HQ Team
June 10, 2025: US President Donald Trump’s administration has sacked all 17 vaccine experts from an advisory panel to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention to “restore public trust.”
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today “took a bold step” by totally reconstituting the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP), and will replace it with new members, according to a government statement.
The panel makes recommendations on the safety, efficacy, and clinical need of vaccines to the CDC. The new members are currently under consideration.
“Today we are prioritising the restoration of public trust above any specific pro- or anti-vaccine agenda,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a long-time vaccine skeptic.
“The public must know that unbiased science—evaluated through a transparent process and insulated from conflicts of interest—guides the recommendations of our health agencies.”
Gold Standard Science
As directed by President Trump’s Restoring Gold Standard Science Executive Order, the new ACIP members will ensure that government scientific activities are informed by the most “credible, reliable, and impartial scientific evidence available,” according to the statement.
On May 23, 2025, Trump signed the Gold Standard Science Executive Order, which stated that over the last five years, confidence that scientists act in the best interests of the public had fallen significantly.
A majority of researchers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics believe science is facing a reproducibility crisis. The falsification of data by leading researchers has led to high-profile retractions of federally funded research.
Unfortunately, the Federal Government has contributed to this loss of trust. In several notable cases, executive departments and agencies (agencies) have used or promoted scientific information in a highly misleading manner, according to the order.
The Biden administration appointed all of the 17 sitting ACIP members. Thirteen of them were appointed in 2024. These appointments would have prevented the current administration from choosing a majority of the committee until 2028.
Restore public trust in vaccines
The prior administration made a concerted effort to lock in public health ideology and limit the incoming administration’s ability to take the proper actions to restore public trust in vaccines.
The CDC panel guides the CDC on which groups of people would most benefit from an already-approved vaccine.
“A clean sweep is necessary to reestablish public confidence in vaccine science,” the Health Secretary Kennedy said.
“ACIP’s new members will prioritise public health and evidence-based medicine. The Committee will no longer function as a rubber stamp for industry profit-taking agendas.
“The entire world once looked to American health regulators for guidance, inspiration, scientific impartiality, and unimpeachable integrity. Public trust has eroded. Only through radical transparency and gold standard science will we earn it back,” Kennedy said.
June 25 meeting
ACIP will convene its next meeting on June 25 through June 27 at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta.
Scientists and experts said the changes would undermine public confidence in health agencies.
“For generations, the ACIP has been a trusted national source of science- and data-driven advice and guidance on the use of vaccines to prevent and control disease,” said Bruce A. Scott, MD, President of the American Medical Association.
“Physicians, parents, community leaders and public health officials rely on them for clinical guidance, public health information, and knowledge.”
The move to remove the 17 sitting members of ACIP “undermines that trust and upends a transparent process that has saved countless lives. With an ongoing measles outbreak and routine child vaccination rates declining, this move will further fuel the spread of vaccine-preventable illnesses.”
‘Reckless, shortsighted’
Secretary Kennedy’s allegations about the integrity of the CDC’s ACIP are completely unfounded and will have a significant negative impact on Americans of all ages, said Tina Tan, MD, FIDSA, FPIDS, FAAP, and President of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
“Scientific recommendations about infectious diseases and vaccines that the public can trust require established experts to make them,” she said.
“ACIP is a highly qualified group of experts that has always operated with transparency and a commitment to protecting the public’s health.
“Unilaterally removing an entire panel of experts is reckless, shortsighted and severely harmful.”
