Revamped CDC Panel Taps Covid Vaccine Critic to Lead Task Force
(Bloomberg) -- An influential vaccine panel’s task force will be led by a member who has previously expressed distrust in the Covid vaccine, weeks after a shooting on the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was fueled by Covid misinformation.
Retsef Levi, an operations professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will lead the Covid-19 immunization task force, a spokesperson for Health and Human Services confirmed without offering additional comment. Levi has previously said the Covid shots should be removed from the market and has called the safety of mRNA shots into question.
“The evidence is mounting and indisputable that MRNA vaccines cause serious harm including death, especially among young people. We have to stop giving them immediately!” Levi
posted on X in January 2023.
Levi was appointed to the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, in June during an
overhaul of the panel. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired all 17 members, citing high levels of conflicts of interest, and replaced them with seven members, many of which are vaccine critics.
Earlier this month, a gunman fired 200 bullets into the CDC and local authorities said he was motivated by
misinformation surrounding the Covid vaccine. Current and former HHS employees have
blamed Kennedy for spreading misinformation about vaccines prior to the attack. In May, Kennedy
removed the Covid vaccine from federal guidelines for healthy children and pregnant women, sparking medical organizations to still recommend the shot. Kennedy has also canceled mRNA
research contracts worth $500 million.
Levi, who does not have a medical degree, co-authored a
study earlier this year about people dying after receiving mRNA Covid shots.