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Kirk Milhoan’s comments come as federal vaccine policy slides to insignificance.
Kirk Milhoan, James Pagano, and Robert Malone are seen during a meeting of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices on September 18, 2025 in Chamblee, Georgia. Credit: Getty | Elijah Nouvelage
The chair of a federal vaccine advisory panel under anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made his stance clear on vaccines in a podcast last week—and that stance was so alarming that the American Medical Association was compelled to respond with a scathing statement.
Kirk Milhoan, who was named chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in December, appeared on the aptly named podcast “Why Should I Trust You.” In the hour-long interview, Milhoan made a wide range of comments that have concerned medical experts and raised eyebrows.
Early into the discussion, Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist, declared, “I don’t like established science,” and that “science is what I observe.” He lambasted the evidence-based methodology that previous ACIP panels used to carefully and transparently craft vaccine policy.
While arguing that he was not anti-vaccine, he said he was merely focused on safety and made false claims about vaccine risks, a common trope among anti-vaccine activists. He falsely linked vaccines to allergies, asthma, and eczema and repeated a claim, without evidence, that COVID-19 vaccines killed children. When pressed by the podcast hosts, he revealed that he put the risk of vaccine side effects on the same footing as the risks from the diseases the shots prevent—despite the fact that disease risks are often orders of magnitude larger than the tiny risks from vaccines.
In response to pushback from the hosts, Milhoan objected to the idea that the measles and polio vaccines reduced the spread of those diseases. He went further, questioning the need for those vaccines as well as routine vaccinations, generally.
“I think also as you look at polio, we need to not be afraid to consider that we are in a different time now than we were then,” he said, referring to the time before the first polio vaccines were developed in the 1950s. “Our sanitation is different. Our risk of disease is different. And so those all play into the evaluation of whether this is worthwhile of taking a risk for a vaccine or not.”
He then pondered out loud what would happen if people stopped getting vaccinated. “If we take away all of the herd immunity, then does that switch, does that teeter-totter switch in a different direction?” he asked.
Backlash
In a statement, AMA Trustee Sandra Adamson Fryhofer blasted the question. “This is not a theoretical debate—it is a dangerous step backward,” she said. “Vaccines have saved millions of lives and virtually eliminated devastating diseases like polio in the United States. There is no cure for polio. When vaccination rates fall, paralysis, lifelong disability, and death return. The science on this is settled.”
Fryhofer also took aim at Milhoan’s repeated argument that the focus of vaccination policy should move from population-level health to individual autonomy. Moving away from routine immunizations, which include discussions between clinicians and patients, “does not increase freedom—it increases suffering,” she said, adding that the weakening of recommendations “will cost lives.”
Overall, Milhoan’s comments only further erode the relevance of ACIP and federal vaccine policy among the medical community and states. According to a KFF policy brief, 27 states and Washington, DC, have already announced they will not follow current CDC vaccine recommendations, which Kennedy dramatically overhauled earlier this month without even consulting the ACIP. Instead, the majority of states are relying on previous recommendations or recommendations made within states or by medical organizations.
On Monday, the American Academy of Pediatrics announced the 2026 update to its childhood and adolescent vaccine schedule, which it has held up as an alternative to the CDC’s schedule and has been widely embraced by pediatricians. In the announcement, AAP noted that 12 other medical organizations have endorsed the schedule, including the AMA, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society.
The AAP’s updated recommendations are largely the same as the schedule from last year, but it is significantly different from the CDC’s recommendations, which “depart from longstanding medical evidence and no longer offer the optimal way to prevent illnesses in children,” the AAP said.
“The AAP will continue to provide recommendations for immunizations that are rooted in science and are in the best interest of the health of infants, children and adolescents of this country,” AAP President Andrew Racine said in the announcement.
Kirk Milhoan, James Pagano, and Robert Malone are seen during a meeting of the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices on September 18, 2025 in Chamblee, Georgia. Credit: Getty | Elijah Nouvelage
The chair of a federal vaccine advisory panel under anti-vaccine Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made his stance clear on vaccines in a podcast last week—and that stance was so alarming that the American Medical Association was compelled to respond with a scathing statement.
Kirk Milhoan, who was named chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in December, appeared on the aptly named podcast “Why Should I Trust You.” In the hour-long interview, Milhoan made a wide range of comments that have concerned medical experts and raised eyebrows.
Early into the discussion, Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist, declared, “I don’t like established science,” and that “science is what I observe.” He lambasted the evidence-based methodology that previous ACIP panels used to carefully and transparently craft vaccine policy.
While arguing that he was not anti-vaccine, he said he was merely focused on safety and made false claims about vaccine risks, a common trope among anti-vaccine activists. He falsely linked vaccines to allergies, asthma, and eczema and repeated a claim, without evidence, that COVID-19 vaccines killed children. When pressed by the podcast hosts, he revealed that he put the risk of vaccine side effects on the same footing as the risks from the diseases the shots prevent—despite the fact that disease risks are often orders of magnitude larger than the tiny risks from vaccines.
In response to pushback from the hosts, Milhoan objected to the idea that the measles and polio vaccines reduced the spread of those diseases. He went further, questioning the need for those vaccines as well as routine vaccinations, generally.
“I think also as you look at polio, we need to not be afraid to consider that we are in a different time now than we were then,” he said, referring to the time before the first polio vaccines were developed in the 1950s. “Our sanitation is different. Our risk of disease is different. And so those all play into the evaluation of whether this is worthwhile of taking a risk for a vaccine or not.”
He then pondered out loud what would happen if people stopped getting vaccinated. “If we take away all of the herd immunity, then does that switch, does that teeter-totter switch in a different direction?” he asked.
Backlash
In a statement, AMA Trustee Sandra Adamson Fryhofer blasted the question. “This is not a theoretical debate—it is a dangerous step backward,” she said. “Vaccines have saved millions of lives and virtually eliminated devastating diseases like polio in the United States. There is no cure for polio. When vaccination rates fall, paralysis, lifelong disability, and death return. The science on this is settled.”
Fryhofer also took aim at Milhoan’s repeated argument that the focus of vaccination policy should move from population-level health to individual autonomy. Moving away from routine immunizations, which include discussions between clinicians and patients, “does not increase freedom—it increases suffering,” she said, adding that the weakening of recommendations “will cost lives.”
Overall, Milhoan’s comments only further erode the relevance of ACIP and federal vaccine policy among the medical community and states. According to a KFF policy brief, 27 states and Washington, DC, have already announced they will not follow current CDC vaccine recommendations, which Kennedy dramatically overhauled earlier this month without even consulting the ACIP. Instead, the majority of states are relying on previous recommendations or recommendations made within states or by medical organizations.
On Monday, the American Academy of Pediatrics announced the 2026 update to its childhood and adolescent vaccine schedule, which it has held up as an alternative to the CDC’s schedule and has been widely embraced by pediatricians. In the announcement, AAP noted that 12 other medical organizations have endorsed the schedule, including the AMA, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society.
The AAP’s updated recommendations are largely the same as the schedule from last year, but it is significantly different from the CDC’s recommendations, which “depart from longstanding medical evidence and no longer offer the optimal way to prevent illnesses in children,” the AAP said.
“The AAP will continue to provide recommendations for immunizations that are rooted in science and are in the best interest of the health of infants, children and adolescents of this country,” AAP President Andrew Racine said in the announcement.
