RFK Jr.’s hand-picked ACIP panel endorses flu vaccines that don’t contain thimerosal

The Trump administration’s new vaccine advisers endorsed this fall’s flu vaccines late last week, but only those that don’t contain the ingredient thimerosal, which has been falsely linked to autism, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The panel is also recommending that infants receive a shot to protect them against the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

That decision surprised those who worried that new members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) would oppose vaccines.

Health and Human Services Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently fired all 17 members of ACIP and replaced them with eight hand-picked candidates. One has left the group.

“A clean sweep is necessary to reestablish public confidence in vaccine science,” Kennedy said in a statement on the HHS website earlier this month. “ACIP’s new members will prioritize public health and evidence-based medicine.”

He continued to defend the move last week.

“I fired people who had conflicts (of interest) with the pharmaceutical industry,” Kennedy said at a House committee hearing on Tuesday. “That committee has been the template for medical malpractice for 30 years.” 

Medical doctors, Democratic representatives disapprove of RFK Jr.’s decisions

Democratic members of Congress, who are also medical doctors, said the action is evidence that Kennedy is promoting a dangerous, anti-science agenda. 

“This is making our country a more dangerous place for children,” Washington U.S. Representative Kim Schrier, the first pediatrician elected to Congress, said.

Dr. Paul Offit is a pediatrician and served as a member of the ACIP from 1998 to 2003.

"What you would never see at an ACIP meeting is what you saw today,” Offit said.

Offit, who was invited to speak alongside members of the Democratic Doctors caucus last week, said the new ACIP panel listened to a presentation by an antivaccine group’s former leader.

“Lyn Redwood’s presentation about thimerosal—an ethyl mercury-containing preservative that was in vaccines but was taken out of vaccines, given to young children back in 2001—was scientifically inaccurate,” he said.

“Thimerosal was grandfathered for use without adequate safety testing by the FDA and is not generally recognized as being safe or effective by the FDA over-the-counter division since 1998,” Redwood said at last week’s ACIP meeting. “Studies have identified infants with blood levels after exposure to thimerosal-containing vaccines that breach CDC guidelines for a case of mercury chemical poisoning.”

Offit said she cited a study and claimed it showed thimerosal caused inflammation in the brains of young monkeys. He said the study drew no such conclusion.