diseases from life.

To illustrate, single mass vaccination programs or combinations – tools, mumps and rubella – began in the 1960s and quickly suppressed the spread of measles in the most developed countries. The measles vaccine is “sterilizing”, which means it not only prevents the disease but also transmission.

Neither the HHS secretary nor the CDC director can unilaterally stop the vaccines. But they can change members of the Message Committee, renting and rented CDC fire and review vaccine scheduling. The fact that the HHS secretary and the potential CDC director, the Nominated Dave Weldon, have a related appearance can facilitate the process of transforming vaccine policy.

A bill that sponsored Weldon tried to undo what he saw as a conflict of interest brought by CDC as a promoter of vaccines and a security assessor. This echoes Kennedy’s opinion on the subject.

If Weldon is confirmed, he will make decisions about whether a vaccine should be recommended for the public. Negative guidance from the CDC director can affect insurance coverage because the insurers are only obliged to cover the vaccines recommended by the agency.

* At the same time, the CDC joined a meeting of the Conference of Video Video Vaccines last month led by the World Health Organization, despite a planned US withdrawal from the WHO.