HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has chosen seven new members for the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), according to information
obtained by MedPage Today's editor-in-chief Jeremy Faust, MD.
ACIP's next meeting is set to take place Sept. 18-19, and the posted agenda states that "recommendation votes may be scheduled" for immunizations against hepatitis B, COVID, and respiratory syncytial virus, as well as the measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella shot.
CDC leaders who left the agency last week after director Susan Monarez, PhD, was fired warned that there may be changes to certain vaccine recommendations. In addition, Monarez was reportedly removed in part over disagreements with Kennedy about ACIP.
Earlier this year, Kennedy ousted all 17 ACIP members ahead of its June meeting and replaced them with eight new members. Like his last picks, some of the new selections have made controversial claims during the pandemic.
Joseph Fraiman, MD
Fraiman is an emergency physician in Louisiana who has previously questioned COVID vaccines.
Among his published research is a 2022 paper on mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in the journal Vaccine that concluded that the excess risk of serious adverse events warranted the need for formal harm-benefit analyses. He also co-authored a letter to Pfizer and Moderna's CEOs that year calling for the companies to allow "independent scientists and physicians to see the original data" on their mRNA vaccines.
More recently, in a preprint article on medRxiv, Fraiman and colleagues reported a higher than expected number of fetal losses associated with COVID vaccination during early pregnancy.
Fraiman was part of a public health integrity committee convened in Florida to look into COVID vaccines.
Catherine Stein, PhD
Stein is a professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland with a focus on tuberculosis. She teaches classes on infectious disease epidemiology and population health, among other topics, according to her profile page there.
During the COVID pandemic, Stein testified in support of bills allowing Ohio lawmakers to vote down public health orders and for a "Truth in COVID Statistics" bill, according to a report in the Ohio Capital Journal.
She wrote in January 2021, when U.S. death totals from COVID had surpassed 350,000, that the virus is "not the scary killer the media and government portray it to be" and alleged the state health department inflated case counts, according to the article.
According to her LinkedIn profile, Stein earned a bachelor's degree in biological sciences from John Carroll University, followed by a PhD in epidemiology and biostatistics from Case Western Reserve University in 2004.
John Gaitanis, MD
Gaitanis is a pediatric neurologist at Brown University Health's Hasbro Children's in Rhode Island. He's also part of the biomedical research leadership at Autism Discovery Coalition.
According to court records, he in one case billed more than $50,000 for his expertise as part of a vaccine injury lawsuit launched by parents who alleged that pediatric vaccines caused their son's encephalopathy or febrile infection-related epilepsy syndrome.
According to his Brown profile, Gaitanis attended Dartmouth Medical School and Brown Medical School in the 1990s and went on to residencies in pediatrics and neurology.
Evelyn Griffin, MD
Griffin is an ob/gyn who practices in Baton Rouge, Louisiana at Ochsner Health and Baton Rouge General Medical Center, according to the health systems' websites.
In 2023, Griffin testified against Louisiana's move to add COVID-19 vaccines to the school immunization schedule, the Lafourche Gazette reported. She said that "the average kid in Louisiana has a higher chance of getting struck by lightning than dying of COVID."
During a 2024 speech at "Health Freedom Day," an event organized by COVID contrarian Peter McCullough, MD, MPH, Griffin expressed vaccine skepticism and highlighted McCullough and ivermectin proponent Pierre Kory, MD, as doctors who did good work during the pandemic.
Griffin graduated in 2003 from Ross University School of Medicine in Dominica, West Indies, according to DocInfo.
Kirk Milhoan, MD
Milhoan is a pediatric cardiologist from Hawaii, who reportedly has ties to Children's Health Defense, the anti-vaccine group founded by Kennedy. He has advocated against vaccinating children against COVID-19, saying he believed the shots caused cardiac issues, and supported using ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine for COVID, treatments that failed to show effectiveness in multiple randomized trials.
He was investigated by the Hawaii Medical Board for disseminating medical misinformation, according to a 2022 report. The licensing agency eventually dropped charges for lack of evidence, and its website shows his license is in good standing.
Milhoan is also listed as a senior fellow with the Independent Medical Alliance, which has challenged COVID public health policies.
He identifies as a Christian doctor and is listed as a senior pastor of Calvary Chapel South Maui.
Raymond Pollak, MD
Pollak is semi-retired but has practiced as a transplant surgeon and has a background in immunology, according to Reuters.
"I'm being considered pending the vetting process. If I was offered the position, I would think carefully about it," he told the outlet.
Web searches turned up nothing on his views about vaccines.
Hillary Blackburn, PharmD, MBA
Blackburn is a pharmacist based in Tennessee. She currently serves as the director of pharmaceutical services at a national non-profit medication distributor hosted by Ascension, according to the site.
Web searches turned up little about her views on vaccination. It also could not be immediately determined that this Blackburn is the one expected to be named to the ACIP panel. She has not returned a media inquiry as of press time.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/washington-watch/washington-watch/117299
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