Frustrated by potential threats of defamation lawsuits, yesterday the New York Times tried to disguise its sneering criticism in a story neutrally headlined, “RFK Jr. Announces Eight New Members of CDC Vaccine Advisory Panel.” But that journalistic restraint immediately evaporated in the sub-headline: “The health secretary promised not to pick ‘anti-vaxxers.’ But some public health leaders accused him of breaking his word.”
Let’s start with the actual news. After summarily firing all 17 members of the CDC’s ACIP vaccine guidance committee earlier this week, yesterday, HHS Secretary Kennedy announced the first eight replacements. Each knows they are walking into the media’s pharma-fueled, character-assassinating buzzsaw. The victims, er, volunteers, include: Martin Kulldorff, MD, PhD (Harvard); Robert W. Malone, MD; Cody Meissner, MD (Dartmouth); Retsef Levi, PhD (MIT); Joseph R. Hibbeln, MD (former NIH); James Pagano, MD (UCLA); Vicky Pebsworth, OP, PhD, RN (Nat. Assoc. of Catholic Nurses); and Michael A. Ross, MD (GWU).
The short version is: this is terrific news. The best evidence of that from the story was the reaction from the deep-state’s grandfatherly seeming tool, Dr. Paul Offit, who was so outraged he is already thinking of taking his medieval torture toys home and making his own ACIP committee just to show them. “What Kennedy just did was, he lost the trust of the medical community,” Dr. Offit snarled, “so much so that people are thinking, ‘Should we try and create our own A.C.I.P., our own vaccine advisory committee?’ Because you can’t trust this one.”
Oh, no. RFK lost the trust of the medical community? You mean, Kennedy had that trust before? I say, go for it, Paul, you big talker, make your own committee and let’s see.
In a very cowardly fashion, without naming which ones, and carefully attributing the quote not to itself but to GWU Law School professor Richard Hughes, the Times claimed, “three of the new members are ‘legitimate physicians’ who have ‘no discernible expertise’ in immunology or vaccines. But he characterized the remaining four as ‘Covid-19 deniers, skeptics and outright anti-vaccine individuals.’”
Not one single favorable quote appeared anywhere in the Times ‘fair and balanced’ article. Rubbish.
“By far the most contentious pick, and the one with the highest profile,” the Times soberly informed readers, signaling the smear to come, “is Dr. Robert Malone.”
I know Robert and consider him a friend. Not the kind of friend that I watch football games with or take joint family vacations, but a battlefield comrade, with affections forged in the fiery crucible of pandemic cancellation, back when it was especially risky to oppose government policy at all.
Malone, who holds some of the earliest mRNA patents and has never been contradicted over his claim to have invented the technology, was an early and vocal critic of the covid vaccines. Owing to his credentials and his incomparable knowledge of the mRNA platform, Dr. Malone’s voice was one of the most challenging and difficult for the establishment to rebut. They hated him, in other words (and still do, quite fiercely, in fact).
Not only that, but Dr. Malone is a deep reservoir of institutional knowledge, gained through his own professional experience in vaccine development, arcane government skunkworks operations, and the defense industry’s inexplicable involvement in the biomedical sector. He took the first two shots and promptly got a serious vaccine injury, which he barely survived.
Within the MAHA movement, there is a deep thread of dour skepticism about Dr. Malone, owing in part to a highly public personal conflict with some well-loved MAHA authors. It is also (I think) because he clings to a position that some kind of mRNA could still be useful (if properly and carefully designed), and because he used to dwell in the back acres of the deep state’s alligator farm. Not that my opinion matters, but —though I understand the concerns— I do not share these concerns. (Nor does Michelle, who is a super suspicious and reliable human fraud detector.)
My ‘endorsement,’ such as it is, is built mostly on the foundation of Dr. Malone’s early and enthusiastic opposition to the jabs. We first met when we were all touring the country speaking out against the vaccines and the mandates everywhere that would have us, at a time when to do so invited instant professional destruction. Basking in 2025’s wonderful gifts, it is easy now to forget how outmatched we were in political power and media access at that time.
It took a lot of faith and courage to step out and take the podium in 2021 and 2022. Believe me. So much so that it has become my new intelligence test: what was the person’s position during the mandates?
Beyond Robert Malone, Kennedy’s other picks —obviously pre-planned— were also a gift bag of MAHA goodness. Martin Kulldorf, for example, was one of the three co-authors of the Great Barrington Declaration, which caused all three scientists to be immediately placed on the U.S. federal government’s personal destruction list. He was eventually fired from all his jobs, but before that, he helped Governor DeSantis unwind pandemic mania in Florida.
Retsef Levi, the MIT professor, conducted some of the earliest studies on covid vaccine safety signals. In 2023, he called for the shots to be withdrawn:
BOOM!!!
Prof Retsef Levi (@RetsefL) of MIT calls to stop all covid MRNA shots immediately!!
"…UNPRECENDENTED LEVEL of HARD and DEATH of YOUNG CHILDREN…" pic.twitter.com/pFNw8oMYUj
— aussie17 (@_aussie17) January 30, 2023
The others were equally strong. Here’s a little roundup of their pandemic bona fides.
These appointments are a worst-case scenario for Big Pharma. Not just because these picks are MAHA-friendly, but for two additional reasons. First, they were all savvy enough during the pandemic to avoid saying disqualifying things —things we all know, and many of us wished they would say out loud— but they were wiser than we were, and they played the institutional long game. So they all possess sharp political skills.
Second, they are all veteran survivors of cancel culture. They have proven beyond doubt, under duress, that they believe in speaking the truth regardless of the cost, and they don’t care what the media says about them.
It’s also a worst-case scenario for the media. With the possible exception of Dr. Malone, none of Kennedy’s picks are “public figures,” which means corporate media must be incredibly careful to avoid defaming them. One of the classic grounds for a solid defamation claim is saying anything that casts doubt on “a person’s suitability for their chosen profession.”
Truth is a defense to defamation. But you’d better be able to prove it, which makes opinion-based defamation extremely dangerous. It’s impossible to prove a label or an opinion. For example, carelessly calling someone a “racist” is super risky. Can you prove that? Can you show evidence they were … what? A member of the KKK? A published black supremacist? The evidence better be solid, not just someone reposting a meme calling Kamala a “hoe.”
So the Times couldn’t publish the eight-way hit piece it wanted. It was all tied up by its legal department’s concerns. It wanted so badly to trash each and every one of Kennedy’s new committee members, but that would have practically guaranteed several visits from the process server.
So far as I know, the ACIP does not need 17 members. So Kennedy might stop at eight. This could be it. The Committee’s next meeting is later this month, and you better believe the livestream will be well attended.
