A Free Now Foundation Exclusive

In his boldest move yet, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy Jr. did what no other Trump-era pick would have dared to do: he wiped clean the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) slate.

Poof. Gone. Up in smoke. Every last member of this 60-year-old committee that was historically stacked with industry-compromised stooges–drowning in conflicts of interest and expected to greenlight every unwanted vaccine since the measles shot–has been forcibly retired from ACIP duties, effective immediately.

Created in 1964, ACIP was meant to provide expert guidance on vaccines. But over time, it morphed into an industry-captured cartel operating under the CDC’s badge of legitimacy, where recommendations were preordained and all accountability vanished. Whatever ACIP endorsed quickly became the national standard school mandates, employer rules, and the entire vaccine schedule our children are subjected to. Its members often had financial ties to the very companies whose products they were evaluating. They ignored public input, from thousands (if not tens of thousands) of comment submissions to public testimony from the dedicated doctors and parents showing up at meetings. The committee that should have been a safeguard instead turned into a conveyor belt.

Now Secretary Kennedy begins the job of replacing empty chairs with scientists and physicians who understand the oath of adhering to independent judgment. 

“I call Secretary Kennedy our ‘Chief Health Strategist.’ He needs President Trump’s full backing to succeed,” said Alix Mayer, Chairman of Free Now Foundation. ”President Trump needs to strong-arm hostile legislators and administrators. RFK Jr. can undo a century of bad health policy if Trump clears the way for him to ‘Warp Speed’ our health right now.”

The Automatic Approval Machine Is No More

ACIP could be kindly called a failure, but it’s more accurate to say it’s a national embarrassment and court of kangaroos in white coats. As Dr. Marty Makary, newly installed FDA chief, said last week: “They just rubber stamp every single vaccine put in front of them.”

He’s not wrong. ACIP has never outright rejected a vaccine. Their motto has always been, “Approve first, ask questions later (maybe).”

Same Old Corruption, Now Under New Management

Despite the fact it took a second Trump administration to make it happen, what Secretary Kennedy did was not about politics. It was about integrity. It was a corruption purge and an attempt to let real science back into the room.

This is the same ACIP that was exposed again and again for rampant conflicts of interest. A 2000 House investigation found ACIP members regularly promoted and were compensated for pharmaceutical products in which they held financial stakes. In 2009, the HHS Inspector General confirmed that enforcement of ethics rules was weak to nonexistent. By 2021, nearly every committee member needed a waiver to participate, and 97% of them left sections of their conflict-of-interest forms incomplete.

Those of us involved in medical freedom advocacy stopped trusting them within days of our kids being injured by vaccines. Their main source of trust came from journalists too lazy to read the transcripts.

A New Era: Meet the Fresh ACIP

Kennedy’s eight new appointees are a fresh crop of thinkers who have never been Big Pharma’s lapdogs. They are critics, reformers, and scientists with backbone. One caveat: Some medical freedom activists will grumble that the new ACIP appointees don’t go far enough because they aren’t calling for a bonfire of the entire childhood vaccine schedule. Just keep in mind that cleaning up a rigged system starts with pulling the plug, not lighting the match.

• Dr. Robert Malone: The original architect of mRNA vaccine technology, turned whistleblower. Once banned from Twitter (now X) for warning about spike protein toxicity. Now appointed to act as a watchdog over the very mRNA platform he helped build and ultimately rejected.
• Dr. Martin Kulldorff: Epidemiologist, former Harvard faculty member, and co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration. He fought the Covid mandates while the old ACIP stayed silent.
• Dr. Retsef Levi: MIT data scientist who exposed underreporting of Covid vaccine side effects. His research challenged assumptions and demanded accountability.
• Dr. Cody Meissner: A voice of reason during the Covid hysteria who raised concerns about expanding Covid vaccine use to toddlers.
• Dr. Vicky Pebsworth: Veteran nurse, public health researcher, and staunch advocate for informed consent. Someone who knows what it’s like on the front lines.
• Dr. Joseph Hibbeln: Psychiatrist and nutrition expert who spent years at NIH studying how diet shapes immunity. A much-needed holistic voice in a pharmaceutically saturated field.
• Dr. Michael Ross: OB-GYN and maternal health specialist meaning that, this time, vaccination during pregnancy will be evaluated with real data, not guesswork.
• Dr. James Pagano: Emergency medicine doctor with over 40 years of experience. No corporate ties; just hands-on clinical knowledge.

The Cassidy Compromise: A Political Footnote

Sure, Secretary Kennedy had to make a few polite promises to get confirmed, including the fact that Senator Bill Cassidy extracted a pledge that ACIP wouldn’t become an anti-vaccine clubhouse. Was I concerned that RFK Jr. had to play the game to get confirmed? Not in the least. The average parent of a vaccine-injured child doesn’t care what he promised to Cassidy in a Senate hallway. They care that their baby stopped breathing. That their toddler lost words. That their adolescent will never speak out loud again.

Secretary Kennedy did what he had to do to get through the gate and now that he’s inside, he’s cleaning house. And recognize that this is not just about America. As goes the United States, so goes the entire world.

All those up in arms about whether Secretary Kennedy has the authority to fire and hire, pay attention: ACIP is governed under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which gives the HHS Secretary full authority to appoint its members. No Senate hearing. No confirmation vote. No White House permission slip. No Senate hallway deals.The official ACIP charter plainly states, “Members, including the Chair, shall be selected by the Secretary.” Department heads like Secretary Kennedy have every right to install them without anyone’s oversight or approval. If Senator Cassidy wants the power of HHS for himself then he should get the Senate to confirm him for the job. 

The Stakes: Truth, Trust, and Future Generations

The mainstream press is losing its mind. NBC called this a “radical reshaping” of vaccine policy, as if that’s a bad thing. Their anonymous sources warn “the CDC will lose credibility.”

Newsflash: The CDC already lost credibility. For many of us that was a decade or two ago, but for most Americans, it happened sometime in 2021: When myocarditis cases exploded in teenage boys. When pregnant women were told the shot was safe with zero trial data. When public health became a punchline.

A Committee That Actually Does Science

The new ACIP will not serve corporate interests. These are professionals committed to gold-standard science, including double-blind trials, long-term safety data, and meaningful scrutiny. No more waving through shots based on six-week outcomes and corporate press releases. No more pretending that omitting data is the same as proving safety. And yes, they’ll be reviewing the existing childhood schedule, too. That’s what Secretary Kennedy promised and that’s exactly what we voted for. 

The first meeting of the new ACIP is scheduled for June 25 through 27 in Atlanta. Tune in and don’t miss our moment to hold the process accountable. Secretary Kennedy has called for radical transparency. That means real-time deliberation; not the usual performance where a vote is taken before essential questions are even answered.

No Data No Problem

Let’s not forget the infamous 2018 ACIP meeting where the committee voted unanimously to recommend Heplisav-B, a hepatitis B vaccine with a brand-new ingredient to stimulate the immune system, an adjuvant called CpG 1018. There were no data supporting the use of this additional immune stimulant when Hepislav-B is injected with other vaccines containing other immune stimulants, such as aluminum. 

Here’s how the exchange went: one member asked if there was any data on co-administering Heplisav-B with other adjuvanted vaccines. Rather than halting the vote or encouraging gathering more data before approving this new vaccine, the ACIP members admitted they had no data on this potential issue. Also in this meeting, former CDC Director Mandy Cohen smiled wryly and said the vaccines could be given in different limbs, as if this were the final word on how to keep vaccine ingredients from mixing with each other. Worse, no other country had experience using multiple adjuvanted vaccines simultaneously, either. This was uncharted territory. Adjuvants are designed to supercharge the immune response, and mixing them without knowing how they interact is asking for trouble.

And yet, there they were: ACIP members smiling like they’d just passed a bake sale motion. Mandy Cohen, who was oddly upbeat through the entire discussion, flashed a Cheshire Cat grin as the unanimous votes rolled in. Not one dissent. Not a single delay. Just a quick nod to post-marketing surveillance, as if that would clean up the mess if something went wrong later.

That’s overreach, not oversight, and it puts millions of Americans into a real-time experiment without their knowledge or consent. You can watch the 2.5-minute clip here, then watch the much more entertaining edit of it here. 

A Global Shift Begins in the U.S.

Secretary Kennedy’s ACIP reform is a domestic milestone that signals a shift for the entire world. The nation that once led the globe in vaccine innovation now leads again by insisting on transparency, ethics, and honest science.

Public health should not be a playground for pharma lobbyists, and vaccine policy should not be shaped exclusively by public relations experts with credentials. We the people have every right to ask questions and demand answers.

Regulatory capture has distorted vaccine policy in the U.S. for decades. The CDC recommends and purchases vaccines. The FDA relies on manufacturer-funded studies. The National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program makes families face DOJ attorneys without a jury.

Replacing ACIP is the first major step to laying a new foundation. Public trust cannot be restored until the structure of influence and manipulation is torn down.