The new members include a pediatric cardiologist and an OBGYN.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Sept. 15 named five new members to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccines.
The new slate includes doctors and researchers who have been critical of the COVID-19 vaccines.
“ACIP safeguards the health of Americans by issuing objective, evidence-based vaccine recommendations,” Kennedy said in a statement. “Its new members bring diverse expertise that strengthens the committee and ensures it fulfills its mission with transparency, independence, and gold-standard science.”
After removing all existing ACIP members in June, in part because of conflicts of interest, Kennedy named eight replacements. One later withdrew from consideration.
The panel met in July. Its next meeting is scheduled to take place on Sept. 18 and 19.
Here are all the new members.
| Dr. Kirk Milhoan |
| Dr. Evelyn Griffin |
| Catherine Stein |
| Hillary Blackburn |
| Raymond Pollak |
Dr. Kirk Milhoan
Milhoan is a pediatric cardiologist at Christus Health System, a senior fellow at the Independent Medical Alliance, an Air Force veteran, and the co-founder of a Christian missionary organization called For Hearts and Souls.
Milhoan has spoken out about COVID-19 vaccines. He told The Epoch Times in June that he has seen an increase in myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation, in children following COVID-19 vaccination.
“I don’t want to make it out like our hospitals are filled with these kids with myocarditis. They’re not,” he said. “But we saw something that was out of the norm. And that should make us curious and go, ‘Boy, they had a low risk. Did we do harm to them?’ And I think for the most part, we did.”
He added later, “Thousands of children are still getting a vaccine for a virus that really doesn’t cause them significant harm at all and has significant side effects.” He said that the vaccines should be removed from the market.
Federal regulators recently narrowed clearance for the COVID-19 vaccines to the elderly and younger people who the CDC says are at higher risk of severe COVID-19. The CDC has said COVID-19 vaccines cause myocarditis.
During a 2024 hearing held by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), Milhoan noted data from the Cleveland Clinic indicating that the more doses one gets, the more at risk they are of contracting COVID-19.
“I’ve never seen a vaccine like this. That’s not the basis of vaccines. They shouldn’t have what we would call negative efficacy,” he said.
Milhoan also said it appeared some vaccinated people “are now becoming a spike protein factory that doesn’t stop,” referring to papers thathavefound persistence of the spike protein—a component of the COVID-19 vaccines and the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19—in vaccinated individuals.
ACIP is reviewing data on spike protein persistence following vaccination, according to a document dated Aug. 20.
Dr. Vinay Prasad, the Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine official, said in recent memorandums that “there is growing clinical evidence that spike protein, which is generated as a result of or in the course of vaccination, may persist for some time in a subset of individuals” and that the spike protein may be linked to so-called long COVID-19.
Milhoan was investigated by the Hawaii Medical Board after prescribing patients drugs approved for other uses, such as hydroxychloroquine, to COVID-19 patients, but the agency later closed its investigation. Milhoan is licensed in Hawaii and Texas, where he currently practices.
