Dr. Edwin Asturias found out Monday he had been fired from his volunteer position on a federal vaccine advisory committee the way the rest of the country did: He read about it in an op-ed written by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The official notice — a two-sentence email, he said — arrived later in the afternoon.
“It was surprising, the unprofessional way of dismissing people that have been committed to this work for some time,” Asturias said.
Asturias is a pediatrician and an infectious disease expert who works as a physician and a professor on the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. (Asturias was careful to note that his comments are not meant to reflect the views of the institutions he works with.)
Up until Monday, he was also a member of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, an influential body that reviews data on the safety and efficacy of vaccines and makes recommendations on who should receive them and when.
The committee’s recommendations are often among the last steps taken before a vaccine is approved, and states and governmental agencies often rely on those recommendations in determining, for instance, which vaccines should be required for school or which vaccines must be covered by insurance.
Kennedy, who has long been critical of vaccines and the regulatory bodies that approve them in the United States, fired all 17 members of the committee Monday, alleging that conflicts of interest required a clean sweep in order to restore public trust.
Edwin AsturiasBut, in an interview Wednesday, Asturias said he now worries the opposite will occur — that the removal of dedicated, recognized experts who had been working long term on assessing vaccine data will derail the committee’s work, disrupt vaccine research and development, and compromise public faith in the integrity of America’s health institutions.
“The concern was mainly who’s going to take on the work that we have been doing, and, of course, what’s going to happen with the work that has been done in terms of being prepared for the next decisions that are going to be made and recommendations that are going to be made by the committee,” Asturias said.
“What we are worried the most is that this decision is going to really undermine public trust in the vaccine process,” he added.
Asturias spoke Wednesday before Kennedy announced the appointment of eight new members — including some well-known vaccine critics.
Asturias said the review process before new committee members are nominated has historically taken months or even years, as CDC officials go through the prospective members’ experience and qualifications.
In his case, Asturias has had a more than 30-year career working on monitoring, studying, treating and preventing infectious diseases, both in Colorado and in Guatemala, where he is from. He served as Guatemala’s COVID-19 czar during the pandemic and has also previously worked on vaccine safety with the World Health Organization.
He said he had been looking forward to contributing to the committee when he was appointed last summer to a four-year term.
“Serving on the committee is a way of contributing to public health where, basically, you can now bring your expertise that you have accumulated through years of work into the committee,” Asturias said.
He disputed the notion that committee members were laden with conflicts of interest and served only as rubber stamps for vaccine approvals, two criticisms Kennedy has made.
ACIP members must file confidential financial disclosures and also disclose any conflicts of interest at the beginning of every meeting. Those with relevant conflicts must recuse themselves from votes.
In Asturias’ case, he does not receive any money from pharmaceutical companies currently — not in research funding or any other types of payments. But he has received such funding in the past, most notably about $3 million from drug-maker Pfizer to fund studies.
One of those studies looked at the effectiveness of a test Pfizer designed to diagnose pneumococcal pneumonia in children. Another looked at whether mothers transferred disease-fighting antibodies against RSV to their babies, especially those born prematurely.
Asturias said it makes sense that research on tests and treatments developed by private companies would be funded by those companies — and that researchers whose careers are devoted to studying the safety and efficacy of such products would at some point receive industry funding for their work.
“Many public health researchers have worked in the past with industry in some studies,” Asturias said. “That doesn’t mean that we necessarily have an active conflict of interest and that we carry the biases with us forever.”
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during a news conference on the autism report by the CDC at the Hubert Humphrey Building Auditorium in Washington, April 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)Asturias said the committee members worked diligently to review safety data on vaccines before recommending them and then continue watching safety data afterward to see if any rare side effects pop up.
Now, he said, he is worried the mass firing of committee members could have a chilling effect on vaccine development in the United States — manufacturers may not have confidence in the consistency of the review and approval process. Other countries, which he said have often looked to the United States for guidance on vaccine approvals, could capitalize by filling the role.
“My fear is that the vaccine development process and technology are going to go to other countries and probably affect, in the long run, the United States,” he said.
But Asturias said he and other fired committee members would not be deterred in their research.
“We, as individuals, will continue to work on immunization science and public health,” he said.
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