Can’t Do Anything Right: RFK’s ACIP Charter Changes Yanked For Not Following Procedure

from the rake-after-rake-after-rake dept

I’m starting to wonder if RFK Jr. can do anything right at all. After the courts put an injunction on Kennedy’s overhaul of the CDC’s ACIP panel on vaccines, as well as pretty much all of their recommendations since it was rebuilt on a foundation of anti-vaxxers, the government sprung into action to try to let Kennedy keep fucking with vaccines in America. The reasoning by the court for the injunction was a process oriented one: Kennedy’s overhaul of ACIP violated the American Procedures Act. By simply hand-picking unqualified sycophants to ACIP, he didn’t follow procedural law. The Trump administration eventually appealed the ruling, which is still pending hearings. On his end, Kennedy decided to amend the ACIP charter to try to route around some of the procedural violations of the APA that got him in trouble the first time.

But it turns out he fucked that up, too. His amended ACIP charter has now been withdrawn for once again not following proper procedure.

A revised charter document for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s influential vaccine advisory committee has been withdrawn by the Health Department over an administrative error, according to a notice published in the Federal Register Tuesday.

While the Health Department is working to appeal the injunction, Kennedy attempted to circumvent the judge’s ruling on the ACIP members by altering the committee’s charter to, among other things, allow for people without expertise in immunizations and public health to be members.

But, for now, that effort, too, has been thwarted. According to the notice on Tuesday, the new charter has been withdrawn for not following a federal requirement on public notification.

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The law on the matter is remarkably clear. In order to reestablish a discretionary advisory committee, for which ACIP qualifies, the Secretary of the agency must provide a written statement that the committee is being formed in the public interest, establish what that public interest actually is, and then publish a public notice to the Federal Register so that the people can understand the action that is being taken.

Kennedy didn’t do any of that. He rewrote the governing charter for his remade version of ACIP and just tried to make it a thing without following any of those rules. He just plain fucked it up.

Which isn’t to suggest that Kennedy definitely won’t try to do this all again with an actual attempt to follow procedural law. I am having trouble imagining a world in which he doesn’t do that, actually. But given his apparent desire to step on every last rake he can find, it’s a wonder to me that the Trump administration doesn’t simply want to put someone more capable in charge of HHS.

Filed Under: acip, anti-vaxxers, cdc, rfk jr., vaccines