The latest media hysteria over HHS head Robert Kennedy Jr. has to do with his sudden sacking of the entire CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
ACIP is the panel of experts who advise the CDC on which new vaccines to recommend for the childhood schedule.
"Today we are prioritizing the restoration of public trust above any specific pro- or anti-vaccine agenda," Kennedy said in a statement.
"The public must know that unbiased science -- evaluated through a transparent process and insulated from conflicts of interest -- guides the recommendations of our health agencies."
"A clean sweep is necessary to reestablish public confidence in vaccine science. ACIP new members will prioritize public health and evidence-based medicine. The Committee will no longer function as a rubber stamp for industry profit-taking agendas."
My friend Kim Rossi over at Age of Autism covered it perfectly with this graphic and by saying “dumps” which is exactly what Kennedy did.
Age of Autism: BREAKING: Kennedy Dumps Big Pharma-Aligned CDC Advisors, Vows to Earn Back Public Trust in Science
If we’re ever going to see the end of corporate control of health care in America, all these people have to go.
BUT THEY WON’T GO QUIETLY
Of course the mainstream news networks circled the wagons predicting disease and deaths without ACIP and denying Kennedy’s claim that this committee is replete with pharma shills
The truth has been out there for years. Those on ACIP with direct money ties to the pharmaceutical industry get CONFLICT OF INTEREST WAIVERS, where everything is simply overlooked.
The mainstream media, dependent on advertising dollars tying them to the drug companies, was seemingly untroubled by the cloud of corruption surrounding ACIP.
Here’s a sample:
DIRE WARNINGS
Past members of ACIP warn that gutting the current committee removes an important check on changes in the administration's approach to vaccine policy.
Dr. Jonathan Temte, who served as chair from 2012 to 2015, told NPR that "across the entire world, ACIP has been the paragon of solid, well thought out, evidence-based vaccine policy."
"I hate to say this, but we are heading in the direction of U.S. vaccine policy becoming the laughing stock of the globe," said Temte, a professor of family medicine at the University of Wisconsin.
In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Kennedy defended the radical move, accusing the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (better known as ACIP) of featuring members “plagued with persistent conflicts of interest” who’ve become “little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine.”
Dr. Sean O’Leary, an infectious disease expert with the American Academy of Pediatrics, told NBC News that Kennedy’s evidence-free accusations are “deeply insulting to the many scientists who contribute countless hours to the process.” The doctor noted that the ACIP panel is “a model for the rest of the world,” adding that Kennedy is now responsible for “manufactured chaos.”
O’Leary told The New York Times that Kennedy’s move should be seen as “an unmitigated public health disaster.”
One just-dismissed ACIP member told CNN they did not receive a termination notice until after Kennedy’s op-ed published.
“I’ve never seen anything this damaging to public health happen in my lifetime,” the adviser said. “I’m shocked. It’s pretty brazen. This will fundamentally destabilize vaccination in America.”
The adviser also said that that ACIP “has the most rigorous conflict of interest policy of any organization that I know of.”
I could go on. The mainstream news sites seemed to be trying to outdo each other with experts challenging Kennedy’s claim of conflicts.
And here’s a stunning example showing that the media is just as much in bed with Big Pharma as our government health agency personnel.
I began to find stories on the ACIP news where Dr. Paul Offit was cited as an expert attacking Kennedy’s move. (Offit himself is a past member of ACIP.)
June 9th ABC News: RFK Jr. removes all 17 members of CDC's vaccine advisory committee
Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of the FDA's independent panel of vaccine advisers, told ABC News he thought the decision Monday was extremely dangerous.
Kennedy "doesn't have a single example to show where a vote by one of these committees has hurt children," Offit said. "In fact, the opposite is true -- the votes by this committee over the last 25 years have caused children to suffer less and die less. ACIP should be given awards, not fired."
June 9th USA Today: RFK Jr. fires entire CDC vaccine advisory panel
Dr. Paul A. Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of the Food and Drug Administration Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, told USA TODAY that Kennedy was "fixing a problem that doesn't exist."
The Offit comments in USA Today were picked up by other outlets.
This shows the true duplicitous and slimy nature of today’s mainstream news coverage. Offit was cited by the New York Times, Politico, NBC News and a number of other news outlets WITHOUT ANY MENTION THAT HE WAS A CO-INVENTOR OF A ROTAVIRUS VACCINE and profited millions from Merck’s marketing of this vaccine. HE IS AN INDUSTRY INSIDER, yet all these sources presented him as seemingly an unbiased expert.
For anyone who wants to know just how bad the industry influence over ACIP is, just look at the excellent investigative report by Nicolas Hulscher, MPH
Congressional Report Confirms CDC’s ACIP Has Been Compromised Since the 1990s
As RFK Jr. resets the CDC’s vaccine panel, vaccine ideologues spiral into panic—conveniently forgetting that Congress exposed ACIP’s systemic corruption over two decades ago.
Yesterday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ordered the removal of all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)—the powerful panel tasked with recommending vaccines for the American public.
The reason: systemic corruption, chronic conflicts of interest, lack of transparency, and a well-documented history of rubber-stamping every vaccine placed before it, regardless of emerging safety concerns.
Hulscher cited organizations who were outraged over Kennedy’s actions. What followed was proof of just what Kennedy claimed was going on.
This was NOT a hostile takeover. It was a long-overdue housecleaning that may save countless American lives.
Decades of Corruption
In 2000, the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform published a landmark report confirming that the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel was deeply compromised by industry influence.
The committee uncovered systemic, ongoing conflicts of interest within both the ACIP and the FDA's vaccine advisory counterpart:
7 out of 10 members of ACIP’s rotavirus working group—which drafted the recommendation for the Rotashield vaccine—had direct financial conflicts of interest.
Every ACIP member was granted a conflict-of-interest waiver, regardless of industry ties.
Members were allowed to vote on vaccine recommendations while holding stock in manufacturers, receiving grants, or serving as paid consultants.
RotaShield® was taken off U.S. market in 1999. ACIP voted on October 22, 1999 to no longer recommend use of the RotaShield® vaccine for infants because of an association between the vaccine and intussusception.
In sworn testimony, a CDC ethics official admitted:
“We generally give [waivers] to everyone… we give them out freely.”
Hulscher told the truth about Offit’s past history on ACIP.
Dr. Paul Offit — Participated in the ACIP’s rotavirus working group while holding a patent on a competing Merck rotavirus vaccine. He also received a $350,000 grant from Merck and served as a Merck consultant, yet still voted on recommendations that would eventually benefit his product.
And other examples
Dr. John Modlin — Then-Chair of ACIP, who owned 600 shares of Merck stock while voting on rotavirus policy. He also chaired the rotavirus working group that produced the recommendation.
Dr. Marie Griffin and Dr. Fernando Guerra — Both had Merck ties through funding, consulting, or grants, yet participated fully in committee decisions.
The most chilling part of Hulscher’s report was a two and a half minute video where ACIP members discussed “multiple adjuvanted vaccines” at a meeting in February 2018 on the Hepatitis B vaccine for individuals 18 and older.
Without the proper data to support it.
This was the ACIP committee discussion before the vote.
Is there any comment on using this vaccine the same time with other adjuvanted vaccines?
We have no data to make a recommendation one way or the other.
Just so to put this in context with other vaccines, whilst pre-clinical studies were not done using these vaccines simultaneously, our general approach to immunizations is that they should be given—they can be given at the same time in different, um, limbs.
Are adjuvanted vaccines, multiple adjuvanted vaccines uh, used in Europe or other markets?
Not to my knowledge.
After this brief exchange on the HepB vaccine, the vote was taken. 100% of the members of ACIP voted for the vaccine.
Committee comments followed.
Just a slight reservation—I think this is a huge advance and a step forward. I am concerned about that signal, that myocardial infarction signal. I am concerned about the use of this new adjuvant and certainly urge us to look at uh, the post marketing data carefully.
Myocardial infarction=heart attack
How soon would we be getting that post-marketing data update here?
There’s two kinds of data, the Vaccine Safety Datalink data (VSD) will require people to be using the vaccine to develop substantive database.
Dr. Sun, do you want to comment on the post-marketing data the FDA is requiring?
I think for the myocardial infarction study we’re seeing that the date likely for completion is May, May 31, 2020.
There will also be studies looking at, um, autoimmune diseases as well as herpes zoster. There will be a pregnancy registry as well. It’s all included in the post-marketing surveillance.
This is just a tiny glimpse into vaccine safety practices in America, practices that Dr. Offit called “a problem that doesn’t exist.”
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Put $50,000 in the right hands and you can test battery acid as skin lotion
—Movie: The Constant Gardener 2005
ACIP ex members were gutted, but ACIP itself is in the process of being remodeled. Out with the old, compromised members due to conflicts of interests and in with a new group of scientists and medical agents who are not at risk of compromising science due to pharma influence. It is a win for the public and a win for science, but most definitely a loss for pharma shills. So, of course they will co-opt the media, which needs to stop. I think the Government needs to insist media outlets, TV and radio, give voice to the new ACIP members, so the average lay person who has no time to do research or interest in alternative media can hear from the truth tellers instead of the liars that thought they would never be dethroned.