By LifeZette News Staff
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is facing renewed questions over corporate influence in vaccine recommendations after a screenshot surfaced showing the organization’s top corporate donors.
The image, shared Tuesday on X by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., revealed that four of the largest pharmaceutical companies are listed among the academy’s highest-level contributors.
The screenshot, which Kennedy said came directly from the AAP’s website, identified Merck, Moderna, Pfizer, and Sanofi as “Presidential Circle” donors—each contributing $50,000 or more annually to the AAP’s “Friends of Children’s Fund.”
In return, the companies receive invitations to an exclusive Corporate Summit hosted each summer at AAP’s national headquarters in Itasca, Illinois.
Kennedy, appointed HHS Secretary under President Donald Trump, noted that these same four companies manufacture nearly every vaccine on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) recommended childhood schedule.
He argued that their financial relationship with AAP raises concerns over whether pediatric vaccine guidance is influenced by corporate sponsorship.
“These four companies make virtually every vaccine on the CDC-recommended childhood vaccine schedule,” Kennedy wrote on X.
“AAP is angry that CDC has eliminated corporate influence in decisions over vaccine recommendations and returned CDC to gold-standard science and evidence-based medicine, laser-focused on children’s health.”