Eight new members announced for U.S. CDC vaccine advisory panel

NEW YORK, June 11 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday named eight doctors and researchers, including two prominent critics of federal scientists and the Joe Biden administration's COVID-19 vaccine policies, to replace roughly half the members he fired from an expert panel that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Kennedy made the announcement on social media platform X, two days after he fired all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).

"The slate includes highly credentialed scientists, leading public-health experts, and some of America's most accomplished physicians," he wrote. Kennedy named Joseph R. Hibbeln, Martin Kulldorff, Retsef Levi, Robert W. Malone, Cody Meissner, James Pagano, Vicky Pebsworth and Michael A. Ross.

Meissner and Pebsworth have sat on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, and Meissner also previously served on ACIP. Kulldorff is an architect of the Great Barrington Declaration, which called for a lighter public health response to COVID-19 in October 2020, and previously served on an ACIP vaccine safety subgroup.

"All of these individuals are committed to evidence-based medicine, gold-standard science, and common sense," Kennedy said on X.

However, "the appointments of at least two of the new members -- Martin Kulldorff and Dr. Robert Malone -- are likely to draw an uproar from pro-vaccine groups. Both were highly critical of (former) President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s coronavirus vaccine policies during the pandemic," noted The New York Times about the development. ■