Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr is facing questions after apparently misrepresenting the academic career of one of the eight people he appointed to a crucial vaccines panel.
After firing the entire 17-member line-up of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) on June 10, Kennedy named eight replacements the following day.
The secretary announced his new panelists in a post on X, along with brief biographies for each.
One of their number was Dr Michael Ross, whom Kennedy described as “a clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at George Washington University and Virginia Commonwealth University, with a career spanning clinical medicine, research, and public health policy.”
However, NBC’s Washington affiliate has since approached both of those universities and been informed by George Washington that Dr. Ross has not taught there for eight years and by Virginia Commonwealth that he has not worked there in four.
The network quotes another biography of the same man from the website of the private equity fund Havencrest, which makes the same claim, stating: “A Professor of Pediatrics at George Washington University and a Professor of OB-GYN at Virginia Commonwealth University, Dr Ross serves on the boards of multiple private healthcare companies.”
The Independent has approached the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for clarification on the situation.
Several of Kennedy’s other appointees to ACIP have also raised eyebrows due to their track record of vaccine skepticism, controversial past statements on the Covid-19 pandemic, or lack of experience.
Noel Brewer, one of the former members of the panel dismissed by Kennedy, told MSNBC recently: “It was a bit shocking. None of us had any idea that something like this would happen.
“One of the implications of this is a bit of chaos in healthcare. It’s unclear what insurance will cover and it’s unclear who providers should look to when they’re trying to understand what’s the best practice for delivering HPV vaccine and other life-saving vaccines.”
Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told NBC that the recent change of guard at ACIP was “disturbing.”
“I think if you go around the table, there’s a lack of expertise and experience and institutional memory,” he said. “And what do you do now? Where do you go for information? Where do you go for advice? And I guess the answer, for right now, is go to your doctor and hope that he or she can figure it out.”
For all of the upheaval at the HHS on Kennedy’s watch – which has seen huge DOGE cuts, the CDC stop recommending the Covid vaccine for healthy children and pregnant women and the secretary himself declare war on ultra-processed foods – a new poll by NBC has found that an extremely narrow majority of the American public, 51 percent, are in favor of his performance in the job.
That said, 48 percent of respondents to the survey expressed disapproval, leaving just 1 percent undecided.
Asked about the secretary’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda, a report on which was accused of being compiled using AI, roughly one-third of people questioned said they believed junk food was the prime cause of the country’s declining health, while another third blamed individuals’ broader lifestyle choices.
Twelve percent blamed socioeconomic status, 10 percent cited unaffordable health insurance premiums, and six percent attributed the issue to environmental toxins.
