WASHINGTON, July 29 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), alongside seven Democratic members of the committee, launched an investigation into Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s decision to gut the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and replace its non-partisan scientific experts with ideologues who have a history of undermining vaccines.
In their letter to Kennedy, the senators lay out the frightening consequences of his actions: “As your new ACIP makes recommendations based on pseudoscience, fewer and fewer Americans will have access to fewer and fewer vaccines. And as you give a platform to conspiracy theorists, and even promote their theories yourself, Americans will continue to lose confidence in whatever vaccines are still available.”
For the past 60 years, ACIP has played an essential role in ensuring Americans have access to affordable vaccines. ACIP, a federal advisory committee at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), makes recommendations about who should get vaccines and when. These recommendations inform which vaccines are covered by insurers and government programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Vaccines for Children, which provides free vaccines to more than half of the nation’s children.
But Kennedy’s new hand-picked advisory committee is already upending decades of scientific research and vaccine policy. Just two weeks after he replaced all of the committee’s members, the new ACIP announced it plans to revisit the childhood vaccine schedule, putting access to vaccines that children have received for decades — such as hepatitis B and polio — in danger. The new ACIP also invited a known vaccine denier and conspiracy theorist to speak on vaccines, and then made recommendations based solely on her pseudoscience-filled presentation.
Kennedy’s actions come as the United States is experiencing the highest total number of measles cases in 33 years. So far, the measles outbreak has claimed three lives — the first measles deaths in the country in a decade.
“Secretary Kennedy has spread lies about safe and effective vaccines for decades,” Sanders said. “Unfortunately, since he was confirmed, Secretary Kennedy has doubled down on his disinformation campaign and war on science. This will lead to preventable illness and death.”
Sanders and the senators request that Kennedy provide information on his decision to fire ACIP’s non-partisan members and replace them with ideologues — including who else was involved in the decision and how the new members were identified and vetted. The senators also asked for information on his decision to stop recommending the COVID-19 vaccine for children and pregnant women, as well as the administration’s efforts to muzzle scientists.
The investigation follows a letter Sanders sent to HELP Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.) calling for a bipartisan investigation into Kennedy’s efforts to mislead the American people about vaccine safety, and after the American Medical Association passed an emergency resolution urging the HELP Committee to investigate the firings.
In addition to Sanders, Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Andy Kim (D-N.J.), Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.) and Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) also signed the letter.
Read the letter here.