Better in their words…

For thirty years, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) operated as one of the most powerful medical bodies in the United States—largely in the shadows, shielded from public scrutiny by a media that, astonishingly, never thought to ask even the most basic questions.

This was the committee that determined which vaccines would be added to the official U.S. immunization schedule. Their recommendations, once ratified, triggered cascading mandates: school requirements, insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act, and billions in automatic public funding via the Vaccines for Children program.

With that level of power came astonishing conflicts of interest.

Members of ACIP held patents on vaccines they later endorsed, received industry funding, and frequently pivoted between public health roles and private sector consultancies. Some went on to work in the very industry they had been regulating. Others, still on the committee, co-authored studies used to justify their policy positions.

This was never secret.

In 2000, the U.S. House Government Reform Committee held hearings on conflicts at ACIP. GAO audits confirmed the concerns. Critics in the academic and medical communities raised red flags, repeatedly, in public forums.

And yet not once—not one time—did Reuters, Associated Press, The New York Times, or any other legacy outlet publish a major feature scrutinizing ACIP’s conflicts of interest. No longform documentaries. No Pulitzer-hungry investigations. No editorial board inquiries into whether a vaccine committee—entrusted with shaping the future of children’s health—should be allowed to operate like a cartel of self-interested consultants.

They didn’t just ignore the story. They buried it.

Now—suddenly, grotesquely, transparently—the media has found its voice.

Why?

Because Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all seventeen members of ACIP in one sweeping action.

Within 72 hours of that announcement, Reuters published a headline that would have been unimaginable in any prior decade:

“Kennedy’s new vaccine adviser was expert witness against Merck vaccine.”

The article breathlessly reports that Dr. Martin Kulldorff, a former Harvard Medical School professor and internationally respected biostatistician, had “billed about $33,000” as an expert witness in litigation involving Merck’s Gardasil vaccine. He had received a $4,000 retainer.

Reuters then ominously cites ACIP’s internal guidelines:

“Under ACIP’s rules, committee members cannot serve as a ‘paid litigation consultant or expert witness in litigation involving a vaccine manufacturer’ during their tenure.”

But Kulldorff’s work was before his appointment. No rule was broken. No deception occurred. Everything was disclosed. So what’s their point, really?

And yet here was Reuters, running its first-ever story on ACIP conflicts—because a man criticized a vaccine. We have news for Reuters and the rest of the world: in adversarial legal systems, that’s how it goes.

Compare that to their non-coverage when Dr. Paul Offit, while a sitting ACIP member, helped develop the RotaTeq vaccine, voted for its inclusion on the childhood schedule, and later sold the patent for an estimated $182 million.

Where was the outrage then?
Where were the headlines?
Where were the Pulitzer nominations?

The Associated Press joined in, dutifully echoing the new party line:

“Kennedy’s new CDC panel includes members who have criticized vaccines and spread misinformation…”

“Criticized vaccines” is now treated as radioactive. The same press corps that once defended dissent as essential to democracy now labels medical skepticism—however evidence-based—as “misinformation” by default.

In a chilling alignment of message, The Atlantic declared:

“Critics argue that Kennedy is undermining public trust and scientific consensus on vaccines, risking major shifts in CDC recommendations…”

Note the framing: not undermining safety, not undermining effectiveness, but “consensus.”

The consensus, not the science, is what they are circling to protect.

And they are panicking.

If you, like us, are wondering how many COIs existed on sitting ACIP committee members, you can find a PopRat article below on that very topic.

When RFK Jr. removed all seventeen members of ACIP, he didn’t just swap names. He broke the machine. He severed the circuitry of backchannel funding, revolving-door promotions, and manufactured agreement. He took an action that would force the press—if they were honest—to reexamine the entire foundation of vaccine policy in America.

They refused.

Instead, they turned their fire on his replacements, as if to punish the very act of breaking consensus. Dr. Sean O’Leary—a staunch CDC-aligned pediatrician—told Reuters:

“I fear that there will be human lives lost here because of this…”

and followed with:

“It is a special kind of irony that [Kennedy] is saying he is doing this to restore trust, given that he is, as an individual, more responsible for sowing distrust in vaccines than almost anyone I can name.”

But this is projection masquerading as analysis.

The real irony is that the same press that sat mute while ACIP grew into a powerful, unaccountable body now plays sanctimonious referee—only because the beneficiaries of that power are being removed.

They did not care when trust was eroded by secrecy. They did not speak when the public’s concerns were ignored. They did not ask questions when ACIP voted, again and again, to add vaccines with no dissent and no independent safety review, relying instead on manufacturer-submitted data.

They never asked:

“What happens when consensus becomes a product?”
They never asked:
“What if the conflicts are not anomalies, but the operating model?”

They only asked questions when someone like Kulldorff—who had the courage to speak up about surveillance gaps, adverse event underreporting, and statistical deception—stepped onto the field.

And suddenly, they called him dangerous.

Suddenly, testifying in open court was worse than lobbying behind closed doors.

Suddenly, scientific dissent became disqualifying.

What this tells us is simple: legacy media never cared about conflict of interest at ACIP. They cared about preserving the illusion of stability. As long as that illusion was intact—despite the evidence—they kept quiet.

Now that illusion is shattered, and they are trying desperately to reassemble the pieces. But it’s too late.

They had thirty years. They chose silence.

And the public remembers.

The sudden interest in COIs at ACIP says everything we need to know about the captured “official” news outlets like Reuters and APNews.

Now, watch as politico try to “Torch” Kennedy. We have their playbook. But Kennedy appears unphased; he’s a Teflon Dad, and not only are their priorities not his priorities: He is going to teach them all of the risks they and their children and grandchildren have been sold into.

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Sources:

• Reuters: Kennedy’s new vaccine adviser was expert witness against Merck
• AP News: Kennedy’s new CDC panel includes members who have criticized vaccines and spread misinformation
• The Atlantic: RFK Jr.’s ACIP overhaul risks trust in vaccine policy
• [U.S. House Committee on Government Reform, 2000. Conflicts of Interest in Vaccine Policy Making]
• [GAO Reports on Vaccine Policy and Oversight, 2000–2009]