Overview
- The Justice Department filed the appeal Wednesday, challenging U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy’s March 16 order that halted parts of Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vaccine agenda.
- Murphy found the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices unlawfully constituted, barred 13 Kennedy appointees from serving, and set aside the panel’s recent votes while a planned meeting was postponed.
- In January, HHS and the CDC cut the routine childhood schedule from 18 to 11 diseases, dropping broad recommendations for hepatitis A and B, influenza, rotavirus, RSV, dengue, and some meningitis vaccines, prompting the American Academy of Pediatrics to sue.
- HHS revised ACIP’s charter this month to add expertise in toxicology, pediatric neurodevelopment, and recovery from serious vaccine injuries and to seat new liaison groups, a move critics say advances Kennedy-aligned influence as Children’s Health Defense seeks to intervene.
- The injunction stays in place during the appeal, and the government could ask the First Circuit for an emergency pause, leaving the panel’s next steps uncertain and creating confusion for clinicians and insurers who depend on ACIP to guide what to recommend and what to cover.