Just Some News on RFK Firing the Entire CDC Vaccine Advisory Panel
ACA Expert; Charles Gaba, April 22, 2025
My Monkey’s Paw prediction is coming true: RFK Jr. fires entire CDC vaccine advisory panel | ACA Signups
So, all of that was last summer. Skip ahead ten months and voila, the U.S. Supreme Court did indeed hear arguments in the case yesterday…and while the headline from the AP makes it sound positive, there’s a potentially very dark lining as well:
The Supreme Court seemed likely to uphold a key preventive-care provision of the Affordable Care Act in a case heard Monday.
Conservative justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, along with the court’s three liberals, were skeptical of arguments that Obamacare’s process for deciding which services must be fully covered by private insurance is unconstitutional.
The case could have big ramifications for the law’s preventive care coverage requirements for an estimated 150 million Americans. Medications and services that could be affected include statins to prevent heart disease, lung cancer screenings, HIV-prevention drugs and medication to lower the chance of breast cancer for high-risk women.
OK, so on the surface it sounds promising for shooting down the plaintiff’s claims. If so, it would mean that the US Preventive Services Task Force can indeed continue to decide which preventative services ACA insurance policies have to cover at no out of pocket cost after all. Great news, right?
Well, yes…except for one thing:
…The Trump administration defended the mandate before the court, though President Donald Trump has been a critic of the law. The Justice Department said board members don’t need Senate approval because they can be removed by the health and human services secretary.
WARNING, WARNING, DANGER WILL ROBINSON!!
In other words, the good news is that the PSTF can continue to do its job. The bad news is that anti-vaxxer & complete nutjob Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is now the one who gets to decide who serves on the PSTF.
According to the PSTF website itself:
The Task Force is made up of 16 volunteer experts in the fields of preventive medicine and primary care, including internal medicine, family medicine, pediatrics, behavioral health, obstetrics/gynecology, and nursing. Most of our members are practicing clinicians. To develop recommendations, we use our own expertise and routinely invite the input of disease experts and specialists. We also invite input from stakeholders and the public.
And who decides who those 16 experts are?
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) convenes the Task Force and provides scientific, administrative, and dissemination support.
OK, fine…and who decides who’s in charge of the AHRQ?
The 20-member panel is comprised of private-sector experts who contribute a varied perspective on the health care system and the most important questions that AHRQ’s research should address in order to promote improvements in the quality, outcomes, and cost-effectiveness of clinical practice. The private-sector members represent health care plans, providers, purchasers, consumers, and researchers.
Also serving in an ex-officio capacity are principal representatives of seven Federal agencies that address health care system issues: The National Institutes of Health (NIH); the Department of Defense (Health Affairs) (DoD); the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC); the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA); the Office of Personnel Management (OPM); the Food and Drug Administration (FDA); the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS, formerly the Health Care Financing Administration [HCFA]); and the Assistant Secretary for Health.
All of those ex-officio capacity members are, of course, appointed by the President…in this case Donald Trump. Lovely. But what about the private-sector members who actually have the authority to…
Private-sector members are appointed by the Secretary, HHS, to serve 3-year terms. A list of current members follows. Biographies are available by selecting the member’s name.
June 10, 2025, Charles Gaba ACA Signups:
Cut to this morning, via USA Today:
“Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has fired all 17 members of a committee that advises the federal government on vaccine safety and will replace them with new members, a move that the Trump administration’s critics warned would create public distrust around the government’s role in promoting public health.
At issue is the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, which makes recommendations on the safety, efficacy and clinical need of vaccines to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It comprises medical and public health experts who develop recommendations on the use of vaccines in the civilian population of the United States.
…Kennedy’s decision marks a reversal from what a key Republican senator said the Trump Cabinet member had promised during his confirmation hearings earlier this year. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, said Kennedy had promised to maintain the advisory committee’s current composition.” (RFK Jr. fires all 17 members of CDC vaccine advisory panel)
“If confirmed, he will maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices without changes,” Cassidy said.”
Note: “marks a reversal” is another way of saying “lied through his fing teeth.”
“Picking members for the committee generally involves a three- to four-month vetting process by the CDC. “Now he’s just going to pick people he likes,” Offit added. “Presumably people who are like-minded, and I think that will shake confidence in this committee.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Kennedy and the Trump administration are “taking a wrecking ball to the programs that keep Americans safe and healthy.”
The New York Democrat added that wiping out an entire panel of vaccine experts doesn’t build trust – it shatters it. “Worse, it sends a chilling message: that ideology matters more than evidence, and politics more than public health,” he said.”