A Philly vaccine expert fired by RFK Jr. reflects on the ouster of the CDC’s director

Philadelphia researcher Charlotte Moser learned from news reports that she’d been fired from an appointed post on an influential vaccine advisory committee at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The entire committee was fired in June by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist prior to becoming President Donald Trump’s top health official.

Kennedy replaced all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) with a handpicked group that included several vaccine skeptics.

Moser, the codirector of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, once again found herself playing a role in national news on Thursday when the committee’s evisceration emerged as a factor in the high-profile firing of CDC director Susan Monarez.

Monarez refused to automatically sign off on recommendations by Kennedy’s reconstituted ACIP, the Associated Press reported, and also clashed over HHS directives to fire her management team. She had been in her position for less than a month.

Monarez was fired because she did not “align” with the president’s priorities, the White House said.

On Thursday, the White House appointed Jim O’Neill, currently the deputy secretary of HHS, as interim leader of the CDC.

In an interview on Fox News on Thursday, Kennedy said the CDC was “in trouble” and “it may be that some people should not be working there any more,” declining to comment on Monarez’s claims that her firing was politically motivated.

Several other top CDC executives resigned in protest as a high-profile standoff over her ouster played out. Lawyers for Monarez said the termination was illegal, because Kennedy lacked authority to fire her. The White House later said Trump had personally fired Monarez.

Moser said it’s important for the public to realize “that what’s happening is not normal.” She worries that Americans will lose trust in government public health agencies over the CDC director’s firing, as well as a series of recent changes to vaccine recommendations and licensing that bypassed traditional processes.

“People need to see these activities for the red flags they are,” Moser said.

She sees a decades-old process for approving and recommending vaccines becoming less transparent and informed by fewer opinions at the CDC.

“Historically, science led the way. That doesn’t appear to be the case anymore,” she said.

Moser was appointed to ACIP in July 2024 as the committee’s consumer representative. This followed two years of vetting, including rigorous checks for any conflicts of interest surrounding vaccines.

Moser has worked at CHOP for 33 years, conducting research and more recently developing educational materials on vaccines, including resources for parents and healthcare workers. She has a bachelor’s degree in biology and a master’s degree in communication.

Before her firing, she was waiting for CDC staff to process paperwork that ACIP advisers need to complete annually regarding potential conflicts of interest.

“We were being reassured by CDC staff that they felt it had to do with staffing layoffs and a human resources backup,” Moser said. “There was no anticipation we were being let go.”

Hours before she was fired, she was still receiving emails from CDC staff assuring her that her paperwork would soon be processed, she said.

Then when Kennedy announced his reasons for firing the committee, he described the move as intended to let the public know that ACIP was “insulated from conflicts of interest.”

“I knew I had no conflicts,” Moser said. “Everyone took that very seriously. It was really an important part of the vetting process.”

In replacing the entire ACIP committee, CDC has lost institutional expertise on vaccine recommendations, Moser said.

“We lose the knowledge that’s gained as people gain experience on the committee,” she said. “What you saw when you sat in those meetings was that people had this very rich, very important experience that informed how those recommendations were made.”

HHS representatives did not return a request for comment Thursday.

In Philadelphia, CHOP’s Vaccine Education Center director Paul Offit said that Moser and her fellow committee members were fired under false pretenses and that Monarez was similarly targeted.

Offit serves on a similar vaccine advisory committee at the Food and Drug Administration, which he said wasn’t consulted on the FDA’s recent, controversial decision to authorize COVID vaccines only for certain groups.

A nationally prominent vaccine expert, he has long criticized Kennedy’s anti-vaccine advocacy.

Offit said he no longer trusts ACIP’s recommendations and thinks many scientists and the general public should now turn to professional medical societies — many of which have pushed back on Kennedy’s actions — for medical recommendations.

“RFK Jr. is tearing public health and vaccine infrastructure apart,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.