Federal judge blocks Kennedy’s changes to childhood vaccine policy
In a ruling issued this afternoon, Judge Brian E. Murphy
said the changes made by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F.
Kennedy Jr. to the childhood immunization schedule likely violated the
Administrative Procedure Act, as did Kennedy’s reconstitution of a federal
advisory board that makes recommendations on clinical use of vaccines.
The preliminary injunction comes in response to a lawsuit
filed by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and other leading medical
groups against HHS in July 2025 over
Kennedy’s unilateral changes to COVID vaccine recommendations for children and
pregnant women. The suit was amended in
January after HHS overhauled recommendations for childhood vaccines, reducing
the number of recommended vaccines from 17 to 11.
The lawsuit argued that these moves, along with Kennedy’s
appointment of vaccine skeptics to the Advisory Committee on Immunization
Practices (ACIP) after firing 17 previously
appointed members, bypassed the scientific process and didn’t follow
proper administrative procedures.
Murphy said in his ruling that there is a method to how
decisions about vaccine recommendations have historically been made, “a method
scientific in nature and codified into law through procedural requirements.”
“Unfortunately, the government has disregarded those methods
and thereby undermined the integrity of its actions,” he wrote.
Public health and infectious disease experts have widely criticized the attempts by Kennedy, a longtime vaccine critic, to overhaul of US vaccine policy. Though the Trump administration has been supportive of Kennedy, recent reporting suggests the administration wants Kennedy to focus on other issues.
ACIP meetings on hold
The ruling, which will likely be appealed by the Trump
administration, also temporarily blocks all decisions made by the ACIP, whose
current members have been hand-picked by Kennedy, and puts Kennedy’s
appointments on hold. ACIP was scheduled to hold a two-day meeting this week,
but that meeting has now been postponed.
“ACIP as currently constituted cannot meet,” attorney
Richard Hughes IV, who represented the AAP, told the Associated Press.
AAP, which released its own vaccine recommendations on
January 26, called the ruling a “historic outcome for children, communities,
and pediatricians everywhere.”
“This decision effectively means that a science-based
process for developing immunization recommendations is not to be trifled with
and represents a critical step to restoring scientific decision-making to
federal vaccine policy that has kept children healthy for years,” AAP President
Andrew Racine, MD, PhD, said in a statement.
Michael Osterholm, PhD, MPH, director of the University of
Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, which publishes
CIDRAP News, said that while this decision won't "put the genie back in
the bottle," it upholds an important principle.
"There's an expectation expressed in the opinion that
when the government makes recommendations about vaccines, about protecting
the health of the American people, and especially our children, it's
supposed to follow the data and the science, not ideology," Osterholm
said.