A version of this article has since been published by Canada Healthwatch.

After shocking the medical world by firing all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), Robert Kennedy Jr then let the other shoe drop. He restocked ACIP with individuals that most scientists consider to be, well, unscientific. Indeed, many of the new committee members espouse dangerous and fringe anti-vaccination views that are in stark opposition to consensus scientific opinion. All of this happens just as vaccine-preventable diseases like measles are making a comeback, and terrifying threats like avian flu threaten to cast the world into a new and more deadly pandemic.

The deepening of this administration’s anti-vaccine antics demands more than just criticism, though. It demands a constructive counterweight. The broader public health community —and perhaps the Democratic Party itself- should establish a shadow vaccine advisory committee: a credible, independent body to defend evidence-based medicine and model how vaccine policy should actually be done. (more…)