Merchants of Doubt at ACIP: How RFK Jr. Is Playing Deadly Politics With Vaccines

What happens in the U.S. doesn’t stay in the U.S. — when America sneezes, misinformation goes viral here too. If the CDC’s vaccine advisers walk back recommendations under RFK Jr., we can expect the same narratives to be imported into New Zealand overnight. That means parents here will be confronted with misleading claims that U.S. health authorities themselves have cast doubt on vaccines. It doesn’t change the facts: our Medsafe monitoring, international studies, and real-world evidence all show COVID vaccines remain very safe and protective. For New Zealand, this is a warning shot — we need to strengthen our ability to prebunk and counter imported disinformation, and remind people that decisions overseas driven by politics don’t override the science that keeps our tamariki safe.

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ACIP Under Siege: Why This New Vaccine Panel Is a Public Health Disaster

This week, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) will meet to decide the future of COVID-19 vaccine recommendations, among other things. Under normal circumstances, these meetings are sober, science-driven, and transparent (pretty dry, really). But these are not normal times, are they?

Since taking office, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr) has purged the committee of experienced experts and replaced them with merchants of doubt. Now, the panel is poised to spotlight claims linking COVID vaccines to child deaths — based not on scientific evidence but on anecdotes and raw Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) reports. This is not “transparency.” It is the weaponisation of uncertainty.

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Why This Matters

• VAERS is not proof of causation. Anyone can file a VAERS report, including unverified accounts pulled from social media. They are meant to be signals for investigation, not evidence that vaccines caused harm.
• The weight of evidence is clear. Billions of doses worldwide, dozens of rigorous studies, and ongoing surveillance have shown COVID-19 vaccines are very safe and effective in both children and adults. The safety profiles and associated risks are now very well established.
• The real risk is COVID itself. In the U.S. alone, thousands of children have been hospitalised and nearly 2,000 have died of COVID-19. Vaccines reduce that risk dramatically.

By focusing on a handful of unverified anecdotes, ACIP ignores the far larger, proven threat.

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What is Really Going On

This isn’t about science. It’s about politics.

Kennedy has longstanding financial interests tied to anti-vaccine organisations and litigation — meaning he benefits directly from undermining public trust in vaccines. 

• Kennedy and allies have pressured FDA and CDC officials to “dig deeper” into databases, cherry-picking the rarest and most tragic cases.
• The rhetorical trick is simple: shift the frame from “most children are protected” to “any death proves danger.”
• It’s a classic logical fallacy — anecdotal evidence fallacy — using individual stories as if they outweigh population-level data.
• It’s also false equivalence: comparing rare, unverified post-vaccine reports with the well-documented toll of COVID itself.

The result is a distorted narrative: that vaccines are the threat, rather than the disease they prevent.

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Why This Is a Disaster

Traditionally, New Zealand and many other countries rely on bodies like ACIP because they bring together world-class expertise, generate transparent recommendations, and underpin global confidence in vaccines. That trust matters because we don’t have the resources to duplicate all of that evidence review ourselves. The tragedy now is that ACIP has been gutted of independent experts and stacked with science deniers.

In the USA, the ACIP recommendations determine:

• Who gets access (through insurance and pharmacy supply).
• What doctors are willing to offer.
• How parents make decisions for their children.

If ACIP adopts Kennedy’s contrarian views — restricting COVID-19 and other vaccines to only the very oldest or sickest — millions will lose protection. Pharmacies may turn people away. Insurance may stop covering shots. And parents will be left confused, fearful, and misled.

The U.S. government will, in effect, be endorsing vaccine misinformation. That is unprecedented — and dangerous – and it is highly contagious.

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Some Key Talking Points

1. Vaccines save children’s lives. COVID-19 has killed far more children than vaccines ever have.
2. Data, not anecdotes. Scientific safety systems show no pattern of deaths caused by vaccines, despite billions of doses. In contrast, they reduce serious illness and death.
3. The risk is from COVID, not the vaccine. Hospitalisation, long COVID, and death remain real risks for children.
4. VAERS ≠ proof. Reports in VAERS are unverified; they are not evidence of causation.
5. Beware of false balance. Highlighting a few tragic anecdotes without context is misleading and dangerous.
6. Follow established experts. Organisations like the American Academy of Pediatrics continue to recommend vaccination for children. This is in defiance of the latest ACIP recommendations for the first time.

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Prebunking the Misinformation

When Kennedy and his allies say:

• “Children have died from the vaccine.”
  • Response: No increased risk of death in children is associated with COVID-19 vaccines. Reports are investigated, but the overwhelming evidence shows safety. Here is a good fact check that has links to some of the research.
• “We’re just asking questions.”
  • Response: This is a tactic to sow doubt. Real science has already asked — and answered — these questions through global studies.
• “Parents should decide, not bureaucrats.”
  • Response: Parents deserve accurate information, not distorted narratives built on misused data. Without accurate information, good decisions cannot be made.

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Final Word

The ACIP meeting under RFK Jr. isn’t just another policy debate. It is a test of whether science or ideology guides U.S. vaccine policy. If ideology wins, the consequences will be measured in preventable hospitalisations, long-term illness, and children’s lives. This is simply a very sobering fact.

Public health stakeholders must be ready to push back — calmly, clearly, and armed with facts.

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Links to rigorous scientific studies on the safety of COVID-19 Vaccines

GVDN OE Study: Involving over 99 million vaccinated people across multiple countries, the Global Vaccine Data Network’s observed-to-expected analysis found that serious adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination were very rare and that the benefits of vaccination outweighed the risks. Check out the illustrative dashboard here. (scroll down to access)

GVDN GBS Study: Drawing on data from more than 100 million vaccine recipients in 10 countries, the Global Vaccine Data Network study confirmed a small increased risk of Guillain-Barré Syndrome after adenovirus-vectored COVID-19 vaccines, but no elevated risk with mRNA vaccines.

Table of a few studies on covid-19 vaccines and mortality

Study (year)	Setting & N	Age group	Design	Outcome	Key finding on mortality	Link
Arbel et al., NEJM (2021)	Israel, ~843k	≥50	Matched cohort (booster vs no booster)	COVID-19 death	~90% lower mortality in boosted vs not	https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2115624
Nordström et al., Lancet Reg Health Eur (2022)	Sweden, LTCF residents & ≥80s	Frail elderly	Registry, matched cohorts (4th vs 3 doses)	All-cause death	31–71% lower all-cause mortality post 4th dose	https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35855494/
ONS England (2021–2023)	England, national data	All ages	Linked vaccination + mortality registers	COVID-involved & all-cause death	Death rates consistently higher in unvaccinated	https://www.ons.gov.uk/
CDC MMWR (2023)	20 U.S. jurisdictions	≥65	Surveillance analysis	COVID-19 death	Lower mortality in boosted vs unvaccinated	https://www.cdc.gov/
Qatar analyses, NEJM (2021–2022)	Qatar, national	Adolescents & adults	National cohorts	Severe/critical/fatal COVID-19	High VE against fatal COVID-19	https://www.nejm.org/
Olson et al., NEJM (2022) – Pediatric	U.S., 31 hospitals (12–18y)	12–18y	Case-control in hospitals	ICU/life support & death	Vaccination averted nearly all deaths/ICU in adolescents	https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2115865
Meta-analysis (JAMA Pediatr 2023) – Pediatric	17 studies; ~13M children	5–17y	Systematic review/meta-analysis	Infection, hospitalisation, MIS-C, deaths rare	Reduced severe outcomes, deaths rare but favours vax	https://jamanetwork.com/
Chemaitelly et al., NEJM (2022) – Pediatric	Qatar, 12–17y	12–17y	National cohort	Severe/critical/fatal COVID-19	High VE against severe/critical/fatal in adolescents	https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2203965