Judge blocks US changes to vaccine recommendations for children
A federal judge on March 16 temporarily blocked U.S. health officials from cutting the number of vaccines recommended for every child and said Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. likely violated federal procedures in reshaping a key vaccine advisory committee, according to the ruling’s details reported by the Associated Press.
In the order, U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy halted an action announced in January that would have ended broad vaccine recommendations for all children against flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, some forms of meningitis and RSV. Murphy’s decision also stopped a meeting of a Kennedy-appointed vaccine advisory committee that was set to convene this week in Atlanta.
The judge’s order is temporary, the Associated Press reported, pending either a trial or a decision on summary judgment. Federal health officials indicated they planned to appeal the ruling, the report said.
Murphy said Kennedy’s reconstitution of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices likely violated federal law. The judge ordered that the appointments — and all decisions made by the reformed committee — be put on hold, according to the report.
Kennedy had fired the entire 17-member ACIP panel last year and replaced it with a new group that includes several anti-vaccine voices, the Associated Press said. Murphy’s order also affected the ACIP meeting planned for this week, which officials said was postponed.
Richard Hughes IV, an attorney representing the American Academy of Pediatrics, said the ACIP “as currently constituted cannot meet” and asked, “How can a committee meet without nearly the entirety of its membership?” The American Academy of Pediatrics is among the groups that have sued over multiple changes to vaccination guidance.
Jason Schwartz, a Yale University vaccine policy expert who has studied the committee, described the legal intervention as “unprecedented” in ACIP’s 62-year existence. Schwartz said the halting of the meeting for legal reasons would likely be followed by continued federal skepticism about vaccination and continued engagement with vaccine safety allegations that he characterized as unsupported.
After the ruling, leaders of medical organizations and public health groups described the order as a step toward restoring vaccine policy based on science, the Associated Press reported. American Academy of Pediatrics president Dr. Andrew Racine said the judge’s order should bring clarity for families and pointed patients to their pediatricians for guidance.
Kennedy’s changes to federal guidance had left some families confused, the report said, even as administration officials said the overhaul would not reduce access to licensed vaccines or cause insurers to stop covering them. Health officials in 30 states, the report said, have rejected at least some of the new recommendations.
The Associated Press said Murphy’s order came in the context of an expanded lawsuit originally filed last July by the American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical groups. That litigation began in federal court in Boston focusing on Kennedy’s decision to stop recommending COVID-19 vaccinations for most children and pregnant women, and plaintiffs later amended their complaint as Kennedy took additional steps that alarmed medical societies.
After the ruling, one of Kennedy’s ACIP appointees, Dr. Robert Malone, urged the Trump administration to keep pursuing Kennedy’s vaccine policy changes. Malone wrote on Substack that “A district court order is a delay, not a defeat,” the Associated Press reported.