Reed Condemns Trump Administration for Dismantling CDC’s Independent Panel of Vaccine Experts

WASHINGTON, DC –Today, U.S. Senator Jack Reed issued the following statement after HHS Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. removed all 17 members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP), which is made up of medical and public health experts — including pediatricians, epidemiologists and geriatricians — who make recommendations about who should get certain vaccines, including the schedule for childhood vaccinations:
“Secretary Kennedy’s unfounded, personal anti-vaxxer views are hazardous to public health and he is making this reckless move based on ideology and conspiracy theories, not sound evidence.  The Trump Administration is removing trusted, accomplished, independent experts on ACIP and will likely replace them with ideologues who parrot Kennedy’s misconceptions and conspiracy theories about vaccines.  This move is sure to increase vaccine-preventable outbreaks and endanger people’s lives.  The most vulnerable Americans, including unvaccinated infants, immunocompromised individuals, and older Americans are most likely to suffer from this ill-conceived directive.
“I urge my Republican colleagues to speak up on behalf of their constituents and work with Democrats to hold this Administration accountable for breaking its promises and degrading public health.”
The CDC recently reported that routine childhood vaccinations in America have prevented over 1.1 million deaths, more than 500 million cases of illness and over 32 million hospitalizations over the past 30 years.