The Not Ready for Prime-Time Players

Jane M. Orient, MD

Executive director · $183,650

An internist who has run AAPS for decades and is its public voice. She also runs a second Tucson group from the same address, Doctors for Disaster Preparedness (below). In 2015 she told Bloomberg the risk of mental damage from vaccines was real because “we have a lot of observations that are not otherwise explainable.” She fronted AAPS's 2021 campaign for ivermectin and was the media contact on its March 2026 press release calling for mRNA vaccines to be suspended.

Lawrence R. Huntoon, MD, PhD

Secretary · editor-in-chief of the journal · $64,000

Edits the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, which published the Geiers' thimerosal papers, HIV/AIDS denial and the abortion–breast cancer claim. He chairs AAPS's “Committee to Combat Sham Peer Review,” which defends doctors disciplined by their hospitals. In July 2026 he asked whether the AMA's own statement on vaccine safety testing was “misinformation.”

Andrew Schlafly, JD

General counsel

Son of the conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly. He runs AAPS's lawsuits, including its failed challenge to the Affordable Care Act, its 2020 hydroxychloroquine suit against the FDA (dismissed for lack of standing) and its brief accusing the FDA of a “campaign of interference” with ivermectin. He also founded and owns Conservapedia, a website created in 2006 as a conservative answer to Wikipedia, which critics note promotes the abortion–breast cancer claim, denial of Einstein's relativity, climate-change denial and young-Earth creationism.

Joseph Ladapo, MD, PhD

Florida Surgeon General · AAPS 2024: “Public Health Management of Infectious Disease: Lessons from Florida”

In October 2022 he advised men aged 18 to 39 against mRNA COVID vaccines, on the strength of an anonymous, unreviewed state analysis. In April 2023 the Tampa Bay Times reported that earlier drafts of that analysis had found COVID infection raised the risk of cardiac death more than the vaccine did, and that this finding was missing from the version released. The University of Florida's medical faculty council had already criticized “careless” research practices, and in March 2023 the FDA and CDC wrote to rebuke his reading of VAERS. During a 2024 measles outbreak in a Broward County school he left attendance to parents, against CDC quarantine advice. In September 2025 he announced a plan to end all school vaccine mandates in Florida. The bills died in the legislature in 2026; his department then moved to drop four vaccines set by rule, and held a hearing on 8 October 2026. Ladapo says the cardiac risk to young men outweighs the benefit. No record has been found that he is an AAPS member; he was on its stage. See the Ladapo record and the October 2026 hearing.

Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD

Director of the NIH · AAPS 2024 (by Zoom): “The Great Barrington Declaration”

A Stanford health economist and co-author of the 2020 Great Barrington Declaration, which argued for “focused protection” of the vulnerable rather than broad lockdowns. Six months after speaking to AAPS he was confirmed as director of the National Institutes of Health, taking office on 1 April 2025. From February to August 2026 he was also acting director of the CDC. His tenure has been marked by mass grant terminations; he says the NIH spent its full budget and cut politically divisive projects. Unlike most people on this page, Bhattacharya's dispute with public health was over policy, not over whether vaccines work. His presence shows how far up the federal ladder the AAPS stage reaches.

Robert Malone, MD

Former ACIP vice-chair · AAPS 2024: “Why Intelligent Physicians, Patients, and Policy-Makers Embrace False Information”

A prominent critic of mRNA COVID vaccines, who describes himself as a pioneer of the mRNA technology; other researchers dispute how much of the credit is his. Nine months after giving a talk on why people “embrace false information,” he was one of the people Kennedy appointed to ACIP after dismissing all seventeen members in June 2025, and he became its vice-chair on 1 December 2025. On 16 March 2026 a federal judge stayed the new members' appointments and their votes. Malone resigned on 24 March 2026 after HHS contradicted him over whether to appeal: “I do not like drama.”

Kirk Milhoan, MD, PhD

Chair of ACIP · AAPS 2026: “Science, Ethics, and Immunization Guidelines”

A pediatric cardiologist and former US Air Force flight surgeon who has chaired ACIP since 1 December 2025; the CDC's roster still lists him as chair. On a podcast he said that calling the MMR vaccine “proven” “may be a bit harsh,” and described vaccine safety as an “emotional response to a risk.” He says his aim is “individual autonomy” and that anyone who wants a vaccine can still get one. At AAPS in September 2026 he shared the vaccine session with Bob Sears.

Bob Sears, MD

California pediatrician · AAPS 2026, with Milhoan

Author of a popular “alternative” vaccine schedule. On 27 June 2018 the Medical Board of California placed him on 35 months' probation over a vaccine exemption he wrote in 2014 for a two-year-old, with an ethics course, a practice monitor and extra continuing education. A second settlement in June 2020, over further exemptions, extended his probation by two years. In March 2025 his blog still called thimerosal a “known neurotoxin.” He has said he settled because “it was likely that I'd get probation anyway.” The chair of the CDC's vaccine committee and a doctor twice disciplined over vaccine exemptions taught AAPS members about “vaccine policy and science” together. See also the California exemption-doctor cases.

Steven Hatfill, MD

AAPS 2024: “The Fight for Off-Label Medications and Sane Pandemic Response”

Best known as the man the Attorney General named a “person of interest” in the 2001 anthrax letters; he was never charged, was formally exonerated in 2008, and received a $5.8 million settlement from the Justice Department. During the pandemic he campaigned for hydroxychloroquine. In spring 2025 HHS hired him as a senior adviser at its preparedness office, ASPR. He was fired around 27 October 2025; HHS said he had misrepresented himself as “chief medical officer.” Hatfill called his firing part of a “coup” against Kennedy.

Simone Gold, MD, JD

Founder, America's Frontline Doctors · AAPS 2024: “Physician Censorship & Solutions”

Founder of America's Frontline Doctors, which promoted hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin for COVID-19. She pleaded guilty in March 2022 to a misdemeanour for entering the Capitol on 6 January 2021, and served 60 days with a $9,500 fine; she was among those pardoned on 20 January 2025. In February 2024 the Medical Board of California publicly reprimanded her and ordered ethics courses and $26,739 in costs. In November 2022 her own organization sued her over alleged personal use of its funds, including a $3.6 million house. Four days before she began her sentence, in July 2022, Florida issued her a medical licence. Ladapo had appeared at an AFLDS event in July 2020; see the Ladapo record, and her full profile in the Bad MD Files.

Read the full Simone Gold profile in the Bad MD Files →

Bob Hall

Texas State Senator (R) · AAPS 2024: “Reforming the Emergency Powers and Medical Board Overreach”

A Republican state senator from Edgewood, in office since 2015 and renominated in March 2026. He filed SB 2422, which would bar the Texas Medical Board from disciplining doctors for prescribing ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine or budesonide for COVID-19. In 2021 he urged people to avoid COVID vaccines. His AAPS talk promised to stop “bio-medical tyranny.” The AAPS stage is where legislation to shield doctors from their boards gets its audience.

Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH

AAPS 2023 luncheon keynote: “House of Medicine on Fire”

The American Board of Internal Medicine revoked his certifications in internal medicine and cardiology after a 2022 sanction notice for spreading false medical information. Several of his COVID-vaccine papers have been retracted or withdrawn. In March 2026 AAPS press-released his paper calling for mRNA vaccines to be suspended; in September 2026 he testified on Parliament Hill. He calls the ABIM action the work of “powerful dark forces.” See the Americans at the Allison Inquiry.

Michelle Cretella, MD

American College of Pediatricians · AAPS 2023 and 2024, on transgender medicine

Former president and later executive director of the American College of Pediatricians, a socially conservative group of roughly 700 members founded in 2002, not to be confused with the 67,000-member American Academy of Pediatrics. In 2010 NIH director Francis Collins said the group had misused NIH research; the Southern Poverty Law Center lists it as an anti-LGBT hate group, a label the College rejects, calling itself a science-based alternative to the AAP. In 2025 it received a Heritage Foundation prize and Cretella sat on a Federal Trade Commission panel on gender-affirming care.