'New chair of CDC vaccine panel fired from pediatric practice, wife says'

 The wife of the newly appointed chair of the vaccine advisory panel that recently voted to roll back infant hepatitis B vaccination guidelines said Thursday that he had been fired from his pediatric cardiology practice because of his position on the committee.

Kimberly Milhoan, the wife of the recently appointed chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Kirk Milhoan, wrote on her Substack post titled “Irony” that she and her husband were in Hong Kong this week for the World Congress of Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery.

“While here, we found out he was being dismissed from his current practice of pediatric cardiology solely because of his service as Chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice (ACIP) of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC),” Kimberly Milhoan wrote. “He disclosed to his employer when he accepted the appointment to this committee, and then again when he accepted the role of chairman.”

Her husband was appointed to be the ACIP chair shortly before the panel voted to no longer recommend a birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine to all newborns, reserving that recommendation only for those born to mothers who test positive for the virus. The vote was widely derided by medical societies such as the American Medical Association and the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

Kimberly Milhoan claimed the dismissal was due to the practice receiving an “overwhelming number of calls to their organization demanding his firing for his role on ACIP.”

“The greatest irony is my husband has been a vaccine advocate throughout his career. He never denied risk, and respected principles of autonomy and informed consent, but believed, and recommended, that in most cases the benefit outweighed the risk associated with vaccines,” she wrote.

On the ACIP’s roster, Kirk Milhoan is listed as medical director at the For Hearts and Souls Free Medical Clinic, which he runs with his wife. He’s also publicly listed as being affiliated with Christus Health in Irving, Texas, in the pediatric cardiology department.

“Dr. Kirk Milhoan is an independent medical staff member of multiple CHRISTUS hospitals, and he continues to be a member in good standing,” Christus Health said in a statement when reached by The Hill.

“Like many of our independent medical staff members, he has never been employed by CHRISTUS, and we therefore cannot comment on his current employment,” they added.

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5645398-milhoan-cardiology-termination-acip-cdc/