Kennedy to re-create federal advisory committee on vaccines
What could this action portend for special education?
Editor’s note: Please see updates at the foot of this post.—JohnL 10 June 2025.
On 9 June 2025, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., published an editorial in the Wall Street Journal under the headline, “RFK Jr.: HHS Moves to Restore Public Trust in Vaccines: We’re reconstituting an advisory committee to avoid conflicts of interest.” I did not read the entire article (it is behind the WSJ paywall), but in extensive coverage I learned what was in it. Here are illustrations from other sources that explained what Secretary Kennedy wrote.
Apoorva Mandavilli of the New York Times wrote, “Kennedy Removes All C.D.C. Vaccine Panel Experts: The U.S. health secretary chose to “retire” members of a committee that makes significant decisions about who receives immunizations, including the vaccines for children, 9 June 2025:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. health secretary, on Monday fired all 17 members of the advisory committee on immunization to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, saying that the move would restore the public’s trust in vaccines.
Nathaniel Weixel wrote, RFK Jr. fires CDC’s independent vaccine advisors, 9 June 2025. The Hill.
In a Wall Street Journal op-ed released Monday, Kennedy said the move was necessary to restore faith in vaccines.
“A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science,” Kennedy wrote.
“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,” Kennedy said in a subsequent statement.
Beth Mole of Ars Technica wrote “Anti-vaccine advocate RFK Jr. fires entire CDC panel of vaccine advisors: CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has been wiped out,” on 9 June 2025
Anti-vaccine advocate and current US health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has taken the extraordinary action of firing all 17 vaccine experts on a federal committee that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on immunization practices.
In an opinion piece published Monday in the Wall Street Journal, Kennedy announced that he had cleared out the committee, accusing them of being "plagued with persistent conflicts of interest" and a group that has "become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine."
"Without removing the current members, the current Trump administration would not have been able to appoint a majority of new members until 2028," Kennedy added.
I list additional similar reports in the section labeled “sources” at the end of this post.
As developed in the foregoing (and additional sources), some people expressed alarm about the wholesale replacement of the advisory panel. For example, Paul Offit (a credible scientist and medical doctor), Sean O’Leary (a medical doctor affiliated with the American Academy of Pediatrics), and Thomas R. Frieden )former head of the Centers for Disease Control and also a physician) all told Ms. Mandavilli that they were concerned about the future of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. They were especially concerned about who Secretary Kennedy would appoint to the reconstituted panel.
Special education?
What, one might wonder, does this have to do with special education and disabilities? Perhaps nothing, but perhaps a lot.
Secretary Kennedy’s history about support for bogus theories of associations between vaccinations and autism is an obvious connection. As mentioned in more than one of the media articles, the secretary’s history with the vaccination theory raised questions. I see it as important, but not a leading reason to regard these developments with caution and monitor forthcoming reports about this story.
I think another area of concern is what the vacating of appointments to ACIP. Although advisory committees vary in their influence,1 the ACIP is obviously quite important.—it makes recommendations that are literally matters of life and death. Secretary Kennedy is right that it ought to be above reproach, unimpeachable. Secretary Kennedy may have evidence of specific conflicts of interest in his editorial for the WSJ, but at the least, he referred to conflicts of interest. Given the rigorous review of nominees for such panels (see rules and regulations about the Federal Advisory Committee Act), I imagine that any conflicts the now-dismissed panelists for ACIP had must be of a less-substantive and more political (or even imaginary) sort.
Most, if not all, US states have advisory committees devoted to special education. I do not know of a federal advisory committee for special education. Given that a serious topic of discussion is moving some functions of the Office of Special Education Programs out of their congressionally mandated positions in the US Department of Education and into the Department of Health and Human Services under Secretary Kennedy’s leadership, those of us who care about special education should probably tink about how the long-established and highly regarded (and hard working!) has fared under his leadership.
So, Dear Readers, the story about ACIP may be of no consequence for us. It may be a cautionary tale. Or it may be more like a warning shot fired across the bow of the good ship, SS Special Ed.
Additional sources
Helen Branswell, Chelsea Cirruzzo, and Daniel PayneJune for STAT: “Health Secretary RFK Jr. abruptly fires CDC vaccine advisory panel: Kennedy said the move is needed to ‘re-establish public confidence,’ but experts expressed shock” (9 June 2025).
Sophie Gardner and Lauren Gardner of Politico wrote “RFK Jr. to fire all members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee: The HHS secretary announced his plans in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece Monday afternoon” (9 June 2025).
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy for USA Today wrote, RFK Jr. fires entire CDC vaccine advisory panel: Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ousted all 17 members of a panel that advises the CDC on the safety, efficacy and clinical needs of vaccines” on 9 June 2025.
Annika Kim Constantino of CNBC wrote, RFK Jr. removes all members of CDC panel advising U.S. on vaccines (9 June 2025).
Sandhya Raman of Roll Call wrote, “Kennedy makes ‘clean sweep’ of key vaccine advisory panel: Move raises alarms over potential shift toward anti-vaccine policies (9 June 2025).
Guliana Grossi of the American Journal of Managed Care wrote “RFK Jr Sweeps Clean CDC Vaccine Advisory Panel, Aiming to Bolster Public Confidence,” (9 July 2025).
Updates
Two additional notes:
A loyal reader of SET remained me that there had been an advisory group at the US federal level. On 2 October 2001 US President George W. Bush issued an executive order (EO 13227; see Federal Register) establishing the President’s Commission on Excellence in Special Education. The PCESE was tasked with reporting about public opinion and research regarding the cost and effectiveness of special education and providing recommendations about improving special education in the US. Pertinent to the current situation, the 19 members of the PCESE served “without compensation”; although I do not know for a fact that the members were subject to the to the standard conflict of interest checks under the Federal Advisory Act (as noted previous), I gotta bet that they were. Readers can download a copy of the commission’s final report, which was entitled, A New Era: Revitalizing Special Education for Children and Their Families. For students of history, it represents an important landmark.
On 10 June 2025, independent US reporter Katie Couric interviewed Sean O’Leary, MD, about Secretary Kennedy’s disbanding of the ACIP. Although he raised points that readers of SET may already know, readers may find it helpful to have a physician who is a professor of pediatrics and infectious diseases (University of Colorado School of Medicine) making those points. The ~19-min interview is available at Ms. Couric’s ‘stack under the headline, “RFK Jr announced he was removing all 17 sitting members of the CDC's vaccine advisory committee - discussing what this means with a professor of pediatrics and infectious diseases.”
Footnote
I was honored to considered for two advisory committees and to serve on a federal advisory committee over 20 years ago. I was nominated to be a member of the National Riding Panel; although I met the stringent criteria for serving (I wasn’t the author of a curriculum or an assessment that could conceivably benefit from the recommendations made by the panel), but I was not selected for it. For the committee on which I did serve, our duty was to advise the Secretary of Education about the Reading First program. Some readers will remember that the RF committee was disbanded and then re-established. I think I was the only person who served on both the first and second incarnations of the panel. We met in a roped-off area, conducting our deliberations and votes in front of members of the general public and media reporters. It was quite an experience.