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A judge recently indicated that U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may have breached federal regulations when he restructured a significant vaccine advisory committee.
WASHINGTON — On Monday, a federal judge issued a temporary injunction against federal health officials, preventing them from reducing the number of vaccines advised for children. The judge suggested that U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. likely bypassed federal procedures while overhauling a pivotal vaccine advisory committee.
The ruling has put a stop to Kennedy’s January directive, which aimed to withdraw comprehensive vaccination recommendations for children against illnesses such as the flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, certain types of meningitis, and RSV.
Additionally, the decision has halted a scheduled meeting of a vaccine advisory committee appointed by Kennedy, which was supposed to take place this week in Atlanta.
It is important to note that the judge’s order is not conclusive. The injunction is temporary, pending further legal proceedings, either through a trial or a summary judgment decision.
Federal health officials indicated they planned to appeal.
“HHS looks forward to this judge’s decision being overturned just like his other attempts to keep the Trump administration from governing,” said Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon.
The order issued Monday is the latest development in a lawsuit filed last July by the American Academy of Pediatrics and some other medical groups. The lawsuit in federal court in Boston originally focused on Kennedy’s decision to stop recommending COVID-19 vaccinations for most children and pregnant women.
The lawsuit was updated as Kennedy took more steps that alarmed medical societies, causing the plaintiffs to ask Judge Brian E. Murphy to take steps to address those policy changes too.
For example, the plaintiffs amended the lawsuit to stop the scaling back of the nation’s childhood vaccination schedule. They also asked the court to look at Kennedy’s actions concerning the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises public health officials on what vaccines to recommend to doctors and patients.
Kennedy, a leading anti-vaccine activist before becoming the nation’s top health official, fired the entire 17-member panel last year and replaced it with a group that includes several anti-vaccine voices.
Murphy, who was nominated to the bench by President Joe Biden, said Kennedy’s reconstitution of ACIP likely violated federal law. He ordered the appointments — and all decisions made by the reformed committee — put on hold.
The ACIP was scheduled to meet this week to discuss COVID-19 vaccine safety, among other issues, but that gathering was postponed, officials said.
“ACIP as currently constituted cannot meet,” said Richard Hughes IV, an attorney representing the AAP. “How can a committee meet without nearly the entirety of its membership?”
Jason Schwartz, a Yale University vaccine policy expert who has studied the committee, called the halting of an ACIP meeting for legal reasons “unprecedented” in its 62-year existence.
Hughes called the judge’s order “a momentous step toward restoring science-based vaccine policy,” and he was echoed by leaders of several doctors’ groups and public health organizations.
When Trump administration officials overhauled the childhood vaccine schedule, they said it wouldn’t result in families losing access to them or cause insurers to stop covering them. But it left many Americans confused, as doctors’ groups, public health organizations and many states continued to recommend licensed vaccines, said Dr. Andrew Racine, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Several doctors’ groups said the changes were not based on good evidence, and advised doctors and patients to follow guidance that was previously in place. Health officials in 30 states have rejected at least some of the new recommendations.
The judge’s order should bring clarity, Racine said.
“If anyone has any questions about what’s the appropriate vaccine schedule for their children, the best thing to do is to talk to their pediatricians,” he said.
Schwartz said he expected federal health officials to keep expressing “their deep skepticism regarding the importance of vaccination” and to keep embracing “unsupported vaccine safety allegations.”
After the ruling, one of Kennedy’s appointees to the committee, Dr. Robert Malone, urged the Trump administration to keep pursuing Kennedy’s vaccine policy changes.
“A District Court order is a delay, not a defeat,” he wrote Monday on Substack.
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