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Federal health officials last week updated the governing rules for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) vaccine advisory committee, expanding membership criteria, sharpening the focus on vaccine injuries and opening the door to more dissenting voices.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) renews the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) charter every two years as required by law — making the update, at least procedurally, routine.
The revisions could allow U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to revive changes the agency made to national vaccine policy, according to The New York Times. Last month, a federal judge paused the changes and blocked ACIP from any further meetings.
HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon shot down the Times’ speculation, stating that “the ACIP charter renewal and its publication are routine statutory requirements and do not signal any broader policyshift.”
However, recent ACIP committee members who spoke with The Defender said the new charter gives ACIP room to more fully address vaccine injury and alternatives to vaccination.
“I believe that the new charter reflects a very positive change towards a more comprehensive assessment of benefits and risks of vaccines that leverages and integrates a broader set of relevant knowledge domains and expertise,” committee member Retsef Levi, Ph.D., told The Defender.
Dr. Robert Malone, who stepped away from the committee last month, told The Defender that the new charter stops short of major structural change, but gives ACIP “some additional oxygen” to do a “more complete assessment of risks, benefits and alternatives. That’s never been the case before.”
ACIP a ‘captured committee’ for too long
Shortly after his confirmation last year, Kennedy dismissed all 17 sitting members of ACIP, citing financial ties to Big Pharma, which he said created conflicts of interest.
Last month, U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy froze ACIP and disbanded its members, ruling that some ACIP members chosen by Kennedy last year lacked the legally required expertise in vaccines.
Children’s Health Defense (CHD) appealed the ruling and sought an emergency stay of Murphy’s order.
CHD also challenged Murphy’s denial of CHD’s motion to intervene in the case brought by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) against Kennedy and HHS. The court has yet to rule on CHD’s request.
The new charter expands the criteria for eligibility to serve on the committee, to include expertise in toxicology, pediatric neurodevelopment and knowledge about “recovery from serious vaccine injuries.”
It also lists people “knowledgeable in the field of medicine” as eligible, which STAT called “a very broad umbrella.”
Attorney Rick Jaffe, who represents CHD in its appeal of Murphy’s rulings, told The Defender in a previous interview that the new criteria “broadens the universe of qualified candidates considerably.”
“Adding toxicology and biostatistics to the charter’s expertise criteria is a step toward the kind of committee that should have existed all along,” Jaffe said. “For too long, ACIP has been a capturedcommittee for a narrow band of scientists who think only in terms of adding more and more vaccines without regard to the cumulative effect on children.”
A greater focus on vaccine injury?
The new charter charges the committee with studying “gaps in vaccine safety research,” considering the “cumulative effects” of the shots, and “reviewing vaccination schedules by other countries and international organizations.”
Malone said vaccine risk-benefit assessments must weigh the full disease context, including whether other treatments or other prevention measures are available.
The risk-benefit assessment of a vaccine in isolation without considering other alternative interventions is really a very biased way to look at this, and “it doesn’t serve the public well,” he said.
“The history of public health has a lot more to do with non-pharmaceutical interventions than it has to do with vaccines and drugs,” and those ought to be considered in ACIP recommendations.
Now ACIP will have “a little bit more latitude to consider other factors in making its advice,” Malone said.
Charter expands number of nonvoting members who can participate in workgroups
The new charter also expands the roster of nonvoting liaison organizations that participate in ACIP workgroups and weigh in at meetings.
About 30 organizations previously held liaison status, although the AAP boycotted recent meetings in protest.
In August 2025, HHS disinvited the AAP, the American Medical Association and six other major liaison medical associations from the ACIP workgroups, although most still participated in the meetings.
The new charter lists all of those organizations as liaison members. It also adds the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, the Independent Medical Alliance (IMA), the Medical Academy of Pediatrics & Special Needs (MAPS), and Physicians for Informed Consent — groups that have at times challenged vaccine mandates and the routine childhood vaccine schedule.
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, which opposed COVID-19 vaccine mandates, has called for “fully informed, truly voluntary consent for all medical interventions.”
IMA counts more than 12,000 independent physicians, researchers and clinicians nationwide among its members. Many of them were among the earliest to challenge COVID-19 pandemic protocols.
“For too long, vaccine policy has been shaped by voices far removed from the exam room,” said Dr. Joseph Varon, IMA president, in a press release announcing its appointment as an ACIP liaison. “Our members see patients every single day. We know what works, what doesn’t, and what questions families are actually asking. Bringing that perspective to ACIP is a long-overdue correction.”
MAPS serves children and young adults with autism and other chronic complex conditions.
Physicians for Informed Consent does not endorse any specific vaccine schedule and publishes extensive research comparing disease risk to vaccine risk and provides educational materials on vaccine safety.
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