This is an article from the June 2025 Civitas Examiner (Volume 2, No. 3) and was written by one of our students, Reid F. The opinions expressed herein do not reflect those of Civitas other than respect for the value of open dialogue. To read more Civitas Examiner stories or to submit your own, click here.
On June 9, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., commonly known as RFK, announced that he is completely reconstituting the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP). The committee, which consists of up to 19 voting members, who are independent medical and public health experts, and six ex officio members representing other federal agencies, has regular meetings three times a year to vote on vaccine recommendations. Each of the 17 committee members, all Biden administration appointees, were fired. Two days later, he announced through a post on X (formerly Twitter) the names of the eight new ACIP members.
One member, Dr. Michael A. Ross, is no longer serving on the committee. Dr. Ross is a physician and former professor of obstetrics and gynecology. His withdrawal was initially reported on June 24 by The New York Times, where it was stated that a Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) spokesperson, Andrew Nixon, had claimed earlier in the afternoon that no members had left the panel, before amending his comments that night to say that Dr. Ross chose to withdraw from the ACIP during the financial holdings review.
This announcement came the night before the ACIP was scheduled to gather over June 25 and 26 at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. According to the agenda published on the CDC website, topics included COVID-19 epidemiology and the COVID vaccine, maternal and pediatric respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccinations, and influenza vaccination. The schedule for discussion of influenza vaccines includes discussion of thimerosal in vaccines and votes on proposed recommendations regarding influenza vaccinations that include thimerosal.
Thimerosal is a mercury-based preservative used in some multi-dose vaccines. The use of low doses of thimerosal in vaccinations is considered very safe. According to the CDC’s website, “Data from many studies show no evidence of harm caused by the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines.” RFK, however, is known to claim that thimerosal-containing vaccines are dangerous. In a post on X on June 25, during the first day of the ACIP’s meeting, RFK responded to an article in The Guardian that referred to thimerosal as safe, calling The Guardian “blind and scientifically baseless.”
According to the CDC website, the ACIP voted five to two to approve the use of one dose of clesrovimab for infants whose mothers are not protected by maternal RSV vaccination. However, they also voted five to one to recommend that people receive only influenza vaccines that are in single-dose formulations and do not use thimerosal as a preservative. This came after Dr. David Boulware, a professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases and International Medicine at the University of Minnesota’s medical school, claimed in a post on X that two citations from a presentation for the ACIP meeting regarding thimerosal did not refer to actual journal articles. He called one ”completely fake” and stated that the other may correspond to a different article than the one cited.
Many organizations and individuals are concerned about the new ACIP committee. The National Foundation for Infectious Disease has stated on its website that it is “gravely concerned with the flawed process that occurred during the recent Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) meeting.” Additionally, the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners claimed that some ACIP members “clearly seek to undermine the validity of long-standing ACIP methods and decisions.” Despite this, the ACIP committee issued a statement at the conclusion of its meeting saying that they understand that they “must answer the call for reestablishing confidence in the scientific examination process.” This statement is published on the CDC website, where it is also said that the ACIP intends to meet again at some point during the third quarter of this year.
