By Ahmed Aboulenein
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrats on the U.S. Senate Health Committee launched an investigation Tuesday against Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Kennedy fired 17 members of the CDC’s Immunization Practice Advisory Committee last month, which reviewed the Food and Drug Administration-approved vaccines and then made recommendations on their use. Kennedy replaced them with hand-picked consultants including anti-vaccine activists.
“Your actions will cause significant harm. As your new ACIP suggests based on pseudoscience, fewer and fewer Americans will receive less and less vaccines,” Democrats from the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee wrote to Kennedy in a review letter.
A spokesman for Senator Bernie Sanders said committee Democrats launched an investigation after the committee’s Republican chairman Senator Bill Cassidy denied calling for a bipartisan investigation. Cassidy’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Democrats asked Kennedy to provide information about the shooting by August 12, including details of the so-called conflict of interest for each fired member, and note their differences from previous disclosures.
Kennedy said at the time that he fired the committee because it was full of conflict but provided no concrete evidence of leaving the conflict between members.
They asked Kennedy to outline all those involved in the firing decisions within and outside the government, asking about the roles of specific individuals, including Lyn Redwood, a former leader of the anti-vaccine organization that Kennedy established.
Redwood led the speech at the first meeting of the newly formed ACIP. The Democratic senator asked who approved the meeting agenda and who chose Redwood as the host.
They requested all communications and documents regarding the appointment of new members, including selection criteria, review process and proof of their compliance with government ethical requirements.
“As you provide a platform for conspiracy theorists, and even advocate their theories yourself, Americans will continue to lose confidence in any vaccine that is still available,” the senator wrote.
Kennedy said the firing was to restore public confidence in the vaccine.
“If you continue to destroy vaccination through ACIP, millions of lives are at risk of vaccine prevention,” the letter said.
(Report by Ahmed Aboulenein; Edited by Leslie Adler)
