CDC staff protest new vaccine panel move

Current and former U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employees held their weekly protest at a street intersection near the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.

This time, the protest coincided with the first meeting of the U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 's newly reconstituted vaccine advisory panel, which said that it would study the schedule of childhood and adolescent immunizations and review the use of older vaccines.

Demonstrators denounced the firing of the previous CDC’s vaccine advisory panel (ACIP), with former employee Peter Cegielski calling the new committee “bogus” and warning, “the public needs to mobilize because... there’s a clown show running this country.”

Kennedy, who has a long history of sowing doubt about vaccine safety, this month fired all 17 members of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine advisory panel and replaced them with his own picks.

At least two CDC staff members left over the changes. Major medical experts and former members of the panel, known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, have expressed concern over its reconstitution.

Meanwhile, Kennedy Jr. announced, “the United States won’t contribute more to GAVI,” the global vaccine alliance and accused it of ignoring vaccine safety, without citing any evidence. In response, Gavi said safety was its primary concern. The U.S. previously gave Gavi around $300 million a year.

Global vaccine group Gavi has raised more than $9 billion for its work over the next five years helping to immunize the world's poorest children, including money raised at a Brussels fundraising summit, it said.

The total, which Gavi announced at the end of the event, was less than targeted. It included new funding from governments and philanthropic donors, as well as money left after COVID-19 and other work. Gavi said more pledges were likely in the coming weeks.