American Families for Vaccines Calls Out Kennedy’s War on Science and Our Kids

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 18, 2025

Contact: Caitlin Gilmet | 207-776-7648

In response to today’s meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), American Families for Vaccines condemns unscientific decisions that weaken long-standing protections against measles, mumps, rubella, and chickenpox. The organization warned that Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s politically motivated interference in vaccine guidance undermines medical expertise, removes safe options from families, and places children at greater risk of preventable disease.

Let’s be clear: this ACIP is no longer the independent, expert scientific body it once was. The group’s confusion about how their recommendations affect our vaccine supply clearly demonstrate their lack of experience and qualifications to manage national programs like the Vaccines for Children program.

For more than 20 years, pediatricians have safely relied on two options to protect children against measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella: giving MMR and varicella separately, or using the combined MMRV vaccine. That flexibility allows doctors and parents to decide what’s best for each child. By casting doubt on MMRV, ACIP removed a proven tool without evidence of harm. This decision does not make children safer; instead, it undermines trust, creates confusion for families, and risks straining the MMR supply at a time when more than 1,400 measles cases have already been reported nationwide and children have died.

As pediatricians know, families deserve clear, trustworthy guidance and real choices—not the removal of safe, effective options for political gain. Kennedy’s ACIP undermines the shared decision-making that happens in exam rooms across the country and inserts politics where it does not belong.

“Today, ACIP put public health at risk by removing long standing recommendations for vaccines that have protected generations,” said Northe Saunders, President of American Families for Vaccines. “Secretary Kennedy has dismantled respected scientific advisory bodies, replaced experts with anti-vaccine activists, and repeatedly pushed policies that undermine the nation’s ability to prevent deadly disease. These actions represent an ongoing war on vaccines that puts every American at risk.”

“The overwhelming majority of Americans support childhood immunization laws because they know prevention keeps us safe. But Secretary Kennedy is more interested in boosting his political profile than defending the health of the American people. If an air traffic control tower suddenly stopped working, we wouldn’t tell each pilot to come up with their own rules for takeoff and landing. We’d fix the control tower so that planes could fly safely again. ACIP is the control tower for vaccine guidance. It’s not the tower that’s broken—it’s that RFK Jr. jammed the signal. Congress must act now to remove him from office before it’s too late.”