RFK Jr. names new vaccine advisers after firing previous advisory committee [Video]

U.S. Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday named eight members to serve on a key panel of vaccine advisers after abruptly firing all 17 sitting members of the independent panel of experts.

They will sit on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP). Eight is the minimum number allowed by law.

Four of the new members have previously worked on committees associated with either the CDC, the Food and Drug Administration, or both.

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 FDA’s 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 …