The following is from Children’s Health Defense.

Bloomberg reported the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American Medical Association (AMA), and six other major medical associations will no longer participate in advising the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on vaccine policy.

The associations said they were informed via email last week that their vaccine experts were being disinvited from the workgroups that report to the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee. These working groups review data and form policy recommendations. The groups will still be able to participate in open public meetings, like the rest of the public.

According to the US Dept. of Health and Human Services (HHS), they are being eliminated because they are “special interest groups and therefore are expected to have a ‘bias’ based on their constituency and/or population that they represent.”

HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said:

“Under the old ACIP, outside pressure to align with vaccine orthodoxy limited asking the hard questions. The old ACIP members were plagued by conflicts of interest, influence, and bias. We are fulfilling our promise to the American people to never again allow those conflicts to taint vaccine recommendations.

Experts will continue to be included based on relevant experience and expertise, not because of what organization they are with.”

The decision follows Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s June announcement that HHS was retiring all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) to eliminate conflicts of interest. At the time, most members had financial ties to pharmaceutical companies marketing vaccines, or had worked with public health agencies to promote controversial vaccines, including the COVID-19, RSV, and HPV shots.

Two days later, Kennedy named eight researchers and physicians to replace approximately half of the members. At the first meeting of the new ACIP committee, members voted to stop recommending flu shots that contain thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative linked to neurodevelopmental disorders. The AAP criticized that decision, maintaining that thimerosal is “safe.” The committee also voted to recommend Merck’s new RSV monoclonal antibody shot for newborns.

In July, several of the associations removed from the ACIP working groups sued Kennedy and other public health officials and agencies over changes to COVID-19 vaccine recommendations for children and pregnant women. The groups’ lead lawyer, Richard Henry Hughes IV, was vice president of public policy at Moderna from 2020–2022 and previously worked for Merck.

Although these groups can still attend open public meetings, they no longer have any role in reviewing data or shaping CDC vaccine policy.

Every organization expelled from the ACIP working groups is funded by the pharmaceutical industry. For example:

• AAP: Corporate sponsors include vaccine manufacturers Moderna, Merck, Sanofi, Abbott Laboratories, GSK, and CSL Seqirus.
• AMA: Funding comes from the AMA Foundation, which is funded by “Roundtable members” from the pharmaceutical industry. Its largest donor is PhRMA, the primary lobbying organization for the industry, which spent a record $12.88 million lobbying for the industry in the first quarter of 2025. Other sponsors include Pfizer, Novartis, Sanofi, Merck, and GSK.
• National Medical Association: Funded by Eli Lilly, Gilead, Regeneron, Pfizer, Merck, Amgen, Novo Nordisk, Vertex, AstraZeneca, and others.
• Infectious Diseases Society of America: Partners with Abbvie, AstraZeneca, Gilead, GSK, Merck, Moderna, Pfizer, Sanofi, and others.
• Similar corporate sponsorships exist for the American Academy of Family Physicians, American College of Physicians, American Geriatrics Society, and American Osteopathic Association.

New ACIP committee member Retsef Levi, Ph.D., wrote on X:

“Be based on merit & expertise, not membership in organizations proven to have COIs [conflicts-of-interest] and radical & narrow view of public health!”

For more information, read the full article here.