PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — One of the country’s top vaccine experts is worried about the future of vaccine policy after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, also serves on the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, which works with the CDC to approve and recommend vaccinations for Americans.
Kennedy said the CDC firings were due to conflicts of interest, though he provided no evidence to support the claim. Currently, committee members are required to declare any potential conflicts, as well as business interests, that arise during their tenure. They also must disclose any possible conflicts at the start of each public meeting.
Offit said these conflicts of interest were false.
Offit, a leading voice on vaccinations for nearly 30 years, said he is disappointed with the health secretary’s decision to purge the panel and appoint replacements who are strongly anti-vaccination and misinformed.
“For the most part, you don’t have people who have experience taking care of patients with vaccine-preventable diseases, who are talking to parents or patients about vaccine-preventable diseases,” he said. “It’s just a curious lack of expertise across the way.”
Offit said the medical and scientific community has lost trust in the CDC panel.
“The question is, what now?” he asked. “Who can one turn to to get the kind of advice that you know is going to be given by experts who have the experience and expertise and institutional memory to give good advice? I imagine this is only gonna get worse.”
Offit called Kennedy an anti-vaccine advocate and conspiracy theorist. He said he wouldn’t be surprised if he also made changes within the FDA.
“It’s an unpredictable time,” he added.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.