A United States judge has temporarily halted US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s anti-vaccine agenda, ruling on Monday that Kennedy’s firing of the country’s vaccine advisory committee and changes to childhood vaccinations were likely illegal.

US District Judge Brian Murphy ruled that the January changes to the vaccination schedule and Kennedy’s firing of all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) are likely to have violated the Administrative Procedure Act. 

Murphy has issued three temporary stays – on the changes to the vaccination schedule, the appointment of 13 ACIP members and all decisions of the Kennedy-appointed ACIP. These stays will be in place until Murphy can rule on a lawsuit brought by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and other medical organisations against Kennedy’s “unilateral changes” to vaccinations for children and pregnant women.

“Faced with plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary relief, the court concludes that plaintiffs are likely to succeed in showing that the reconstitution of ACIP and the January 2026 changes to the childhood immunization schedule violate the Administrative Procedure Act,” Murphy ruled.

Reacting to the ruling, AAP president Dr Andrew Racine said on Monday evening that it “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.” 

The AAP represents over 67,000 paediatricians throughout the US.

Dr Jason Goldman, president of the American College of Physicians, described the ruling as “a win for public health and reaffirms that national vaccine policy should be guided by rigorous, evidence-based science, not politics.”

Dr Georges Benjamin, president of the American Public Health Association, said that “trust occurs when we engage the public in a transparent process, not one where decisions are made behind closed doors by unqualified individuals and presented in a disingenuous way.” 

Seven professional bodies are co-plaintiffs in the case against Kennedy, including the American College of Physicians, American Public Health Association, Infectious Diseases Society of America, the Massachusetts Public Health Alliance, and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine. Three unnamed pregnant women are also plaintiffs.

Appointment of ‘vaccine skeptics’

The AAP case focused initially on changes in recommendations for COVID-19 vaccines but was later extended to oppose the changed schedule for childhood vaccines, after the US Health and Human Services (HHS) reduced the number of recommended vaccines from 17 to 11. 

The AAP argues that the HHS arbitrarily and illegally overhauled the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) vaccination schedule “without following the evidentiary-driven, and legally required processes.”

It also argues that Kennedy and the HHS have failed to “examine the relevant data and articulate a satisfactory explanation” for:

• the appointment of vaccine skeptics to ACIP after all previous members were fired;
• votes taken by ACIP changing recommendations on the hepatitis B and COVID-19 vaccines and urging manufacturers to stop using thimerosal as a preservative in influenza vaccines;
• the alteration of the immunization schedule, which no longer recommends shots for hepatitis A and B, rotavirus, respiratory syncytial virus, flu and meningococcal disease for all infants; and
• the removal of the CDC’s routine recommendation for healthy children and pregnant women to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

Memos released by HHS in response to AAP’s lawsuit show that the department based its decision to restrict COVID-19 vaccines on scanty reports that lacked scientific evidence, according to weekend reports

“The memos overlooked hundreds of studies on the benefits and safety of COVID vaccination and set the precedent for making changes to vaccine recommendations based on ideology instead of evidence,” the Guardian reported.

Data from the US CDC itself, based on COVID-19 vaccination of more than a million pregnant women, found that the vaccine “did not increase health risks for pregnant women or their babies” and “the benefits of receiving a COVID-19 vaccine outweigh potential risks”.

The studies showed “no increased risk for complications like miscarriage, preterm delivery, stillbirth, or birth defects”, while COVID-19 infection could cause stillbirths, preterm delivery and hospitalisation of babies.

ACIP meeting stopped

The ACIP meeting scheduled for later this week will no longer go ahead. One of its agenda items was on COVID-19 vaccine injuries, with speculation that the committee is preparing to discontinue COVID-19 mRNA vaccines altogether.

ACIP vice-chair and vaccine sceptic Robert Malone described Murphy’s decision as “activist judicial intervention” in a lengthy Substack post devoted mainly to defending his qualifications.

However, Kennedy’s anti-vaccine agenda is polling badly with the US public, according to Republican polling company Fabrizio Ward.

In a report issued last December, Fabrizio Ward reported that its polling showed “strong bipartisan support for routine childhood vaccines in the nation’s most competitive House districts, with majorities across political affiliations acknowledging their benefits and safety” – including with voters in Kennedy’s Make America Health Again (MAHA) camp.

“While the MAHA agenda is broadly popular in the area food and agriculture, vaccine skepticism stands as an outlier, rejected by most voters even within the MAHA movement,” the company notes.

Image Credits: American Academy of Pediatrics, Fabrizio Ward.