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RFK Jr. fires vaccine ‘experts’ and of course Susan Collins disapproves

June 10, 2025 | | Print Article

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s latest move to advance the Make America Healthy Again agenda found the usual suspects in the Senate bristling at the “excessive” step.

In securing his position as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Kennedy vowed that he would be restoring “gold standard science.” Toward that end, his announcement of a “clean sweep” for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) vaccine advisory panel found Maine Sen. Susan Collins (R) and others playing politics.

“I did not know that that had happened. It seems to me to be excessive to ask for everybody’s resignations, but I can’t judge because I don’t know who he’s replacing them with,” she was on record saying of the decision to remove all 17 members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP). “I’m just learning about it for the first time. I don’t know what the basis was.”

“Generally, I think vaccine and other advisory committees are very helpful to the public… So to cancel all of the people or cancel the meetings raises serious questions,” Collins added, according to Huffpost senior politics reporter Igor Bobic.

Per Kennedy’s press release and his op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, the move was about restoring trust and preventing the previous administration from maintaining its ideological sway over the matter of vaccines.

“The Biden administration appointed all of the 17 sitting ACIP members,” read the release. “Thirteen of them were appointed in 2024. These appointments would have prevented the current administration from choosing a majority of the committee until 2028. The prior administration made a concerted effort to lock in public health ideology and limit the incoming administration’s ability to take proper actions to restore public trust in vaccines.”

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While the secretary promoted the need to prioritize “evidence-based science,” his critics have turned to fearmongering. This includes the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee chair, Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy (R).

“Of course, now the fear is that the ACIP will be filled up with people who know nothing about vaccines except suspicion,” he wrote on X while sharing the op-ed announcement. “I’ve just spoken with Secretary Kennedy, and I’ll continue to talk with him to ensure that is not the case.”

As had been reported at the time that Kennedy was facing scrutiny from the Senate during his confirmation hearings, members of the HELP committee who were reluctant to advance the nomination were also those who had received considerable contributions from the pharmaceutical industry and those within the healthcare industry.

Between 2019 and 2025, Cassidy took in over $2.6 million combined from health professionals and Big Pharma, while Collins received more than $1.4 million.

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Of course, Democrats likewise delighted in twisting Kennedy’s MAHA efforts as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “RFK Jr. and the Trump administration are taking a wrecking ball to the programs that keep Americans safe and healthy. Firing experts that have spent their entire lives protecting kids from deadly disease is not reform — it’s reckless, radical, and rooted in conspiracy, not science.”

Meanwhile, as Kennedy had previously gone on record referring to agencies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a “sock puppet for the industry it was supposed to regulate,” responses from those in the public who were concerned about vaccine safety cheered the latest action out of HHS.

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Kevin Haggerty
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