The health secretary fired all of the members of the esteemed panel earlier this month, replacing them with his own picks, including vaccine skeptics.

Opening the first meeting of Kennedy’s handpicked seven-member panel, committee chairman Martin Kulldorff said he was appointing a work group to evaluate the “cumulative effect” of the children’s vaccine schedule — the list of immunizations given at different times throughout childhood.

US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s recent move to replace a federal panel of vaccine advisers should help restore Americans’ trust in the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,