MedPageToday Paul Offit’s latest term on VRBPAC ends abruptly … in paperwork. Pediatric vaccine expert Paul Offit, MD, a longtime critic of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has been removed from the FDA’s influential vaccine panel.
Offit had already served two 4-year terms on the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC), from 2017 to January 2025. He agreed to another 2-year term that was slated to end Jan. 31, 2027. But the paperwork to keep him on the FDA panel wasn’t approved by HHS, and he was notified last week that it meant he was off the committee. “I will miss it — I really loved the conversations I had with very smart people,” Offit told MedPage Today. But “in no way does it lessen this committee that I’m not on it. These are brilliant people, and in no way is our country getting less advice because I’m not on that committee.”