INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Anti-vaccine advocate and current health secretary Robert F
is currently empty after Kennedy abruptly fired all 17 previous members Monday.In the past, the vetting process for appointing new members
to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) could take years
But Kennedy has taken just two days.The panel, typically stocked with vaccine, infectious disease, and public health experts, carefully and
publicly reviews, analyzes, and debates vaccine data and offers recommendations to the CDC via votes
The CDC typically adopts the recommendations, which set clinical practices nationwide and determine insurance coverage for
vaccinations.Yesterday, Kennedy pledged that none of the new ACIP members would be "ideological anti-vaxxers." However, the list of today's
appointees includes Robert Malone, who falsely claims to have invented mRNA vaccines and has spent the past several years spreading
misinformation and conspiracy theories about them.Speaking at an anti-vaccine rally in 2022, Malone spread dangerous falsehoods about mRNA
COVID-19 vaccines: "These genetic vaccines can damage your children
They may damage their brains, their heart, their immune system and their ability to have children in the future
Many of these damages cannot be repaired."Malone aligned with the anti-vaccine crowd during the pandemic and has become a mainstay in
conspiratorial circles and an ally to Kennedy
He has claimed that vaccines cause a "form of AIDS," amid other nonsense
He has also meddled with responses to the measles outbreak that erupted in West Texas in January
In April, Malone was the first to publicize news that a second child had died from the highly infectious and serious infection, but he did
so to falsely claim that measles wasn't the cause and spread other dangerous misinformation.
