Overview
- Dr. Debra Houry, who resigned from the CDC last summer, said the agency is in "pure chaos" and accused HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of refusing expert briefings and putting lives at risk.
- Kennedy removed all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and installed a new panel that voted to remove thimerosal from flu shots, end universal newborn Hepatitis B dosing, and shrink the childhood vaccine schedule.
- A federal judge in March blocked most of the new ACIP appointments, invalidated the votes taken by those appointees, and froze the altered childhood vaccine schedule.
- Late June disclosures of internal emails and Houry's public interview have intensified calls for investigations and prompted litigation and congressional scrutiny.
- Public-health effects are already visible as 29 states plus Washington, D.C. no longer use CDC recommendations as their childhood vaccination benchmark and outbreaks of measles and whooping cough and reported vaccine-preventable deaths have raised concerns about declining trust and coordination.