U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said on Thursday he promised to allow U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy to pick a candidate for a key panel of vaccine advisers.

Just two days after retiring the entirety of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory panel, US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has appointed several prominent critics of the government’s Covid-19 response to that committee.

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has named eight new vaccine policy advisers to replace the panel that he abruptly dismissed earlier this week.