(Washington) After having abruptly dismissed a whole advisory group of experts on vaccines, the American secretary for health Robert Kennedy Jr., challenged for his vaccinosceptic positions, appointed new heads on Wednesday, including … a blistering biochemist of antivaccins.
Donald Trump’s health secretary had dismissed the 17 expert CDC advisory committee on Monday, the main health agency in the country, accusing them of having conflicts of financial interests with pharmaceutical laboratories.
The measure, unprecedented, had been strongly criticized by the democratic opposition as well as by several renowned health experts and bodies, worried about an attack on medical expertise.
Robert Kennedy Jr. announced on Wednesday on social networks to have appointed eight new people to the advisory committee on vaccination practices (ACIP).
They are “highly qualified scientists, leading public health experts and some of the most accomplished doctors in the United States,” he said by publishing the list of their names accompanied by a brief biography.
“All these individuals are involved in medicine based on evidence, a reference science and common sense,” he continued, assuring that they would require “final data on security and efficiency” of vaccines “before making new recommendations”.
Among the experts listed, include an infectiologist pediatrician who has already advised CDC, a biostatitician who was publicly opposed during the COVVI-19 pandemic to the confinements promoted by the public authorities as well as a worshiped biochemist of antivaccins.
Appointed Robert Malone, this scientist whose research at the end of the 1980s contributed to the development of Messenger RNA vaccines became known from the anti-salaries during the pandemic by relaying alarmist and non-established theses about vaccines.
His entry into this important advisory committee comes as the US secretary multiplies efforts to reshape the country’s vaccination policy.
RFK Jr. has been relay in recent years of numerous conspiracy theories on COVVI-19 vaccines as on alleged ties between vaccination and autism, in particular through the organization Children’s Health Defense which he has co-founded.
He notably suggested that the COVVI-19 virus was “ethnically targeted” to harm black people and white people while sparing “ashkenazi and Chinese”.
