Kirk Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist who is a senior fellow at the Independent Medical Alliance (formerly Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance), which promotes misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines and touts unproven and dubious COVID-19 treatments. Those include the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, the de-worming drug ivermectin, and various concoctions of vitamins and other drugs. Milhoan has stated that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines should be removed from the market, telling KFF in March: “We should stop it and test it more before we move forward.”
Evelyn Griffin, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Louisiana who reportedly lost her job for refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccine. In a speech at a Louisiana Health Freedom Day in May 2024, Griffin claimed that doctors “blindly believed” that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines were safe. She has also claimed that the vaccines cause “bizarre and rare conditions,” according to the Post.
Hillary Blackburn, a pharmacist in St. Louis. Reuters reports that she is the daughter-in-law of Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who has opposed vaccine mandates.
Raymond Pollak, a semi-retired transplant surgeon who filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the University of Illinois Hospital in 1999, alleging the hospital manipulated patient data to increase their chances of receiving livers. The hospital settled the suit, paying $2.5 million, while denying wrongdoing.
ACIP is scheduled to meet at the end of this week, on September 18 and September 19. According to an agenda recently posted online, the committee will vote on recommendations for a measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella (MMRV) combination vaccine, the Hepatitis B vaccine, and this year’s updated COVID-19 vaccines. Vaccine experts widely fear that the committee will rescind recommendations and restrict access to those vaccines. Such moves will likely create new, potentially insurmountable barriers for people, including children, to get vaccines.
ACIP-recommended vaccines are required to be covered by private health insurance plans and the Vaccines for Children program for Medicaid-eligible and under- or uninsured kids, which covers about half of American children. Without ACIP recommendations for a vaccine, insurance coverage would be an open question, and vulnerable children would simply lose access entirely.
