Federal court blocks Kennedy's vaccine changes, invalidates vaccine advisory panel |
Federal court blocks Kennedy’s vaccine changes, invalidates vaccine advisory panel
A federal judge on Monday blocked Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s changes to vaccine policy, including the reduction of the recommended childhood immunizations and his remaking of a key vaccine advisory panel.
U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy, a Biden appointee, granted a motion by the American Academy of Pediatrics for a preliminary injunction against the reduced childhood immunization schedule earlier this year, along with the remaking of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, invalidating all votes made by the committee since.
Murphy found that the reconstitution of the ACIP last year failed to abide by the Federal Advisory Committee Act. He also found that the CDC bypassing the ACIP when changing the childhood immunization schedule was both a “technical, procedural failure” and “an abandonment of the technical knowledge and expertise embodied by that committee.”
“The Court concludes that, in addition to being contrary to law, the issuance of the January 2026 Memo was arbitrary and capricious because it abandoned the agency’s longstanding practice of getting recommendations from ACIP before changing the immunization schedules without sufficient explanation,” Murphy wrote in his ruling, referring to the CDC’s announcement at the start of the year altering the childhood and adolescent immunization schedule.
Last June, Kennedy fired all 17 sitting members of the ACIP, claiming it was necessary to “re-establish public confidence in vaccine science.” He went on to appoint a slew of known vaccine skeptics and critics to the committee.
Since this remaking, the new members of the ACIP went on to vote in favor or no longer recommending birth doses of the hepatitis B vaccine; to delay the combined measles, mumps, rubella and varicella vaccine; and to no longer recommend the COVID-19 vaccine for everyone 6 months and older but to leave it to “individual-based decision making.”
The Hill has reached out to HHS for comment.
Updated at 4:22 p.m. EDT
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