In a matter of weeks, the credibility of the U.S. vaccine advisory panel has been upended after Kennedy removed all 17 of its highly respected members.

During his Senate confirmation hearings, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suggested he wouldn’t undermine vaccines. “I am not going to go into HHS and impose my preordained opinions on anybody at HHS,” he said. “I’m going to empower the scientists at HHS to do their job and make sure that we have good science that is evidence based.”