Trump’s First Surgeon General Sounds the Alarm on RFK Jr. Gutting Vaccine Board
AP Photo/Rod Lamkey, Jr.
Dr. Jerome Adams, who served as the surgeon general throughout President Donald Trump’s first term, sounded the alarm this week on Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. removing every member of a key vaccine policy board at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Kennedy purged the independent Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) on Monday, accusing the 17 scientists of having conflicts of interest.
“A clean sweep is necessary to reestablish public confidence in vaccine science,” Kennedy said in a statement, “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.”
Adams urged Kennedy to replace the board with qualified scientists and not based on “politics” or “populism.”
“As a physician and former U.S. Surgeon General, I am deeply concerned by the unprecedented decision to remove all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). For decades, ACIP’s independent, evidence-based recommendations have saved countless lives by guiding vaccine policy with transparency and scientific rigor,” Adams wrote, adding:
This move risks undermining public trust in vaccines at a time when declining immunization rates and outbreaks of preventable diseases, like measles, warrant steady leadership. While concerns about conflicts of interest deserve attention, ACIP members are already subject to strict disclosure requirements, and their expertise is critical to informed decision-making.
I urge Secretary Kennedy to ensure that any new appointees are qualified scientists committed to public health and to prioritize collaboration with the scientific community to strengthen, not dismantle, this vital process. Our children and communities deserve policies grounded in science, not politics and populism.
The American Medical Association also hammered Kennedy’s decision in a statement, saying the move undermines “trust and upends a transparent process that has saved countless lives.”
Kennedy has long been under fire for his history of vaccine skepticism, including linking vaccines to autism. Kennedy has also made such wild claims as to say chemicals in drinking water are turning kids transgender and that Covid-19 may have been engineered to spare “Jews and Chinese” people.
