The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), made up of members recently hand-selected by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., voted 5-1 on Thursday to recommend against flu vaccines containing the preservative thimerosal.

The effective removal of thimerosal from influenza vaccines would have limited impact, but it illustrates how the anti-vaccine movement is achieving its goals.

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. earlier this month fired the members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, some of whom were barely into their appointed terms. The new panel, appointed two weeks ago, includes a number of people known to be vaccine skeptics or “anti-vaccination.”