Dec. 1 (UPI) — Former Harvard Medical School professor and CDC vaccine adviser Dr. Martin Kulldorff has been appointed to a senior role at the Department of Health and Human Services, where he will provide policy advice to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Kulldorff, an epidemiologist and biostatistician, will become the chief science officer for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, or ASPE, the department announced Monday. He most recently chaired the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
“Martin Kulldorff transformed ACIP from a rubber stamp into a committee that delivers gold-standard science for the American people,” Kennedy said. “I’m glad to welcome him to my team to help develop bold, evidence-based policies to Make America Healthy Again.”
Kulldorff’s ascension to the CDC and now the HHS is receiving some pushback after he claimed he was fired from Harvard, and from his work as an epidemiologist at Mass General Brigham in 2021, for “objecting both publicly and privately” to COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
“ACIP should make recommendations based on what they think is best for children. I don’t think we should be involved in mandating any vaccines. That’s not our role,” Kulldorff told Politico in October.
“More generally about mandates, I think mandates of the COVID vaccine were very detrimental, and I think that’s one of the big driving forces behind what we see now in public health,” he added. “Those mandates were both unscientific and unethical.”
Kulldorff says with increased confidence in vaccines, “mandates are not necessary. You can have high vaccination coverage without mandates.”
Kulldorff argued in an October 2020 memorandum that lockdowns before the COVID vaccine was developed “caused irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.”
On Monday, National Institutes of Health Director and former Stanford professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya recalled the memorandum he co-wrote with Kulldorff, recommending that workplaces and schools remain open to allow the United States to achieve “herd immunity.”
“Five years ago, Martin Kulldorff and I co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration calling for an end to pandemic lockdowns,” Bhattacharya said. “That evidence-based approach to public health now permeates HHS.”
Before ACIP, Kulldorff helped build the CDC and U.S. Food and Drug Administration vaccine and drug safety surveillance systems. He has also served on the FDA Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee, as well as on the ACIP COVID-19 Vaccine Safety Technical Work Group.
“It’s an honor to join the team of distinguished scientists that Secretary Kennedy has assembled,” Kulldorff said Monday. “I look forward to contributing to the science-based public health policies that will Make America Healthy Again.”
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