The demonstration came a day after Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gutted a federal vaccine safety panel and vowed to replace all the members.

U.S. stock index futures were subdued on Tuesday as investors awaited the outcome of a second day of trade talks between the United States and China aimed at cooling a tariff dispute that has bruised global markets this year.

There was a notable absence last week when U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced in a 58-second video that the government would no longer endorse the COVID-19 vaccine for healthy children or pregnant women.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s decision to remove all 17 members of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee, an independent panel of experts, is raising questions about the future of vaccine recommendations in the U.

By Ahmed Aboulenein, Michael Erman and Julie Steenhuysen WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has fired all members sitting on a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel of vaccine experts and is reconstituting the committee,

"We're turning back the clock in a very dangerous way," said Paul Allwood, whose team at the CDC was eliminated in April.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices helps the agency make recommendations on who should get certain vaccines.

US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has repeatedly claimed in public statements that most vaccines recommended for children in the US have not been tested against placebos, and particularly inert placebos such as saline solution or water.