By Nate Raymond
BOSTON, Jan 6 (Reuters) – Several major medical organizations can move forward with their lawsuit challenging policies adopted under U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy that they say will lower vaccination rates, a federal judge ruled on Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston rejected arguments by lawyers for President Donald Trump’s administration that the groups, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, lack legal standing to pursue the case because they could not show they were harmed by the policies.
The lawsuit seeks to invalidate all votes cast since June by a vaccine advisory panel whose members were selected by Kennedy after he fired all 17 independent experts who had previously served on the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.
Kennedy founded the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense before becoming the head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Murphy, an appointee of Democratic President Joe Biden, said the plaintiffs raised a plausible claim that the panel’s makeup is now skewed to vaccine skeptics who were appointed solely because their views aligned with Kennedy’s.
“These facts as alleged are sufficient to plausibly suggest the committee is neither fairly balanced nor free of inappropriate influence,” Murphy said.
As a result, he said the plaintiffs could proceed with their claims that the new ACIP composition does not comport with the Federal Advisory Committee Act’s requirements that such panels be “fairly balanced” and not inappropriately influenced by the appointing official.
HHS and the American Academy of Pediatrics did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
COVID-19 VACCINES AT ISSUE
The ruling came a day after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cut the number of vaccines it recommends every child receive, a sweeping change that advanced one of Kennedy’s long-term goals.
Kennedy has long promoted the view, contrary to scientific evidence, that many vaccines routinely administered to children cause harm, and public health experts have warned his efforts in government are likely to expose a growing number of youth to preventable diseases.
The medical groups first sued in July and have expanded their lawsuit since then, though it does not currently address CDC’s Monday action. The plaintiffs also include the American College of Physicians, the American Public Health Association and the Infectious Diseases Society of America.
They argue Kennedy in May unlawfully directed the CDC to remove its recommendation for COVID-19 shots for pregnant women and children from its vaccination schedules.
The reconstituted ACIP panel in September voted in favor of COVID-19 shots being administered only through shared decision-making with a healthcare provider, essentially calling for patients to consult their doctors first, a process the medical groups say is time consuming and would lead to lower vaccination rates.
The CDC adopted that as a recommendation for pediatric and adult patients in October, effectively withdrawing its previous broad guidance that COVID vaccines be available to anyone in the U.S. who wanted one.
The medical groups say that the advisory panel was unlawfully reconstituted and that all the votes it has taken since the Kennedy-driven shake-up should be voided, including more recent ones such as its vote in December to remove the broad recommendation that all newborns receive a hepatitis B vaccine.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Stephen Coates and Bill Berkrot)
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