The US Secretary of Health, Robert Kennedy Jr., announced on Monday that he would dismiss all 17 experts in an important advisory group on vaccines, accusing them of conflicts of interest, a new blow to the Donald Trump administration in the field of vaccination.
All the experts of an American group of vaccines were fired photo archive
The decision to dismiss the experts in the Immunization Advisory Committee was announced in an opinion article in the Wall Street Journal and in a statement.
Robert Kennedy Jr. (RFK) believes that this review of the group's composition is essential to restore public confidence, accusing the group of experts of being compromised by financial links with pharmaceutical companies, according to Agerpres.
“Today, we give priority to the restoration of public trust than a pro- or anti-vaccination agenda”he wrote in a statement Kennedy, who has expressed his skepticism to vaccines several times.
“The public must know that the recommendations of our health agencies are based on impartial scientific data, evaluated in a transparent and without interest process”he added.
In his opinion article, RFK said the group of experts is “mined by conflicts of persistent interest” and it has become “a simple registration room for any vaccine.”
He indicated that new members will replace the experts leaving office. The latter were appointed because of their recognized expertise and, normally, they were obliged to reveal any potential conflict of interest.
RFK has been promoting misinformation on vaccines for two decades, especially the broadly infirm that the vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella (ROR) is at the origin of autism cases.
Since taking over the mandate, he has reduced access to Covid-19 vaccines and continued to sow doubts about the ROR vaccine, while the United States is facing the worst measles epidemic, with three reported deaths and over 1,100 registered cases, a figure that, according to experts, could underestimate the real balance.
