On Monday, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dismantled the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and named new members, raising concern among public health experts.
The group helps set vaccine recommendations nationwide. San Diego pediatric infectious disease specialist, Dr. Mark Sawyer, was a member of the ACIP for five years.
"The committee is very carefully formulated, usually replacing three or four members every year, and that rotates around,” Sawyer said. “They're vetted. Their conflicts of interest are looked at. And to scrap all that and suddenly put in brand new people, some of whom look like they have not had any vaccine experience, is just crazy."
The advisory committee’s recommendations shape everything from school vaccine mandates to federal health programs. Sawyer warns that tampering with ACIP's structure puts public health at risk.
"If there aren't people who are well versed in the delivery of vaccines, this is just going to create more confusion in the public and lead to less vaccination," he said.
Among Kennedy’s appointees is Vicky Pebsworth, a nurse and board member of the National Vaccine Information Center. The group, Sawyer said, is widely known for spreading vaccine misinformation.
"She is a longtime anti-vaccination proponent,” Sawyer said. “That's a concerning appointment."
He fears the result will be lower vaccination coverage and a resurgence of preventable diseases like measles. In 2019, the CDC reported over 1,200 measles cases, the highest in nearly 30 years. So far in 2025, there have already been nearly 1,200.
"I'm afraid that this political experiment is going way too far and that people are going to suffer. As a result, we're going to have reduced coverage rates for vaccines,” he said. “Some kids will go completely unimmunized, even if they want to be immunized."
Though Kennedy said the new members will demand stronger safety data for vaccines, Sawyer insists the nation’s vaccine policy must remain rooted in science.
"The germs, the bacteria and the viruses out there infect people regardless of what their political views are," he said.
Sawyer said he’s lost confidence in federal agencies like the CDC to provide clear vaccine guidance and urges families to talk directly to their doctors instead.
