Top CDC Vaccine Adviser Challenges Critics to Debate

Martin Kulldorff said former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention directors should engage in an ‘open and honest’ debate with him.

Martin Kulldorff, chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, speaks during a committee meeting at the CDC headquarters in Atlanta on June 25, 2025. Mike Stewart/AP Photo

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s top outside vaccine adviser on Sept. 18 called on critics to debate him.

As the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) opened its second meeting since being restructured, the committee’s chair, Martin Kulldorff, said that members of the public who are wondering who to trust in the current discussions about vaccines should “only trust scientists who are willing to engage with and publicly debate the scientists with other views.”