FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 10, 2025

Contact: Jack Cardinal, jcardinal@communitycatalyst.org

Washington, D.C. — In response to Monday’s announcement that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will remove and replace all members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), Community Catalyst issued the following statement:

Statement from Dr. Brandon G. Wilson, Senior Director of Health Innovation and Public Health at Community Catalyst:

“Yesterday’s so-called ‘bold step’ is nothing more than a dangerous escalation of the Kennedy-Trump administration’s ongoing war on science and public health. By purging the nation’s top vaccine experts and stacking the committee with political appointees, this administration is undermining the very trust in vaccines they claim to be restoring.

“Public trust is built through transparency, independent science, and engagement with communities — not through political purges, disinformation, and ideological control of public health agencies. At a time when preventable diseases are resurging, this move puts lives at risk and further politicizes decisions that should be guided by evidence and public interest, not conspiracy theories and personal agendas.

“Community Catalyst will continue to stand with public health experts, scientists, and communities to defend a health system grounded in equity, facts, and the right of all people to live healthy lives.”

Community Catalyst has a demonstrated record of expanding partnerships and building trust on vaccines. Through its vaccine equity work, Community Catalyst partnered with 123 community-based organizations providing more than 145,000 vaccinations and distributing COVID-19 and influenza vaccine information to 163 million people across the country.

Learn more about Community Catalyst’s work to advance Community-First Public Health priorities, as well as vaccine equity. Our community report on Long COVID can also be found here.

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About Community Catalyst:

Community Catalyst is a national organization dedicated to building the power of people to create a health system rooted in race equity and health justice, and a society where health is a right for all. We’re an experienced, trusted partner to organizations across the country, a change agent to policymakers at the local, state, and national level, and both an adversary and a collaborator to health systems in our efforts to advance health justice. We partner with local, state and national organizations and leaders to leverage and build power so that people are at the center of important decisions about health and health care, whether they are made by health care executives, in state houses, or on Capitol Hill. Together with partners, we’re building a powerful, united movement with a shared vision of and strategy for a health system accountable to all people. Learn more at www.communitycatalyst.org.