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# Questions Raised on New ACIP Members
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/questions-raised-on-new-acip-members/
- Published: 2025-06-12T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T15:14:14.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: Biologics, #legacy-id-D5159347

Questions are being raised about some of the eight people HHS secretary **Robert F. Kennedy, Jr**., has appointed to the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). The appointments were made after Kennedy “retired” all 17 of the current members, the Associated Press [reports](https://apnews.com/article/cdc-acip-vaccine-committee-9f58e1f004075b081718ff078de88d76?ref=fdaweb.com), raising concerns among public health experts who feared the panel would reflect Kennedy’s anti-vaccination views.

The news service says one of the new members is **Vicky Pebsworth**, a regional director for the National Association of Catholic Nurses and a board member and volunteer director for the National Vaccine Information Center, a group considered to be a leading source of vaccine misinformation.

A second new member is Dr. **Robert Malone**, a former mRNA researcher who runs a wellness institute and a popular blog. He reportedly spread conspiracy theories during the Covid-19 pandemic, including about the vaccines that were developed. He has promoted unproven treatments for measles and Covid-19.

The AP says Malone has claimed that millions of Americans were hypnotized into taking the Covid-19 shots and suggested those vaccines cause a form of AIDS. He told the news service he would do his best “to serve with unbiased objectivity and rigor.”

A third appointee is Dr. **Martin Kulldorff**, a biostatistician and epidemiologist who was a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration in 2020 that said pandemic shutdowns were causing irreparable harm. Kennedy also named Dr. **Cody Meissner**, a former ACIP member, to the panel.

University of Michigan public health professor **Abram Wagner**, who investigates vaccination programs, told the AP he was not satisfied with the new committee members. “The previous ACIP was made up of technical experts who have spent their lives studying vaccines,” he said. He argued that most of the new members “don’t have the technical capacity that we would expect out of people who would have to make really complicated decisions involving interpreting complicated scientific data.” Wagner particularly cited Pebsworth as “incredibly problematic” since she is involved with an organization that “distributes a lot of misinformation.”

Before making the appointments, Kennedy said, “We’re going to bring great people onto the ACIP panel, not anti-vaxxers, bringing people on who are credentialed scientists.”