'Rubber stamp' vaccine advisory board fired by RFK Jr. for conflicts of interest has revealing past | 10 June 2025 | A federal public health advisory panel long dominated by pharmaceutical influence, whose expressed reservations about particular inoculations never stopped it from recommending them, is getting a fresh start under the drug industry's most powerful critic. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Monday the removal of all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, citing "persistent conflicts of interest" that made it "little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine." Some of the current members were "last-minute appointees of the Biden administration" whose presence would have kept President Trump from appointing new members until his last year in office, Kennedy wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. "It has never recommended against a vaccine -- even those later withdrawn for safety reasons," like the rotavirus vaccine it green-lit despite half of ACIP members having financial ties to other rotavirus vaccine makers, he said.