Kirk Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist who became chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices in December,[…]downplayed established science on vaccines during an interview for the podcast and suggested policy goals, not new research, were the driving force behind changing recommendations[…]
When asked why the committee had revised existing recommendations[…]“Yeah, because we were concerned about mandates, and mandates have really harmed and increased hesitancy”

The current members of the ACIP were handpicked by health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.[…]
In the interview, Milhoan clearly laid out what he sees as the goal of the new ACIP: protecting individual rights over public health

“What we are doing is returning individual autonomy to the first order, not public health, but individual autonomy to the first order”[…]
“[Patients] should be making the decisions on what the risks are of disease[…]” he said[…]
Overall, the spectre of Covid-19 loomed large for Milhoan in the podcast[…]
“People couldn’t go to school, and they couldn’t do this, and they couldn’t do this, to get a vaccine that has really been a large failure,” he said[…]
At the same time, Milhoan cast doubt on the scientific rigor of current public health decision-making. “I don’t like established science,” he said, adding “science is what I observe”[…]
Asked about his thoughts on polio and measles vaccines, Milhoan seemed to question whether both are still necessary[…]
“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. 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,” Milhoan said

“When … we talk about the risk of, let’s say, measles, many of those risks of not getting measles without having a vaccine was in the 1960s. We take care of children much differently now”