MedPage Today‘s enterprise and investigative team in July 2025. A 25-year journalism veteran, he has covered everything from misinformation to public health data in roles at USA Today, The Associated Press, and CBS 17 News in North Carolina, where he lives with his family. He holds a bacheloru2019s degree in journalism from West Virginia University and a masteru2019s from Northwestern Universityu2019s Medill School of Journalism. On Sundays, you can often find him on a baseball diamond, playing the sport competitively. Email him at j.mccreary@medpagetoday.com with story ideas and tips.”,”affiliation”:””,”credential”:””,”url_identifier”:”jm7987″,”avatar_url”:”https://assets.medpagetoday.net/media/images/author/BETTER_JOEDY_MUG_188.jpg”,”avatar_alt_text”:”Joedy McCreary”,”twitter”:”https://x.com/joedymccreary”,”links”:{“signal”:””,”bluesky”:”https://bsky.app/profile/joedymccreary.bsky.social”,”website”:””,”linkedin”:””,”muckrack”:”https://www.medpagetoday.com/people/gb5181/gillian-booth”},”has_author_page”:1,”byline”:”Enterprise & Investigative Writer, MedPage Today”,”full_name”:”Joedy McCreary”,”title”:”Enterprise & Investigative Writer, MedPage Today, “,”url”:”https://www.medpagetoday.com/people/jm7987/joedy-mccreary”,”bluesky”:”https://bsky.app/profile/joedymccreary.bsky.social”}]” reviewedby date=”September 29, 2025″ updatedate=”September 29, 2025″ timetoread=”4 min read” articlehasdatawrapper breaking=”3″>
Special Reports
>
Exclusives
— Can physicians paid to testify in court be trusted as impartial voices in public health policy?
by Joedy McCreary, Enterprise & Investigative Writer, MedPage Today
September 29, 2025 • 4 min read
When a Harvard epidemiologist was found to have been paid nearly $150,000 to testify against Tylenol’s manufacturer, it reignited a long-running debate about whether physicians who serve as paid courtroom experts can later be impartial voices in shaping public health policy.
The issue resurfaced after the White House promoted unproven claims linking acetaminophen (Tylenol) and autism — an argument leaning in part on research by Andrea Baccarelli, MD, PhD, of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. Court records from 2023 show Baccarelli collected the six-figure sum for more than 200 hours of work as an expert witness for plaintiffs suing the drug’s manufacturer.
“You tell me that the guy has testified against Tylenol within any reasonable period of time — within several years, I would say — that seems to me like a conflict. At least, in appearance,” said Peter Lurie, MD, MPH, a former FDA official now serving as the president and executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Two members of the CDC’s reconstituted Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) also previously worked as paid experts in lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers, charging hundreds of dollars per hour.
“You can really clean up doing this kind of work,” Lurie told MedPage Today.
Richard Dutton, MD, MBA, of U.S. Anesthesia Partners in Dallas who has studied the practice, estimated that physicians earn about $500 an hour on average for expert witness work, with advanced testimony sometimes reaching $1,000 an hour. For most, he said, it accounts for less than 5% of annual income.
“When you testify or give a deposition, you’re always asked, ‘Well, how much do you charge for this?'” Dutton told MedPage Today. “That’s always transparent. … It doesn’t get discussed as much as it probably should.”
ACIP’s Transparency Gap
In June, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. dismissed all 17 ACIP committee members, calling them “plagued with persistent conflicts of interest” tied to industry. He appointed seven replacements that month and added five more in September, including several who have expressed skepticism about vaccines.
“It’s an obvious inconsistency to scream and shout about conflict of interest, and then add people with obvious conflicts of interest,” said Lurie, who co-authored an August research letter reporting that ACIP’s conflict-of-interest prevalence had fallen to “historically low” levels by 2024.
The CDC in May launched a public database of ACIP conflicts dating to 2000. However, the tool includes only disclosures made at meetings, not the confidential financial forms or Office of Government Ethics filings that members must also submit.
The database was last updated July 10 and lists only two of its current members:
- H. Cody Meissner, MD, of the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth University in Hanover, New Hampshire, who logged 12 disclosures during his 2008-12 term.
- Vicky Pebsworth, PhD, RN, who reported at a June meeting that she owns stock in a healthcare fund including vaccine makers, though below federal disclosure thresholds.
HHS officials had said members’ ethics forms would be released before the new committee’s first meeting in June, but as of late September, none had been made public. An HHS spokesperson did not directly answer MedPage Today‘s request for an update.
“All ACIP members have undergone ethics review,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “The Department of Health and Human Services comprehensively reviewed all newly appointed ACIP members for conflicts of interests in accordance with federal law, regulations, and departmental polices.”
Rules vs Reality
An ACIP policy manual from June 2022 prohibits members from serving as paid litigation consultants or expert witnesses in cases involving vaccine manufacturers while on the panel. A CDC spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions about whether those procedures remain in place.
At least two current members — including chair Martin Kulldorff, PhD — were hired as expert witnesses before their appointments began.
In an October 2024 deposition, Kulldorff said he billed $33,000 for approximately 82 hours of work at $400 an hour, plus a $4,000 retainer, in a lawsuit against Merck alleging its human papillomavirus vaccine Gardasil causes cancer.
Another member, Robert Malone, MD, disclosed in a June 12 X post that he had served as an expert in a 2019 lawsuit against Merck over its mumps vaccine, charging $350 per hour and raising his rate to $450. He told MedPage Today he ended that work before joining ACIP and declined later consulting offers. He also posted on June 12 that he completed 3 months of ethics vetting and conflict-of-interest training before his appointment.
At ACIP’s September meeting, Malone abstained from discussions and votes on measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella vaccines, citing “pre-existing legal agreements.” HHS attorneys advised he could take part in discussion but not vote, he said, but he opted to recuse himself completely.
“I chose to take a more strict interpretation of my legal agreement and completely recuse myself from any aspect of the ACIP [measles, mumps, rubella/measles, mumps, rubella, varicella] discussions as well as the vote,” he said. He added that he “cannot be involved in any research of any kind regarding mumps vaccines, ever.”
Malone’s experience underscores a broader concern: ACIP conflict rules rely less on enforceable guardrails than on members’ personal judgment.
“The advisory committee members,” Lurie said, “are expected to basically follow the honor system.”
