A federal judge ruled that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. illegally appointed 13 members to a vaccine advisory panel, invalidating their votes and blocking a new vaccine schedule for children.
According to District Judge Brian Murphy, federal officials “disregarded” historical methods and “thereby undermined the
integrity of its actions.”
“First, the Government bypassed ACIP [Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices] to change the immunization schedules, which is both a technical, procedural failure itself and a strong indication of something more fundamentally problematic: an abandonment of the technical knowledge and expertise embodied by that committee,” Murphy wrote. “Second, the Government removed all duly appointed members of ACIP and summarily replaced them without undertaking any of the rigorous screening that had been the hallmark of ACIP member selection for decades.”
Furthermore, Murphy criticized the CDC for scaling back childhood vaccines without the input of the ACIP. “The CDC must, at least, consider ACIP’s recommendations before adopting an immunization schedule, and following or failing to follow that requirement is reviewable by this Court,” Murphy wrote. The CDC initially acted in response to a directive from President Trump calling for a review of vaccines.
American Academy of Pediatrics President Andrew Racine said in a statement that the decision “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.”
He added that parents can “continue to turn to the AAP’s childhood vaccine recommendations and talk with their pediatrician about how to best protect their children’s health.”
According to the AAP’s updated vaccine schedule from 2025, children between 6 and 23 months should receive a COVID-19 vaccine, while children between the ages of 2 and 18 “should be offered a single dose of age-appropriate COVID-19 vaccine.” Similarly, the AAP asserted in its policy statement for the COVID-19 vaccine that children 6 months through 18 years of age who are “moderately or severely immunocompromised require 2 or more doses of age-appropriate 2025-2026 COVID-19 vaccine depending on previous vaccination status.”
