Who are the new members of the ACIP? Image By HPN Staff Seven newly appointed members of the federal Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices met for the first time June 25 and 26, following a purge of the entire ACIP board by Department of Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. This panel recommends vaccine policies to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention leadership, which in turn guides healthcare providers and the schedule for childhood vaccinations. Kennedy dismissed the ACIP’s previous 17 members — all appointed during former President Joe Biden’s administration — on the grounds that a “clean sweep is necessary to reestablish public confidence in vaccine science.” Kennedy also changed out CDC leadership of the committee, replacing ACIP Executive Secretary Melinda Wharton with Mina Zadeh, who has had a lengthy CDC career. Kennedy had initially appointed eight members to the ACIP; however, Dr. Michael Ross, an obstetrics and gynecology doctor from Virginia, withdrew his name. Why it matters The remaining seven have lengthy careers in the medical field, academia, and research roles, shown in the following short biographies pulled from bios Kennedy posted to social media, and other sources, such as the Associated Press, NPR, and CBS News. As members of the committee, they are responsible for providing advice about “the most appropriate selection of vaccines and related agents for effective control of vaccine-preventable diseases in the civilian population.” They have also been subject to scrutiny from media coverage and advocacy groups, which have accused several of questioning COVID-19 pandemic policies and criticizing vaccines more generally. The American Medical Association said in a statement from its president that it was “deeply concerned” by the selections, which the group said had been made “without transparency and proper vetting.” Who they are Joseph R. Hibbeln is a psychiatrist and neuroscientist and a former acting chief of the Section on Nutritional Neurosciences at the National Institutes of Health. He has more than 120 peer-reviewed publications. His work has informed U.S. public health guidelines, particularly in maternal and children’s health. Martin Kulldorff is a biostatistician and epidemiologist formerly at Harvard Medical School. He has served on the Food and Drug Administration’s Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee and the CDC’s Vaccine Safety Subgroup of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. He was a prominent critic of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, signing on to the Great Barrington Declaration. Retsef Levi is a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and an expert in healthcare analytics, risk management, and vaccine safety. He has co-authored studies on mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and their association with cardiovascular risks. In 2023, he called for the end of the COVID-19 vaccination. Robert W. Malone is a biochemist known for his significant early contributions to mRNA vaccine technology, and has served in several academic and government advisory positions. He was later criticized for spreading misinformation. In a late 2021 podcast, Malone said the general public was “basically being hypnotized” into believing COVID-19 narratives. Cody Meissner is a professor of pediatrics at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, and he has held advisory roles with both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, contributing to national immunization guidelines and regulatory decisions. The Associated Press described him as “perhaps the most experienced in vaccine policy” of the original eight new appointees James Pagano is an emergency medicine physician with more than 40 years of experience. He has worked in diverse emergency settings, from level 1 trauma centers to small community hospitals, and he has served on multiple hospital committees. Vicky Pebsworth worked in healthcare for more than 45 years, including as a critical care nurse, administrator, health policy analyst, and research scientist with a focus on public health policy, bioethics and vaccine safety. She is the Pacific region director of the National Association of Catholic Nurses and a former member of the Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee. She is a long-time member of the National Vaccine Information Center.
