Several leading medical groups in the U.S. urged a federal judge on Friday to bar the CDC from holding its next vaccine advisory meeting and block the agency from implementing its recently upended immunization guidelines.
The litigation filed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Public Health Association, along with other groups and individuals, came as the U.S. immunization policy was undergoing drastic changes under the Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The lawyers for the groups told Judge Brian Murphy, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, that health officials violated the law as they met Kennedy’s intentions by overhauling immunization policies in ways that could impact public health and lower vaccination rates.
Earlier this year, the CDC recommended unprecedented changes to the U.S. childhood immunization schedule, reducing the number of diseases prevented by routine vaccinations to 11 from 17.
The updated guidance came after RFK Jr., a well-known vaccine skeptic, abruptly removed all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices in June. He later reconstituted the panel with his handpicked members, some of whom had a history of criticizing messenger RNA-based COVID-19 shots and social restrictions implemented during the pandemic.
“This is a clear and present danger to public health,” Bloomberg reported, quoting James Oh, an attorney for the group. “That is going to harm the practices of doctors and the function and mission of these organizations that are just trying to care for the American public.”
Oh urged the judge to block the ACIP’s February 26-27 meeting from taking place. Issac Belfer, a lawyer for the Department of Justice, argued that the groups are “trying to stifle debate about vaccine policy” and claimed that the HHS has a broad discretion to change U.S. vaccine policy.
“The court cannot substitute its judgment in place of the agency,” Belfer said. Judge Murphy didn’t issue a ruling immediately but acknowledged that he “must make a decision in this case on an uncomfortably tight timeline.”
Leading vaccine makers: GSK (GSK), Sanofi (SNY), Pfizer (PFE), Moderna (MRNA), BioNTech (BNTX), Novavax (NVAX), Merck (MRK), AstraZeneca (AZN)