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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
Five new members named to influential CDC vaccine advisory committee | |
days ahead of key meeting | |
By Katherine Dillinger, Brenda Goodman, CNN | |
Updated: | |
4:49 PM EDT, Mon September 15, 2025 | |
Source: CNN | |
Five new members have been named to the US Centers for Disease Control | |
and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee, the US Department of | |
Health and Human Services said Monday, just days ahead of a key meeting | |
about vaccines for Covid-19 and other diseases. | |
HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been to appoint as many as | |
seven new members for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, | |
which is tasked with reviewing the latest science on vaccines and then | |
making recommendations to the CDC on how they should be used. | |
The new members are Dr. Catherine Stein, an epidemiologist and | |
professor at Case Western Reserve University; Dr. Evelyn Griffin, an | |
obstetrician-gynecologist from Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Dr. Hillary | |
Blackburn, director of medication access and affordability at | |
AscensionRx and the daughter-in-law of Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a | |
Republican from Tennessee; Dr. Kirk Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist | |
with For Hearts and Souls Free Medical Clinic in Hawaii; and Dr. | |
Raymond Pollak, a surgeon and transplant immunobiologist. | |
Stein has been critical of the nation’s response to Covid-19, | |
including mask mandates and business closures. She co-authored a | |
research paper on flawed models used during the state’s pandemic | |
response for the group Health Freedom Ohio, which is affiliated with | |
Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine nonprofit founded by | |
Kennedy. | |
Griffin criticized the country’s response to Covid-19 and the push | |
for people to be vaccinated against it during a Health Freedom Day . | |
Milhoan appeared at a led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican | |
from Georgia, on injuries caused by Covid-19 vaccines. During the | |
panel, he said the vaccines had caused heart-related deaths and | |
disability, and he cited a study from the Cleveland Clinic that he said | |
showed that the more vaccines a person got, the more likely they were | |
to get Covid-19. Independent fact-checkers said that of the findings. | |
Pollak, a transplant specialist, was a in a case settled by the | |
University of Illinois at Chicago after he reported that its hospital | |
was diagnosing patients as sicker than they were to boost the number of | |
transplants performed there. | |
In June, Kennedy abruptly removed all 17 previous sitting ACIP members, | |
saying the panel was “plagued with persistent conflicts of | |
interest.” He provided no evidence to back up that claim, and a by | |
researchers at the University of Southern California found that | |
conflicts of interest on ACIP had been at historic lows for years. | |
Kennedy rapidly replaced the ACIP members with eight of his own , | |
although one withdrew during the vetting process because of financial | |
conflicts of interest. Several have made unproven claims about | |
vaccines, including one who said, without evidence, that Covid shots | |
are causing “unprecedented levels of death and harm in young | |
people.” | |
The next ACIP meeting is set for Thursday and Friday, when the panel is | |
to discuss Covid-19 vaccines as well as those against hepatitis B; | |
measles, mumps, rubella and varicella; and respiratory syncytial virus. | |
The new additions to the committee are expected to participate in the | |
meeting. | |
Former ACIP members have said that a review of a new candidates, | |
including their conflicts of interest, typically occurs before their | |
appointment and takes two to three months. | |
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