{"id":696168,"date":"2026-01-14T20:58:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T20:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/696168\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T20:58:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T20:58:10","slug":"health-secretary-rfk-jr-appoints-two-vaccine-skeptics-to-cdc-advisory-panel-trump-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/696168\/","title":{"rendered":"Health secretary RFK Jr appoints two vaccine skeptics to CDC advisory panel | Trump administration"},"content":{"rendered":"

The health and human services secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr<\/a>, has appointed two new obstetrician-gynecologists to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u2019s vaccine advisory committee. Both are physicians who have publicly disputed prevailing scientific views on vaccines and the use of antidepressants during pregnancy.<\/p>\n

Kennedy announced on Tuesday that the two doctors will join the advisory committee on immunization practices (ACIP), which advises the CDC on vaccine recommendations. The additions bring the committee\u2019s membership to 13, following Kennedy\u2019s controversial decision in June to dismiss the previous panel<\/a> and replace it with 11 new members of his choosing.<\/p>\n

The newly appointed members are Dr Adam Urato, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist with academic experience at Harvard Medical School and Tufts University, and Dr Kimberly Biss, who has held leadership roles at Bayfront Health in Florida and has published research examining Covid-19 vaccine safety in pregnancy.<\/p>\n

In a statement<\/a> announcing the appointments, Kennedy praised their qualifications. \u201cACIP serves as Americans\u2019 watchdog for vaccine safety and transparency,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cDr Urato and Dr Biss bring the scientific credentials, clinical experience, and integrity this committee requires.\u201d<\/p>\n

Appearing to align with Kennedy\u2019s own views, Biss has been outspoken in her criticism of Covid vaccines. During testimony before a Republican-led House subcommittee in 2023, she said patients in her practice experienced significant menstrual irregularities after vaccination, some of which she said were severe enough to require surgeries and hysterectomies. Her claims were met with pushback<\/a> from other medical experts.<\/p>\n

Her skepticism has extended beyond congressional testimony. In a December 2022 podcast interview<\/a>, Biss said \u201cprior to Covid I was not an anti-vaxxer, but I am now because I\u2019ve gone down the rabbit hole, and I would love to be able someday to meet Robert F Kennedy Jr.\u201d<\/p>\n

Biss echoed those remarks<\/a> at a May 2023 panel hosted by the Vaccine Safety Research Foundation, an organization critical of coronavirus vaccines, stating, \u201cI was not anti-vaccine. I am now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last October, Biss appeared on a panel discussion<\/a> where she argued against what she described as a reflexive dismissal of alternative medical perspectives. She cited skepticism of vaccine safety and referenced guidance from the Trump administration advising pregnant women to avoid Tylenol due to potential autism links.<\/p>\n

Most scientific evidence<\/a> indicates moderate Tylenol use during pregnancy is safe and does not demonstrate a connection to autism.<\/p>\n

Urato has similarly challenged mainstream medical conclusions. He has questioned the safety<\/a> of vaccines given during pregnancy. He has also raised concerns about antidepressant use in pregnancy, particularly a class known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs. Urato petitioned<\/a> the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to require warning labels on SSRIs, arguing they cause pregnancy complications and affect fetal brain development.<\/p>\n

In a podcast interview<\/a> last June, Urato said there was a \u201chuge problem\u201d with \u201cover-intervention in medicine\u201d, adding that he believes there is \u201ctoo much testing, too many drugs, too many vaccines\u201d. He later compared vaccine makers with cigarette manufacturers, accusing them of trying to intentionally \u201cunderplay the risks\u201d.<\/p>\n

Protect Our Care, a healthcare advocacy group, sharply criticized the health secretary\u2019s new appointments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe more RFK Jr stacks his immunization advisory panel with anti-vaccine activists, the more its recommendations will undermine our public health to advance conspiracy theories and anti-science ideology,\u201d Kayla Hancock, director of Public Health Watch, a project of Protect Our Care, said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of secretary Kennedy\u2019s new ACIP members is perhaps best known for spreading misinformation that the Covid vaccine is somehow magically contagious to unvaccinated women \u2013 flying in the face of scientific evidence,\u201d she added. \u201cIt\u2019s clear secretary Kennedy is only comfortable in an anti-vax echo chamber with as little input as possible from respected medical experts and peer-reviewed data.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The health and human services secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has appointed two new obstetrician-gynecologists to the Centers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[105,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-696168","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115895462241148664","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=696168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}