Federal vaccine adviser departs ACIP
A federal vaccine adviser who spent years on the front lines of CDC immunization policy has stepped down, adding another layer of instability to an agency already operating under a court injunction and a Thursday deadline to name a permanent director.
The adviser, infectious disease specialist Dr. Robert Malone, announced his departure from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices in a text message shared with Roll Call on March 24: "After Andrew trashing me with the press, I am done with the CDC and ACIP. That was the last straw." He added: "Suffice to say I do not like drama, and have better things to do."
Malone's exit is the direct aftermath of a March 16 federal ruling that had already frozen the political restructuring of ACIP, the independent panel that recommends which vaccines Americans should receive and that determines coverage for millions. Federal Judge Brian E. Murphy of the District of Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction blocking Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s reconstitution of the committee, restoring the original childhood immunization schedule and barring Kennedy's 13 appointees from continuing to serve, according to STAT News. Murphy found that most of the 15 current ACIP members appeared "distinctly unqualified" and that only six had any meaningful vaccine experience, writing that "a committee of non-experts cannot be said to embody fairly balanced points of view within the relevant scientific community," as Reuters reported.
The case — American Academy of Pediatrics et al. v. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. et al., No. 1:25-cv-11916-BEM — concluded that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on claims that the reconstitution violated the Administrative Procedure Act. The court order stands. But it didn't resolve the human question of who would stay to do the committee's work.
Paul Offit, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a longtime ACIP member who has clashed publicly with Kennedy's allies, put the choice directly: "You are loyal to him, or you are loyal to science. Those are the two options," he told Roll Call. The court's injunction buys the old committee legal standing. It can't compel anyone to serve on it.
The vacuum at ACIP arrives as the CDC itself is without a confirmed director. The administration must name a nominee by Thursday under a 210-day statutory limit on acting officials in advice-and-consent positions, Roll Call reported. The previous pick, Susan Monarez, was confirmed by the Senate on party lines and fired by Kennedy less than a month into the job. Since her dismissal, the United States has seen a surge in measles, whooping cough, and flu infections — a pattern disease trackers attribute in part to the loss of sustained federal public health leadership.
The legal victory for scientific independence has not made the institution attractive. Kennedy's vision for the agency's broader health technology and vaccine pipeline ambitions depends on a functioning advisory apparatus — one that can survive judicial scrutiny and attract credible experts simultaneously. Right now it has neither.
What happens at ACIP matters beyond the committee itself. The panel's recommendations trigger coverage determinations across Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers, locking in market access for vaccine manufacturers and shaping the immunization landscape for years. A committee that can't meet or can't recruit qualified members means those decisions stall. The court's order restored the old schedule; it didn't fill the seats.
The White House has not indicated who it will nominate for CDC director. Whoever takes the job faces a Thursday deadline, a court order, a resurgent disease burden, and a committee held together, at Malone's departure, by little more than an injunction.