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Members include some with FDA or CDC committee backgrounds

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Some members have expressed anti-vaccine views

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Kennedy says they will attend June 25 ACIP meeting

(Adds details on new members in paragraphs 1-6 and 14-15; adds

share movements in paragraph 10)

By Ahmed Aboulenein, Julie Steenhuysen and Michael Erman

WASHINGTON, June 11 (Reuters) - U.S. Health Secretary

Robert Kennedy Jr. named eight members to serve on a key panel

of vaccine advisers on Wednesday, including several who have

advocated against vaccines, after abruptly firing all 17 members

of the independent committee of experts.

They will sit on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention's Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices,

which advises the agency on who should get the shots after they

are approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The group of eight - the minimum number allowed by the ACIP

founding charter - includes four who have previously worked on

committees associated with either the CDC, the Food and Drug

Administration, or both.

Others have published papers, posted on social media, or

written online biographies with anti-vaccine views, including

against the mRNA vaccine technology used in some of the newest

immunizations such as the COVID-19 vaccine.

Among them is Robert Malone, one of the most prominent

voices opposing mRNA vaccines. He is aligned with Kennedy's Make

America Healthy Again movement.

The group also includes Joseph Hibbeln, Martin Kulldorff,

Retsef Levi, Cody Meissner, James Pagano, Vicky Pebsworth and

Michael Ross.

Kennedy, who has long questioned the safety of vaccines

contrary to scientific evidence, alleged that the prior panel

members, many of whom were appointed by President Joe Biden, had

conflicts of interest, without providing evidence of specific

members' conflicts. He said the move was necessary "to

re-establish public confidence in vaccine science."

Committee members said their ACIP work follows rigorous

vetting of their financial ties and that they must abstain from

votes on any vaccine for which they have a conflict.

Kennedy said on X that the panel would attend the

committee's June 25 meeting. Advisers had been expected to

deliberate and vote on who should receive a number of vaccines,

including the flu shot and 2025-26 COVID-19 vaccine boosters,

and the meeting had been slated for June 25-27. No agenda has

been published yet.

Shares of vaccine makers Moderna ( MRNA ) and Pfizer ( PFE )

, which both produced mRNA COVID vaccines, fell

marginally while those of Novavax ( NVAX ), which did not

utilize mRNA in its vaccine, rose marginally in after-hours

trading.

NEW MEMBERS

It is unclear how new members of the panel have been vetted

for conflicts of interest, or when the vetting process began.

Meissner and Pebsworth have served on the FDA's Vaccines and

Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, and Meissner

also previously served on ACIP. Pebsworth is now associated with

the National Vaccine Information Center, a group that advocates

for vaccine exemptions and educates about vaccine injury.

Kulldorff is an architect of the Great Barrington

Declaration, which called for a lighter public health response

to COVID-19 in October 2020, and previously served on an ACIP

vaccine safety subgroup.

Levi has in the past said mRNA vaccines can cause serious

harm and death, especially among children, and called for their

immediate withdrawal.

Ross, a professor at George Washington University, is an

operating partner of Havencrest Capital Management, a firm

focused on healthcare investments, according to its website.

The FDA has found that the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are

generally safe and effective, but Commissioner Marty Makary has

questioned the benefit of repeated annual shots for healthy,

younger Americans.