Kennedy justified his decision to fire all 17 ACIP members and hire new ones by writing in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece that the board “has been plagued with persistent conflicts of interest and has become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports conflicts of interest for ACIP members if they are relevant for specific meetings, and also indicates whether the members recused themselves from votes.
Medical associations pushed back against Kennedy’s characterization of the panel as beset with conflicts of interest. Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said in a statement that fired members were “vetted for conflicts of interest prior to appointment.”
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