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All 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) were dismissed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services. This board is responsible for approving vaccines on the childhood immunization schedule, and Secretary Kennedy accused the outgoing members of “malevolent malpractice.”
The main reason for the housecleaning, according to Kennedy, is their “stubborn unwillingness to demand adequate safety trials before recommending new vaccines for our children.” He continued:
“Today, a compliant American child receives between 69 and 92 routine vaccines (depending on brand/dictated dosage) from conception to 18 years of age. This is up from 11 shots in 1986. ACIP has recommended each of these additional jabs without requiring placebo-controlled trials for any of them. This means that no one can scientifically ascertain whether these products are averting more problems than they are causing.”
Vaccine manufacturers often justify the lack of placebo-controlled trials by arguing that it would be unethical to give a true placebo—such as saline—to one group if the vaccine being tested is potentially beneficial. They claim it would be wrong to deny participants a treatment that might protect them. As a result, new vaccines are typically tested against earlier versions rather than against inert placebos.
This means that when vaccine makers report their product is, say, X-percent effective, they’re measuring its effectiveness relative to a previous version—not against people who received no vaccine at all.
Secretary Kennedy says he will announce new ACIP members in the coming days and they will not be “ideological anti-vaxxers” but rather “highly credentialed physicians and scientists who will make extremely consequential public health determinations by applying evidence-based decision-making with objectivity and common sense.”