The Department of Health and Human Services is dismissing all 17 members that make up one of the main committees advising the US government on vaccine safety and policy, an unprecedented move to reshape a key scientific panel.  “A clean sweep is needed to reestablish public confidence in vaccine science,” Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Monday in an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal. The group, known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, reviews the latest data and makes recommendations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which typically implements them. The group’s recommendations are influential and determine whether insurers cover shots, among other things.