Our deluded HHS Secretary Kennedy is at it again. Earlier this week he fired all 17 members of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee and will replace them with new members. Have you read how he justified this change? 

“Today we are prioritizing the restoration of public trust above any specific pro- or anti-vaccine agenda,” Kennedy said in a statement. “The public must know that unbiased science — evaluated through a transparent process and insulated from conflicts of interest — guides the recommendations of our health agencies.”

In an Op-Ed piece in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, our deluded HHS Secretary Kennedy expanded on that point. “The U.S. faces a crisis of public trust. Whether toward health agencies, pharmaceutical companies or vaccines themselves, public confidence is waning. Some would try to explain this away by blaming misinformation or antiscience attitudes.”

I PLEAD GUILTY TO BLAMING MISINFORMATION AND ANTISCIENCE ATTITUDES, MR. SECRETARY. To be more specific, you and your fellow anti-vaxxers are devoted followers of misinformation, much of it traceable to the faked data published in 1998 by Andrew Wakefield in the British medical journal. (For key information from Wikipedia about this dishonest man, and the resultant harm he has done, click here.) I’ve mentioned Wakefield here before (Click here.)

Are you aware of this, Mr. Kennedy? Britain’s General Medical Council found that Wakefield had been dishonest in his research, had acted against his patients’ best interests, mistreated developmentally delayed children, and had “failed in his duties as a responsible consultant”. Is that transparent enough for you? And do you know that a British court held that “There is now no respectable body of opinion which supports [Wakefield’s] hypothesis, that MMR vaccine and autism/enterocolitis are causally linked”. 

But even the then, the disgraced Wakefield wasn’t finished. In 2016, he directed the anti-vaccination film: Vaxxed: From Cover-up to Catastrophe.  Does this man have no conscience? Does he know the harm he is doing?

And here’s something I learned from the Wikipedia article mentioned above: In a 2025 interview with Democracy Now, investigative journalist Brian Deer identified Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Andrew Wakefield, and Del Bigtree as the core leaders of the anti-vaccine movement. So, Mr. Secretary, will you stand by your claim that you are leading “a transparent process insulated from conflicts of interest?” Or will you admit you are a leading anti-vaxxer?

Just two months ago, Mr. Secretary, your department appointed David Geier, a purveyor of false theories linking vaccines to the so-called autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to  head a national study on immunizations and neurodevelopmental outcomes. That is crazy.

For readers who aren’t familiar with Geier, he and his father have for years honked the discredited nonsense generated by Andrew Wakefield. Moreover, Geier was disciplined in Maryland for practicing medicine without a license. And he and his father were included in a list of top science deniers by the prestigious  journal, Nature. And this man will head a study on immunizations and neurodevelopmental outcomes? 

So the question arises: Does the appointment of David Geier represent another example of our deluded HHS Secretary Kennedy’s  “transparent process” that is “insulated from conflicts of interest?”

I am mentioning all of this, Mr. Secretary,  because, although you may not know this, vaccines have produced almost unbelievable positive effects. In 1974, the World Health Organization launched a program to make life-saving vaccines available to all globally. On the 50th anniversary of that program, its effects were evaluated. (See the amazing results here)

Here is a summary of the findings that were published in 2024, Mr. Secretary. They are so impressive that I’ve colored them and enlarged the font. Please read about what you apparently are in favor of undoing.

Since 1974, vaccination has averted 154 million deaths, including 146 million among children younger than 5 years of whom 101 million were infants younger than 1 year. For every death averted, 66 years of full health were gained on average, translating to 10·2 billion years of full health gained. We estimate that vaccination has accounted for 40% of the observed decline in global infant mortality, 52% in the African region. In 2024, a child younger than 10 years is 40% more likely to survive to their next birthday relative to a hypothetical scenario of no historical vaccination. Increased survival probability is observed even well into late adulthood.

Those results, Secretary Kennedy, surely are worthy of serious consideration, regardless of one’s personal biases. Please peruse them with care.