Exclusive-Kennedy aide and vaccine critic questions recent expert recommendations

By Dan Levine and Leah Douglas

An aide to U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is seeking more information about three vaccines recommended by a panel of outside experts last month, according to documents reviewed by Reuters and two sources familiar with the situation.

The advisory panel to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had made recommendations regarding the use of separate shots approved to help protect against RSV, meningitis and chikungunya. The CDC is not required to adopt their recommendations, but when it does, they become guidelines for medical practitioners to follow.

Dr. William “Reyn” Archer III joined the Health and Human Services Department, which oversees CDC, as a counselor in the secretary's office after Kennedy took over in February, HHS records show. A critic of vaccines on social media for the past several years, Archer served as Texas state health commissioner in the late 1990s.

Archer’s hiring and activity at HHS have not previously been reported. His role reviewing the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ recommendations is the latest indication of how Kennedy, who has spent decades raising doubts about the safety and efficacy of vaccines, is reshaping U.S. policy.

HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said the agency "will ensure that all recommendations adhere to the Gold Standard of Science."

As part of his HHS role, Archer has in recent days posed questions to the CDC about the advisory committee recommendations, according to the documents and the two sources.

One recommendation would expand eligibility for RSV vaccines made by Pfizer and GSK to high-risk adults aged 50-59 from a current threshold age of at least 60 years.

In response, Archer asked for more justification of the expansion given what he described as a “possible decline in efficacy with a second dose,” according to the documents and two sources.

At the ACIP meeting, a GSK representative presented clinical trial results the company described as showing “robust” immune responses following re-vaccination.

However, antibody levels did not surpass those of the first dose, as often occurs with other vaccines. HHS did not say what data prompted Archer to question second dose efficacy.

A GSK spokesperson said the data showed waning efficacy of a single dose over time, but not enough to justify re-vaccination yet. A Pfizer spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

ACIP also voted to recommend expanded use of GSK's vaccine for meningitis, and Archer questioned how providers administer it.

In addition, ACIP recommended the use of a new chikungunya vaccine from Bavarian Nordic, which Archer has not disputed. However, Kennedy's aide asked for more information about a recommendation to expand the use of a vaccine for the mosquito-borne virus made by Valneva, the documents show.

Archer also asked to know what adjuvants and platforms are being used for all the vaccines discussed at the ACIP meeting, and their length of immunity.

FROM TEXAS TO WASHINGTON

Kennedy is currently reviewing the latest ACIP recommendations in the absence of a CDC director, and it is unclear whether the HHS secretary will ultimately sign off on them.

The decision will impact public health and major drug companies. Pfizer and GSK last month touted ACIP’s vote to lower the age at which adults can be eligible for their respective RSV vaccines, decisions that affect whether insurers will likely pay for them. The FDA previously approved the age expansion.

Kennedy says he is not opposed to vaccination, but described them as a personal choice in the midst of a large U.S. measles outbreak mostly among the unvaccinated. Kennedy argues that the nation's health bureaucracy should focus on chronic illness.

Archer is a trained obstetrician who served in the early 1990s as a deputy assistant secretary of HHS under the administration of George H.W. Bush. At HHS, he helped implement a so-called gag rule restricting medical providers at federally-funded clinics from advising patients on abortion, according to court documents and media reports.

He was appointed by then-Texas Governor George W. Bush to serve as commissioner of the state's Department of Health. He resigned in 2000 after a Black administrator in the department secretly recorded him making comments about her race, according to an Associated Press report at the time.

Archer later served as chief of staff for Congressman Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska from 2016 to 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Fortenberry, who opposed COVID-19 vaccine mandates during his tenure, was subsequently charged with lying to federal authorities about a campaign donation. The Justice Department dropped those charges after President Donald Trump took office in January.

On his personal Facebook page, Archer posted repeatedly from 2020 to 2022 about the "limitations" of the COVID vaccine, Reuters found. In a deleted post on X, accessed with the Internet Archive, Archer said as Texas health commissioner he felt pressure to support vaccine mandates without "scientific counterfactual.”

"My own son developed autism in early years then took his life at 16," he said in the post, which linked to a Trump campaign ad critical of the measles vaccine.

Kennedy had long promoted a debunked link between vaccines and autism, contrary to scientific evidence, and last month promised a study to determine the cause of the condition.