Armed with $240,000, the “Vaccine Integrity Project” is launching to provide a safeguard for vaccine use amid widespread misinformation campaigns and federal cuts to public health programs.
The University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) unveiled the program Thursday, with financial backing from iAlumbra, a foundation established by American philanthropist and Walmart heiress Christy Walton.
The initiative will be guided by an eight-member steering committee of U.S. public health and policy experts who will provide guidelines for maintaining vaccine use that is based on the best available science, according to the April 24 release.
The new committee will be co-chaired by Margaret Hamburg, M.D., former FDA commissioner and current co-president of the InterAcademy Partnership, an international consortium for academies of science, medicine and engineering. The other co-chair is Harvey Fineberg, M.D., Ph.D., past president of the National Academy of Medicine and current president of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.
The committee will make vaccine-related recommendations for nongovernment entities—such as CIDRAP—that are free of outside influence and focus on protecting Americans from vaccine-preventable diseases.
"This project acknowledges the unfortunate reality that the system that we've relied on to make vaccine recommendations and to review safety and effectiveness data faces threats," CIDRAP Director Michael Osterholm, Ph.D., said in the release. "It is prudent to evaluate whether independent activities may be needed to stand in its place and how non-governmental groups might operate to continue to provide science-based information to the American public."
Over the next four months, the Vaccine Integrity Project will hold information-gathering sessions with medical associations, public health organizations, state health officials, vaccine manufacturers, academic experts, insurers, healthcare systems, pharmacies and policymakers, according to the release.
Those discussions will inform the project’s scope, membership criteria and operational factors.
The group cited “a growing chorus of voices” questioning the safety and efficacy of vaccines and spreading distrust among Americans as the reason behind the launch.
Examples include directives from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Under his leadership, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has launched a study on the already disproven claim that vaccines are linked to autism. Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., former director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said he was ousted from the agency after trying to block RFK Jr. from unfettered access to a federal vaccine safety database, according to the Associated Press.
Alongside that, RFK Jr. has made massive cuts to the federal health agency workforce, programs and research. The culls come amid a measles outbreak in the U.S., for which RFK Jr. endorsed the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine earlier this month.
The CIDRAP also cited freshly tapped National Institutes of Health Director Jayanta Bhattacharya, M.D., Ph.D., who said he would support pulling regulatory approval for COVID-19 mRNA vaccines in a July 2024 post on the social media website X.
In a local example, the university pointed to a group of eight Republicans in the Minnesota House of Representatives who introduced a bill this week that would classify mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 as "weapons of mass destruction." The proposal would criminalize getting or administering the therapeutics, punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
The CIDRAP’s Osterholm said the new initiative isn’t a substitute for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which provides recommendations on vaccines to the CDC.
"Let me be clear, there is no alternative to the ACIP,” he said.