Kennedy last week announced he would "retire" the entire panel that guides U.S. vaccine policy. He also quietly removed Dr. Melinda Wharton — the veteran Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official who coordinated the committee's meetings.

The scientist, Dr. Fiona Havers, told colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday that she no longer had confidence that the COVID and RSV data would be used "objectively or evaluated with appropriate scientific rigor to make evidence-based vaccine policy decisions," according to an email seen by Reuters.

Career officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention responsible for overseeing the agency's committee of outside vaccine experts have been removed from their role in the process, multiple CDC officials tell CBS News.

Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday named eight new vaccine policy advisers to replace the panel that he abruptly dismissed earlier this week. They include a scientist who researched mRNA vaccine technology and became a conservative darling for his criticisms of COVID-19 vaccines,

Moderna's shares fell 2.3% on Friday on concerns about whether a new CDC advisory panel would back the use of the company's respiratory syncytial virus vaccine in a broader age group. The mRNA-based RSV shot,