In a video produced by Epoch Times, a website owned by the Falun Gong cult, which is also responsible for the Shen Yun dance troupe, newly appointed ACIP advisors Retsef Levi and Dr. Robert Malone claim that the committee has held hidden power, relied on shaky safety data, and did not allow open debate and better long-term studies. They suggest that families could not trust its recommendations.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, is a team of independent vaccine experts who meet at the CDC. Once a new vaccine is licensed by the FDA, ACIP reviews all the data and provides guidance on how a vaccine should be used. Their advice is what ultimately lands a vaccine on the schedule your provider uses to make sure you are up-to-date and protected.

ACIP’s voting members are mostly pediatricians, epidemiologists, and infectious disease doctors. One seat is set aside for a consumer advocate. They apply through an open process run by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Dozens of nonvoting liaisons from medical societies and federal agencies also sit in, which keeps the conversation broad and transparent.

The ACIP has operated under some of the strictest conflict‑of‑interest rules in the federal government, and ACIP’s charter forbids anyone with more than a token stake in a company from voting on that company’s products. Members serve as Special Government Employees, must file public financial‑disclosure forms, and are required at every meeting to declare, and, when necessary, recuse themselves for any relevant ties. Meeting minutes, member disclosures, and all supporting materials are posted online, and every session is webcast with time for open public comment. These safeguards were put in place precisely to keep vaccine policy transparent and insulated from commercial pressure.

RFK Jr. himself was required to resolve his own conflicts of interest regarding an agreement with the law firm WisnerBaum, under which he receives 10% of the funds awarded in referred vaccine litigation cases.

Despite Malone’s claims, firing the previous members did not clear conflicts. Instead, a well‑vetted process was interrupted, removing years of collective expertise and creating a political opening for advisors whose views and financial ties have not yet been probed.

In an interview with Tucker Carlson, RFK Jr. claims that vaccines cause serious long-term illnesses, the safety studies and experts are dishonest, and drug companies and doctors push more shots mainly to make money, not to protect health.

Vaccines are not associated with Autism.

First, RFK Jr. references this abstract by Verstraeten, claiming a 1135% increase in Autism risk. The increase found in the abstract was 760% (risk ratio of 7.6), not 1135%, but more importantly, this increase isn’t found in other research. This is merely an abstract, a first look at numbers that haven’t been fully investigated or peer reviewed.

In this abstract, they don’t talk about the study population or the criteria for which diagnoses were obtained. In order to conclude that there is an association between vaccines and autism, the author published this fully reviewed study here. That study showed no association between thimerosal and autism.

It’s important to note that this abstract was written in 1999. By 2001, thimerosal was removed from all childhood vaccines. Yet, autism rates continue to rise despite the lack of thimerosal. Importantly, experts attribute this rise to changes in diagnostic criteria.

A pre-print from Yale has anti-vaxxers again claiming that people who got the COVID vaccine may have lingering spike proteins for years, which could weaken the immune system and lead to long-term health problems.

This paper, which hasn’t been reviewed by experts yet, has been used by people spreading misinformation to claim that the COVID vaccine is dangerous. However, the study doesn’t say or conclude what they think it does.

The study looks at post-vaccination syndrome (PVS) after COVID vaccination, but there are several issues that make it difficult to draw strong conclusions. First, it only included 42 people who reported health problems after vaccination and 22 healthy vaccinated people. That’s a very small group, and because participants volunteered, the study could be biased. Asking the volunteers to recall and report their own symptoms is another way the study could be biased. There was also no unvaccinated control group to compare results.

The study found a link between those who received vaccines and immune changes, but that doesn’t mean the vaccine itself is causing these changes. Many of the people in the study had already had COVID, which is known to affect the immune system, and this study didn’t really separate out those who may have had an asymptomatic or otherwise undetected case. This means the changes seen might have been caused by the virus, not the vaccine.

The study found spike protein in the blood of some people up to two years after vaccination.  However, this only happened in a few people, and similar results have been found in those with Long COVID.

Overall, while the study raises questions, it does not prove that COVID vaccines cause serious immune problems. It also doesn’t clearly separate post-vaccination syndrome from long-term COVID-19. Much more research is needed before making strong claims like this.