Paul Offit, a prominent vaccine expert at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, wasn’t told why he was removed from the Food and Drug Administration’s vaccine advisory committee last week.

He speculates it’s due to his longstanding criticism of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was a leading anti-vaccine activist prior to becoming the nation’s top health official under President Donald Trump.

“I certainly have been the most vocal critic of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on that committee,” said Offit, who directs CHOP’s Vaccine Education Center and co-created a vaccine used to protect children around the world from rotavirus.

Offit was the only member removed from the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, a key advisory body that reviews data on vaccines to make recommendations to the FDA.

An HHS spokesman told The Washington Post that members of other FDA advisory panels were also affected.

For decades, Offit has sparred publicly with Kennedy over his skepticism of childhood vaccinations the medical establishment widely agrees are safe and effective.

It’s been “unimaginable” to see the anti-vaccine movement empowered under Kennedy’s federal leadership this year, Offit said. He cited the government’s recent decision to stop recommending the COVID-19 vaccine to children and pregnant women as an example.

“I feel like we’ve been invaded by a foreign country, and that foreign country’s number one task is to destroy the public health,” he said.

Offit’s removal follows a series of shake-ups throughout the federal health infrastructure. In June, Kennedy had dismissed all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the use of vaccines.

Last week, the CDC’s newly installed director, Susan Monarez, was forced to step down. Her lawyers claim that she became a political target for refusing “to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts.”

An abrupt removal

Offit’s term on the FDA vaccine committee was originally set to end in January of 2025 after eight years of service. However, he was asked by a senior person at the FDA to stay on for another four years. He agreed to two.

The process of extending his service required him to fill out a special government employee form to be approved by the HHS.

Offit submitted it around July and waited.

“And then I didn’t hear anything,” he said.

The person at the FDA called to confirm they still wanted him on the committee. They were pushing as hard as they could to get his forms through HHS, however, the department was “stonewalling them,” Offit said.

On Aug. 28, he received a vaguely worded message from somebody at the FDA stating that HHS still had not signed off on the form, so they could not have him on the committee.

Offit’s name has since been removed from the online roster of committee members.

He said he’d miss serving on the committee, recalling the “vibrant discussions” members had around how best to interpret data.

“It was exciting, and you certainly felt the pressure to get it right,” he said.

Much of the work during his last term surrounded the COVID-19 vaccines. While he is a leading advocate for vaccines, he has also insisted on following the science when questioning is warranted. For example, he was one of two members to vote against recommending the bivalent COVID-19 vaccine in 2022.

Despite his removal, the American people can still trust his “smart and hardworking” colleagues remaining on the FDA committee, he said.

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