Several medical organizations have filed a lawsuit against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and its secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for its changes to vaccine policies.
The American Public Health Association (APHA), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American College of Physicians (ACP), the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), the Massachusetts Public Health Alliance (MPHA), and the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) are behind the lawsuit. The suit seeks to “defend vaccine policy, and to put an end to the Secretary’s assault on science, public health and evidence-based medicine,” the APHA said in a news release.
According to the lawsuit, HHS and Kennedy acted “arbitrarily and capriciously” upon changing COVID-19 vaccine recommendations for children and pregnant women. The plaintiffs are seeking preliminary and permanent injunctions to block the vaccine policies and declare the changes unlawful.
“This administration is an existential threat to vaccination in America, and those in charge are only just getting started. If left unchecked, Secretary Kennedy will accomplish his goal of ridding the United States of vaccines, which would unleash a wave of preventable harm on our nation’s children,” said Richard H. Hughes IV, lead counsel for the plaintiffs and partner at Epstein Becker Green. “The professional associations for pediatricians, internal medicine physicians, infectious disease physicians, high-risk pregnancy physicians, and public health professionals will not stand idly by as our system of prevention is dismantled. This ends now.”
Upon the vaccine shift in May, Kennedy said that “he couldn’t be more pleased” to announce that the “COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from the CDC’s recommended immunization schedule.”
“Last year, the Biden administration urged healthy children to get yet another COVID shot, despite the lack of any clinical data to support the repeat booster strategy in children,” he stated.
