A top COVID-19 vaccine adviser has reportedly resigned from her role at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the wake of an abrupt vaccine policy change announced by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. last week.
Pediatric infectious disease expert Dr. Lakshmi Panagiotakopoulos on Tuesday stepped down as co-leader of a CDC work group that helps shape the agency’s COVID-19 vaccine recommendations, and is set to leave the agency altogether, Reuters reported.
It comes after President Donald Trump’s health secretary declared last week that the CDC will no longer recommend COVID-19 vaccines to healthy children and healthy pregnant women—a move that reportedly blindsided CDC officials, who learned of the directive from social media.
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Kennedy’s announcement was subtly contradicted by the CDC, which days later updated its advice. It said COVID shots could be given to healthy children over 6 months old, but added a new condition that children and caregivers would need to consult their health-care providers.
The routine vaccination guidelines for adults were adjusted to remove pregnant women, effectively leaving that group without formal guidance.
Panagiotakopoulos did not provide a specific reason for her departure, but reportedly told colleagues in an email, “My career in public health and vaccinology started with a deep-seated desire to help the most vulnerable members of our population, and that is not something I am able to continue doing in this role.”
She served as one of the leaders of a work group on COVID-19 vaccines within the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).
Panagiotakopoulos and the CDC did not immediately return The Daily Beast’s requests for comment.
According to a LinkedIn profile, Panagiotakopoulos has worked at the CDC for nearly 10 years. As part of her work on the CDC’s COVID vaccine response efforts, she created a registry to monitor the safety of the jabs administered during pregnancy, another professional bio states.
Kennedy has denied being anti-vaccine, but his actions and words over the years have suggested otherwise. Amid a measles outbreak in Texas this year, he has promoted unproven treatments and baffling vaccine pseudoscience, even though the MMR vaccine is 97 percent effective in preventing the disease.
