Covid Vaccine Opponent Tapped to Lead Federal Review Team

A task force formed by an influential advisory committee to review the safety of Covid vaccines will be led by a panel member who has described the shots as “the most failing medical product in the history of medical products.”

That member, Retsef Levi, is a management and health analytics expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and was appointed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to serve on the larger advisory committee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. On the social media site X, Dr. Levi pinned a video from 2023 in which he called for the Covid vaccines to be removed from the market.

The task force was announced by Dr. Robert Malone, an advisory committee member, vaccinologist and outspoken vaccine skeptic. He pointed to the mandate outlined on the C.D.C. website indicating the review team would look into questions about immunization injury reports and other concerns related to the shots. Some of those issues have long been debunked by experts.

The creation of the review team, a subgroup of the C.D.C. Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, is the latest twist in an escalating series of changes in vaccine policy by Mr. Kennedy.

The announcement caps a week when hundreds of C.D.C. employees called on him in an open letter to stop spreading misinformation, which they believe contributed to the attack on their Atlanta headquarters by a gunman earlier this month. The gunman had repeatedly aired concerns about the Covid vaccine before the assault, in which he killed a 33-year-old police officer.

Still, the new vaccine task force plans included a warning that its members should not work too closely with C.D.C. experts, to avoid the appearance of “undue influence.”

Dr. Levi, whose doctorate is in operations research, said in an interview with Maryanne Demasi, a journalist, posted on Wednesday that he planned to “engage a range of experts in different areas; leading scientists in academia and clinicians with field experience.”

He added: “I’m confident that together with colleagues at the C.D.C. and F.D.A. we’ll build a robust team.”

Asked to comment, Dr. Levi cited the response from Andrew Nixon, a Health and Human Services Department spokesman. Mr. Nixon defended the choice of Dr. Levi, saying the review group’s members would work alongside federal experts “to review the evidence with open minds and diverse perspectives.”

“While individual members may hold initial personal views, the task force’s work will be guided by data, transparency, open-mindedness and open deliberation — not by any single opinion,” he said. “We are confident this process will produce policy recommendations that put patients’ health and safety first.”

Experts who have reviewed the group’s mandate and recent publications from Mr. Kennedy’s administration justifying vaccine restrictions said there was reason to expect a new round of cherry-picking and half-truths about the vaccines.

“I’m concerned that it won’t be rigorous science, that it’s going to be more statistical manipulation,” said Dr. Jake Scott, an infectious disease expert at Stanford who published recent responses to the administration’s critiques on vaccines.

Dr. Edward Belongia, a vaccine expert who was a member of a previous Covid task force until he retired in May, said his team worked closely with C.D.C. officials who did in-depth analysis to examine any possible safety concerns. His group reviewed health issues including myocarditis and a rare clotting disorder linked to one vaccine. He said the integrity of the team was not questioned.

“That trust is gone now with an anti-vaccine zealot in charge,” he said. “And if they make some claim about safety, no one’s going to know whether or not they can believe it.”

Outside groups, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, have already begun to issue alternative vaccine recommendations, given the widespread distrust. Mr. Kennedy has fired back on social media, accusing the group of issuing “corporate-friendly” advice.

Data released in July showed that overall vaccine confidence is falling, but remains relatively high. More than 92 percent of parents continue to vaccinate young children who are entering kindergarten.

But confidence in the Covid vaccines has fallen sharply along political lines, with Democrats supporting them and Republicans being less enthusiastic. While about 87 percent of Democrats said they think that the Covid shots are somewhat or very safe, only 30 percent of Republicans agreed, according to a poll released in May by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Mr. Kennedy and other federal health officials have already begun limiting access to Covid vaccines, with a C.D.C. panel dropping recommendations for pregnant women and healthy children to get the shots.

Next week, the Food and Drug Administration is expected to approve updated fall mRNA vaccines targeted at a recent strain of the coronavirus. New restrictions will limit eligibility to only people 65 and older and younger people with medical conditions that put them at risk for severe illness.

This month, Mr. Kennedy cut $500 million in mRNA vaccine grants, saying they did not protect against Covid or the flu. Experts sharply criticized the move, pointing to the role the technology plays in rapidly protecting the population from a novel virus.

Mr. Kennedy has also begun efforts to overhaul the federal vaccine injury court, which has long been a target for him and for anti-vaccine groups that have claimed, incorrectly, that the courts confer strong liability protection to vaccine makers.

In June, Mr. Kennedy fired all 17 members on the A.C.I.P. committee — experts from top universities on vaccines, immunology and other disciplines. He replaced them with eight new members, who include people who had received funding for work that undermined the use of vaccines.

Although he cited “a history of conflicts of interest,” a recent study by University of Southern California researchers and a former F.D.A. official found that the prevalence of such conflicts among committee members has steadily declined from 2000 through 2024.

In his justification of the firings, Mr. Kennedy also noted that “the groups that inform A.C.I.P. meet behind closed doors, violating the legal and ethical principle of transparency crucial to maintaining public trust.”

The new group, however, declared it plans to continue the tradition of holding closed meetings. Its meetings and materials are to be “considered confidential,” according to a group document.

Dr. Tom Frieden, a former C.D.C. director, rebutted recent contentions that the Covid vaccines were ineffective or harmful. He said in a statement that the vaccines “prevented hundreds of thousands of deaths in the U.S. and 2.5 million deaths globally.” He also criticized a recent move by A.C.I.P. to curtail access to some flu vaccines over long-disproved theories about a preservative in the shots.

“The politicization of the committee has already led to certain flu vaccines not being recommended,” he said, “with more decisions that restrict access to vaccines likely to come.”