Department of Pediatrics

Colorado doctor fired from federal vaccine committee: “This decision is really going to undermine public trust”

Written by The Colorado Sun | June 12, 2025

Edwin Asturias found out Monday he had been fired from his volunteer position on a federal vaccine advisory committee the way the rest of the country did: He read about it in an op-ed written by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The official notice — a two-sentence email, he said — arrived later in the afternoon. “It was surprising, the unprofessional way of dismissing people that have been committed to this work for some time,” Asturias said. Asturias is a pediatrician and an infectious disease expert who works as a physician and a professor on the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. (Asturias was careful to note that his comments are not meant to reflect the views of the institutions he works with.)