A federal judge has blocked Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s proposed changes to the childhood vaccine schedule and his remaking of a vaccine advisory panel.
In January, federal health officials announced the department was cutting back the number of vaccines recommended for all children.
Under the new childhood vaccine schedule, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends children only get vaccinated against the flu, Rotavirus, Hepatitis A, Hepatitis B, Meningitis and RSV if they are “high risk” or after consulting with a health care provider.
U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy in Boston temporarily blocked the plans for the new childhood vaccine schedule on Monday.
Murphy, who was nominated by former President Joe Biden, ruled that the proposed changes were “arbitrary and capricious because it abandoned the agency’s longstanding practice of getting recommendations from ACIP before changing the immunization schedules without sufficient explanation,” per The Hill.
The ACIP is the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices. Last June, Kennedy, a vaccine skeptic, removed all 17 members of the vaccine panel and replaced them with several people who have been critical of vaccines. The ACIP is responsible for evaluating the safety, efficacy and clinical need of vaccines for the CDC.
Murphy also found Kennedy’s restructuring of the ACIP likely violated federal law. The judge halted the secretary’s ACIP appointments and all the committee’s decisions.
“First, of the 15 members currently on ACIP, even under the most generous reading, only six appear to have any meaningful experience in vaccines—the very focus of ACIP,” Murphy wrote in his ruling, according to The Hill.
The ruling was on an amended lawsuit initially filed in July by the American Academy of Pediatrics and other health groups.
The original lawsuit was based on Kennedy’s decision to end the recommendation of Covid-19 vaccines for most healthy children and pregnant women.
“HHS looks forward to this judge’s decision being overturned just like his other attempts to keep the Trump administration from governing” Andrew Nixon, a spokesman for the agency, said in a statement shared with The Independent.
Richard H. Hughes IV, an attorney for the American Academy of Pediatrics, told The Independent, “We are thrilled with this outcome, which is a great victory not only for vaccine, science and public health, but for the rule of law. It is an important step toward restoring evidence-based vaccine policy.”
An HHS official told The Independent the ACIP meetings scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday have been postponed.
