(18 Sep 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Atlanta – 18 September 2025
1. Wide of ACIP members arriving
2. Presentation screen
3.SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Kulldorf, ACIP Chair:
"I wish to welcome all of you with special welcome to the five new voting members of this committee. Most of all, I would like to welcome members of the public who are listening to these proceedings. We are currently experiencing heated controversies about vaccines. And a key question is: who can you trust? Here’s my advice. When there are different scientific views, only trust scientists who are willing to engage with and publicly debate the scientists with other views. With such debates, you can weigh and determine the scientific reasoning by each side. But without this, without it, you cannot properly judge their arguments. For this reason, I lament that the American Academy of Pediatrics has ended their participation as the last member of this committee."
4. Mid of ACIP member Joseph Hibbeln
5. ACIP member Retsef Levi
6. ACIP member Vicky Pebsworth
7. ACIP member Raymond Pollak
8. ACIP member Robert Malone
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Kulldorff, ACIP Chair:
"We welcome scientific critique of any of our votes, as there are gray areas due to incomplete scientific knowledge. But false accusations that we and other respectable vaccine scientists are unscientific and dangerous anti-vaxxers—that just adds legitimacy to anti-vax positions, damaging both public health and the confidence in vaccines. Such false accusations are only logical if their purpose is political. Again, I suggest that you should only trust scientists that are willing to debate fellow scientists with different views."
10. ACIP member Hillary Blackburn listening to discussion on MMRV vaccine
11. ACIP member Catherine Stein
12. ACIP member Kirk Milhoan
13. ACIP member James Pagano
14. ACIP member Evelyn Griffin speaking during introductions
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Martin Kulldorff, ACIP Chair:
"I hereby invite each of the nine former CDC directors to have a live public debate with me concerning vaccines. They are doctors Besser, Cohen, Foege, Frieden, Koplan, Roper, Satcher, Schuchat and Walensky. If they are unwilling to engage in an open and honest debate with a Chair of a committee, of this committee, that they are so severely criticizing, then I’d advise that you should not trust them. I also make the same invitation to the recently departed CDC leaders. If they want to be trusted, they should all accept."
16. Various of ACIP committee members listening to discussion on MMRV vaccine
STORYLINE:
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s new vaccine advisory committee kicked off a two-day session on Thursday morning focused on shots against COVID-19, hepatitis B and chickenpox.
In his opening remarks, committee Chairman Martin Kulldorff defended the group against critics who say it leans toward anti-vaccine views.
“We are currently experiencing heated controversies about vaccines. And a key question is: who can you trust? Here’s my advice. When there are different scientific views, only trust scientists who are willing to engage with and publicly debate the scientists with other views. With such debates, you can weigh and determine the scientific reasoning by each side. But without this, without it, you cannot properly judge their arguments. For this reason, I lament that the American Academy of Pediatrics has ended their participation as the last number of this committee," Kulldorff said.
The American Academy of Pediatrics and many public health officials support that decades-old practice.
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