FDA Policy/General

Advisory Panel Conflicts of Interest Low: Study

Conflicts of interest among federal vaccine advisors had fallen to historic lows well before HHS secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. abruptly dismissed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee earlier this summer, according to new research from the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics.

The JAMA-published study reviewed financial disclosures from 2000 to 2024 and found that fewer than 10% of members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee reported conflicts of interest in the past decade. The most concerning type of conflict — personal income from vaccine makers — had nearly disappeared, with less than 1% of reported conflicts falling into that category since 2016.

“In the past, there have been high levels of reported conflicts on influential vaccine committees, but there has been substantial progress since the early 2000s,” said lead author Genevieve Kanter, a senior scholar at the Schaeffer Center. “Although it’s important to remain vigilant, conflicts of interest on vaccine advisory committees have been at historically low levels for quite some time.”

The findings run counter to Kennedy’s justification for firing ACIP’s members, whom he accused of being too close to industry. The move has drawn scrutiny in Congress, with Senate Democrats investigating his decision to replace the committee with handpicked advisors, including some who have expressed skepticism about vaccines.

The researchers noted that conflicts of interest were far more common two decades ago, peaking at 43% of ACIP members in the early 2000s. But public scrutiny and tighter FDA rules appear to have driven the rates down. Today, most reported conflicts stem from research grants — a type of financial tie that experts say often reflects a member’s expertise rather than personal profit.

“Secretary Kennedy is right that conflict of interest is an important issue, but he is wrong that it is present at substantial levels on HHS vaccine advisory committees,” said study co-author Peter Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest and a former FDA associate commissioner.

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