Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. warned the public that a vaccine committee advising the CDC has been left without a means of fulfilling its work due to a March ruling. The warning comes as Americans prepare for flu season in the fall.
Kennedy wrote on X that the Trump administration “filed a motion asking the First Circuit to expedite our appeal of the district court’s order in the AAP lawsuit that left ACIP—the nation’s vaccine advisory committee—without a quorum. AAP opposes our motion.”
“I’ve been consistent from day one: I do not want to take vaccines away from anyone. Our policy changes preserved access and coverage,” he explained. “But the court’s order has left ACIP unable to carry out its core responsibilities. As a result, the committee cannot issue new recommendations, review newly approved vaccines, or complete important work ahead of the fall flu season.”
Kennedy emphasized that a “functioning ACIP is essential to ensuring that vaccine recommendations remain grounded in evidence and available to the families and providers who rely on them.”
The motion, dated June 12, says, “A single district judge has frozen the architecture of the national immunization system,” which means “the committee cannot supply, change, or withdraw a vaccine recommendation—for any vaccine or population—until the stay is lifted.”
The filing asserts that “prompt review is warranted.”
District Judge Brian Murphy ruled in March that Kennedy illegally appointed 13 members to a vaccine advisory panel, invalidating their votes and blocking a new vaccine schedule for children.
“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.”
