Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) was a decisive vote for Kennedy.
A senator has been promised that he can choose a new member of the panel that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccines, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on June 11.
Before casting a decisive
vote for Kennedy’s confirmation earlier this year, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a doctor and the chairman of the Senate Health Committee,
said that Kennedy had committed to him that he would “maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices without changes.”
“That’s not true,” Kennedy
said on Thursday on Fox News. “What I told Sen. Cassidy was that I would allow him to put one of his candidates on, which we’re going to do.”
Kennedy recently
removed all 17 members of the advisory panel, and on Wednesday,
announced eight new members.
The Department of Health and Human Services, which Kennedy leads and is the CDC’s parent agency, did not respond to requests for comment, including on how many additional members Kennedy plans to appoint and whether he intends to let anyone other than Cassidy choose future members.
Spokespersons for Cassidy and the Senate Health Committee did not return inquiries.
Cassidy
wrote on social media platform X this week, after Kennedy removed the advisory panel members, that there was concern the new members would “know nothing about vaccines except suspicion.”
He added that he had just spoken with Kennedy and that he would continue speaking with Kennedy “to ensure this is not the case.”
Cassidy has not publicly commented on the
new members, who include former Harvard Medical School epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff and Dr. Robert Malone, who helped invent messenger RNA (mRNA) technology used in the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. Malone has been critical of how the vaccines work.
Paid Witnesses
Both Malone and Kulldorff were hired as expert witnesses by plaintiffs who sued Merck over some of the company’s vaccines, according to court filings. Malone prepared a report that was filed in 2018. It
concluded that Merck misrepresented testing results for its mumps vaccine. He said he received $350 per hour for his work.
A federal judge
dismissed the case in 2023, a ruling upheld by an appeals court in 2024.
Kulldorff assisted plaintiffs in a consolidated case against Merck that alleged the company hid risks of its vaccine against human papillomavirus (HPV), known as Gardasil. He testified in the fall of 2024 that he had received a $4,000 retainer and that he had charged an invoice of around $33,000.
“After concerns about Gardasil induced auto-immune diseases were raised, there were many options for conducting high quality observational studies to thoroughly evaluate those concerns,” Kulldorff
said in his report, filed in January. “It is unfortunate that Merck declined to do so.”
A federal judge
ruled in March that Merck was immune from the claims. Kulldorff is listed as an expert witness in a similar, ongoing state case in California that is set to go to trial later this year.
A 2022 copy of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ (ACIP’s) rules
states that “during their tenure on ACIP, members do not serve as a paid litigation consultant or expert witness in litigation involving a vaccine manufacturer.”
Malone told The Epoch Times on Friday that his involvement in the Merck case ended years ago.
“I’ve had over 3 months of training and vetting on what I can and can’t do,” Malone said.
Kennedy said he removed the advisory panel members due to conflicts of interest. Some had been paid in recent years by pharmaceutical companies, primarily before they joined the panel.
When asked on Thursday about Kulldorff’s involvement in the litigation, Kennedy said on Fox that “we are not going to allow anybody with conflicts of interest.” Kulldorff has not responded to requests for comment.
Kennedy, a lawyer, was involved in the federal case against Merck over Gardasil. He
told senators before he was confirmed that he planned to divest from the litigation.
