A judge blocked changes that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) made regarding the recommended childhood vaccine schedule.
The ruling from Judge Brian E. Murphy comes after the Trump administration made “unprecedented changes to routine US immunization recommendations in January,” the Guardian reported. Murphy also ruled that Kennedy’s replacement of the vaccine advisers last year “likely violated federal law.”
Murphy’s ruling also came after the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) filed a lawsuit against HHS, according to the outlet:
When Kennedy fired all 17 members of the ACIP in June and replaced them with his own hand-picked advisers, many of whom have expressed anti-vaccine views, the health secretary likely violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), the judge found.
For that reason, the 13 appointments were stayed by the judge, essentially invalidating their role on the committee.
All votes made by those advisers are also invalidated, including decisions to ban thimerosal (thiomersal) from flu vaccines; ending the recommendation for the combination measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) and chickenpox vaccine; and the end of the universal birth dose recommendation for the hepatitis B vaccine.
While Richard Hughes IV, who is “one of the lawyers representing the AAP,” stated that Murphy’s ruling was a “major victory,” HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said the department “looks forward to this judge’s decision being overturned,” according to the outlet.
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