The abrupt removal of all of the members of the CDC's vaccine advisory panel by the health

secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has sparked outrage and worry among many public health experts.

That includes the American Medical Association, which called for a Senate investigation into Kennedy

today. Yesterday, Kennedy made his case in a column in the Wall Street Journal saying he was, quote,

prioritizing the restoration of public trust and argued the committee has been plagued with

persistent conflicts of interest. For some reaction, we're joined now by Dr. Tom Frieden,

president and CEO of the Global Health Organization resolved to save lives and a former director

of the CDC. Dr. Frieden,

thank you for being with us. So this advisory committee for the immunization practices, I imagine

most Americans didn't know it existed until RFK Jr. fired all of its members. What does this

committee do? How does it work? It's a really important committee, and it's been a model for the world in transparent, fact-based, effective decision-making.

Every presentation is live-streamed.

Everything is available on the Internet.

When I was CDC director, we had people coming from all over the world to watch it.

And the claim that it has conflicts of interest

is simply wrong. What the Department of Health and Human Services and CDC did was to post all

reported possible conflicts of interest over the last 20 or so years on the internet. Of the current

17 members, one has a potential

conflict of interest. That individual is a distinguished professor of pediatric infectious diseases,

and as is the policy, she recused herself from all issues which she may have had a conflict of interest.

Her conflict of interest was that she's a researcher who studied vaccines.

What's really important about this committee is that it gives guidance for doctors to know what to recommend to parents,

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