A woman receives a booster dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at the Police hospital in Bangkok, Thailand, January 5, 2023. REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha/File Photo

By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) -U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s dismissal of an independent panel of experts citing the goal of restoring trust in vaccines could undermine confidence in those available now, putting Americans at risk of preventable infectious diseases, public health experts and others said on Monday.

Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic, said in a commentary published in the Wall Street Journal that he was firing all 17 members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science.”

The committee reviews vaccines approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and makes recommendations to the CDC on their use.

"I fear that there will be human lives lost here because of this," said Dr. Sean O'Leary, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics' Committee on Infectious Diseases.

"It is a special kind of irony that he is saying he is doing this to restore trust, given that he is, as an individual, more responsible for sowing distrust in vaccines than almost anyone I can name," O'Leary said.

O'Leary said pediatricians have already been fielding calls from parents who are confused about conflicting announcements earlier this month narrowing the use of COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children and pregnant women. "This is only going to add to that," he said.

A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spokesman said the agency is prioritizing public health, evidence-based medicine, and restoring public confidence in vaccine science.

The firing of the entire vaccine advisory committee comes just weeks before a scheduled public meeting in which advisers were expected to weigh in and vote on a number of decisions, including the 2025-26 COVID-19 vaccine boosters.

The health agency said the committee will meet as scheduled on June 25-27, but it is unclear who would serve on that panel or how they have been vetted for conflicts of interest. The agency said it would replace them with new members currently under consideration.

Fired ACIP member Noel Brewer, a professor of public health at the University of North Carolina, said it took about 18 months from the time he applied until he was serving as an ACIP member.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer decried the changes. "Wiping out an entire panel of vaccine experts doesn’t build trust — it shatters it, and worse, it sends a chilling message: that ideology matters more than evidence, and politics more than public health," he said in a statement.

Former CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden called out Kennedy's "false claims" in the Wall Street Journal piece, saying the panel was rife with conflicts of interest. Most of the panel was appointed last year, the CDC website shows.

"Make no mistake: Politicizing the ACIP as Secretary Kennedy is doing will undermine public trust under the guise of improving it."

On Tuesday, the American Medical Association passed an emergency resolution asking for a Senate investigation into the firing. The group also sent Kennedy a letter "calling for an immediate reversal of the recent changes to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices."

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; additional reporting by Mike Erman in New York and Puyaan Singh in Bengaluru; editing by Caroline Humer and Stephen Coates)