Financial conflicts of interest among experts who help guide US vaccination policy were at record lows in 2024, just before Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took the nation’s top health spot and vowed to clean out corruption.

In 2024, 5% or fewer of the members on two key panels reported conflicts, defined as financial relationships with companies in areas like research funding, stock ownership or consulting contracts, according to the study published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

“It doesn’t look like it’s quite the hotbed of conflicts that Secretary Kennedy and others might have thought,” said lead researcher Genevieve Kanter, an economist and expert in conflicts of interest at the University of Southern California.

Ties to the pharmaceutical industry are inevitable

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