UConn, Yale professors among experts ousted by RFK Jr. from CDC panel on vaccines

New Haven Register – Wednesday, June 11, 2025
By Natasha Sokoloff

When U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ousted the entire panel that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccine use on Monday, he also removed experts from Yale University and the University of Connecticut.

Albert Shaw of the Yale School of Medicine and George Kuchel of UConn Health were among the 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices abruptly gutted this week. It was a move that shocked the scientific community and drew sharp criticism from public health groups.

Kennedy, who emerged as one of the world’s leading anti-vaccine activists before becoming the nation’s top health official, wrote his decision was “needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science.”

Connecticut’s Shaw and Kuchel, along with the 15 other panelists, were Biden appointees, although it’s typically not viewed as a partisan board. Kennedy pledged to replace them with his own picks. He named eight new members on Wednesday.

Shaw, a professor of medicine in infectious diseases at the Yale School of Medicine and an infectious diseases physician, was supposed to serve on the independent vaccine advisory panel for two more years.

Shaw’s research focuses on the immunology of aging, and how “age-related changes in the body’s defenses can make people more vulnerable to infection and immune system complications,” according to his biography on the Yale website. “Dr. Shaw studies the ways in which the immune system’s first line of defense, called the innate immune system, changes with age. This includes investigating how these shifts might reduce vaccine effectiveness and contribute to ongoing, low-grade inflammation that can harm overall health,” according to the website.

Shaw did not immediately respond to a CT Insider request for comment.

Kuchel, a professor of medicine and the director of the UConn Center on Aging, was supposed to serve on the panel until 2028. Kuchel is the Travelers Chair in Geriatrics and Gerontology at UConn Health, whose research focuses on aging with expertise in vaccines and the immunology of aging, according to the UConn website.

He was appointed to the panel in July 2024.

“My colleagues and I who provide care for older adults and conduct aging research, look forward to playing our part in promoting health and independence in older adults through the judicious use of effective vaccines,” Kuchel had said in a UConn Today article in June 2024.

He did not immediately respond to a CT Insider request for comment.

Access this article at its original source.