A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked the Trump administration’s move to recommend fewer vaccines for children, in response to a lawsuit filed by the Itasca-based American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical groups.
The decision stops sweeping changes to childhood vaccine recommendations the federal government made in January, including no longer advising all children be vaccinated against the flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, some forms of meningitis and RSV. The judge also stayed all decisions made by the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices since U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired and replaced all its members last year.
Illinois adopts American Academy of Pediatrics vaccine schedule, shunning federal recommendations
A number of leading medical groups had expressed concern that the changes could lead to confusion for parents and more children becoming ill. And the American Academy of Pediatrics and some other groups amended a lawsuit they had filed in July, asking the judge to stop the scaling back of the nation’s childhood vaccination schedule.
The original lawsuit by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the other groups was over changes made to COVID-19 vaccine recommendations for children and pregnant women.
The suit was updated as Kennedy took more steps that alarmed medical societies, causing the plaintiffs to ask Judge Brian E. Murphy to take steps to address those policy changes, too. For example, the amended complaint asked the court to look at Kennedy’s actions concerning the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises public health officials on what vaccines to recommend to doctors and patients. Kennedy was a leading anti-vaccine activist before becoming the nation’s top health official.
Murphy, who was nominated to the bench by President Joe Biden, said Kennedy’s reconstitution of ACIP likely violated federal law. He ordered the appointments — and all decisions made by the reformed committee — put on hold while the lawsuit proceeds.
“In short, ACIP is not just a committee of doctors, or even a committee of public health experts; it is a committee specifically dedicated to the ‘use of vaccines and related agents for effective control of vaccine-preventable diseases,'” Murphy wrote in his memorandum and order Monday. “As to that specific function, the newly appointed members appear distinctly unqualified. A committee of non-experts cannot be said to embody ‘fairly balanced … points of view’ within the relevant scientific community.”
Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon said: “HHS looks forward to this judge’s decision being overturned just like his other attempts to keep the Trump administration from governing.”
ACIP was scheduled to meet this week to discuss COVID-19 vaccines, among other issues, but that gathering was being postponed.
“ACIP as currently constituted cannot meet,” said Richard Hughes IV, an attorney representing the AAP. “How can a committee meet without nearly the entirety of its membership?”
American Academy of Pediatrics President Dr. Andrew Racine praised the decision in a statement Monday, calling the ruling “a historic and welcome outcome for children, communities, and pediatricians everywhere.”
“When Secretary Kennedy made unsupported and unscientific changes to pediatric immunization recommendations last year, the American Academy of Pediatrics was mission-bound to step up and push back against these dangerous actions that have sowed chaos and confusion for parents and pediatricians across the country,” Racine said. “This 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.”
In January, the American Academy of Pediatrics released its own childhood vaccine schedule that ran counter to the federal recommendations. A dozen of the nation’s most prominent medical groups and associations, including the Chicago-based American Medical Association, backed the American Academy of Pediatrics’ vaccine schedule.
The Academy’s schedule continues to recommend routine flu vaccinations, hepatitis B vaccinations for all infants and COVID-19 vaccines for all children from the ages of 6 to 23 months, whereas the new federal one did not, instead leaving it up to parents and doctors whether to vaccinate individual children, in most cases.
The new federal schedule had recommend children be vaccinated against 11 illnesses, whereas it had previously recommended broad immunization against 17 illnesses. Federal officials have said the new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention schedule came after a review of other countries’ vaccine practices and the scientific evidence behind them, conducted at the instruction of President Donald Trump.
In a rejection of the new federal childhood vaccine recommendations, Illinois adopted the Academy’s pediatric vaccine schedule in February.
Illinois also broke with federal vaccine recommendations on other occasions last year, deciding to continue to recommend hepatitis B vaccines for nearly all newborns and to continue to recommend COVID-19 vaccines for all children ages 6 to 23 months.
Gov. JB Pritzker signed a bill into law last year formally establishing a process for the state to issue its own vaccine guidelines, amid concern over the federal vaccine advisory committee and its recommendations.
State-regulated insurance plans are required to cover vaccines recommended by the state, and, at this point, all the vaccines recommended by the state continue to be covered by private insurance plans, Medicaid and the Vaccines for Children Program, the state health department has said.
The Associated Press contributed.
