5 new members added to CDC vaccine advisory panel ahead of key meeting

Source: NPR

September 15, 2025 5:04 PM ET


Just days before vaccine advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention meet to weigh who should get COVID vaccines this season, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has selected five more members to the committee he purged of Biden administration appointees in June.

The new members of the influential Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices are:

Hilary Blackburn, a pharmacist at AscensionRx, who also hosts a podcast,

Dr. Kirk Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist and an affiliate of the Independent Medical Alliance,

Dr. Evelyn Griffin, an ob/gyn and functional medicine practitioner,

Dr. Raymond Pollak, a semi-retired transplant surgeon, and

Catherine Stein, an epidemiology professor at Case Western Reserve University, who has claimed the government overstated COVID risks.

"The new ACIP members bring a wealth of real-world public health experience to the job of making immunization recommendations," said Jim O'Neill, Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services and Acting Director of the CDC in a media statement. "We are grateful for their service in helping restore the public confidence in vaccines that was lost during the Biden era."

Read more: https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/09/15/nx-s1-5542390/cdc-vaccine-advisers-committee

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Most likely anti-vax quacks.