AAP, other physician societies double down on Kennedy-crossing vaccination stance

Last Thursday the president of the American Academy of Pediatricians urged her 67,000 member doctors to get their vaccine recommendations from her organization rather than Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s HHS and CDC. 

Her video statement has since been joined and amplified by the voices of four powerful peers.

“Misinformation, politicization of commonsense public health efforts and sudden changes to federal vaccine guidance are creating mass confusion and diminishing trust in public health,” the five leaders write in a follow-up article published by STAT. “As we head into another fall season sure to be marked by cases of flu, COVID-19 and RSV—as well as the alarming reappearance of measles and pertussis—the stakes could not be higher.”

Along with AAP’s Susan Kressly, MD, the signatories of the statement are executive leaders Jen Brull, MD, of the American Academy of Family Physicians; Jason Goldman, MD, of the American College of Physicians; Steven Fleischman, MD, MBA, of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists; and Tina Tan, MD, of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

The informal alliance vowed to continue vociferously recommending vaccines, suggesting the recommendation decisions emanating from the Trump Administration would not slow, pause or change the societies’ respective vaccine promotions. 

Epidemiologist Kulldorff: Unwitting lightening rod?

The June 26 item in STAT posted while Kennedy’s new appointees to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, were actively deliberating over vaccine guidelines. 

A day prior, when the new ACIP began the meeting, the panel’s controversial new chair, epidemiologist and Kennedy appointee Martin Kulldorff, PhD, sought to clear some elbow room for the group. 

“Some media outlets have been very harsh on the new members of this committee, issuing false accusations and making concerted efforts to put scientists in either a pro- or anti-vaccine box,” Kulldorff said, according to various outlets. “Such labels undermine critical scientific inquiry, and it further feeds the flames of vaccine hesitancy.”

Apart from that digression, Kulldorff and ACIP colleagues more or less got on with their business.

By the end of the week the panel had voted to recommend a Merck shot for protecting infants against respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV. It also had closed in on deciding which strains of the flu to protect against in the upcoming season.

Perhaps of greatest interest, the new ACIP decided to only recommend flu shots that are free of the mercury-based, decades-old preservative thimerosal.

Kennedy has publicly worried the chemical compound might have a role in growing rates of autism, although the CDC’s webpage on it, updated in December, still states: “There is no evidence of harm caused by the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines, except for minor reactions like redness and swelling at the injection site.”

Whose ‘unbiased science’ is it? 

In the June 26 STAT commentary, the five medical society presidents stand firm if not openly defiant.

“We will keep having conversations with patients and families across exam rooms, schools and communities about what’s safe and what’s necessary to stay healthy and create populations of immunity,” they write. “We also call on our health system partners, including insurers, hospitals, pharmacies and public health agencies, to do their part.”

“Vaccines must remain available, accessible and affordable to persons of all ages,” they add. “Any barrier to immunization is a significant threat to public health.”

The preceding developments followed events that took shape earlier in June, roughly starting when Kennedy fired all 17 now-former members of ACIP and replaced them with eight of his own choices—some of whom have expressed doubts about vaccines.

Kennedy gave his rationale for making the moves in commentary published June 9 by The Wall Street Journal.

“[U]nder my direction, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is putting the restoration of public trust above any pro- or antivaccine agenda,” Kennedy wrote. “The public must know that unbiased science guides the recommendations from our health agencies. This will ensure the American people receive the safest vaccines possible.”