BAD NEWS FOR RFK JR IS VERY GOOD NEWS FOR THE NATION'S CHILDREN ... BUT IT'S ONLY TEMPORARY

Judge blocks RFK Jr.'s childhood vaccine overhaul which slashed number of recommended shots

The order issued Monday is the latest development in a lawsuit filed in July 2025 by the American Academy of Pediatrics and some other medical groups

 

By James Gordon

 

Daily Mail

Mar 16, 2026

 

 

The ruling halted Kennedy’s plan to end universal vaccine recommendations for illnesses including flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, meningitis and RSV 

 

A federal judge has blocked federal health officials from reducing the recommended number of childhood vaccines.

Judge Brian E Murphy ruled that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. also likely violated federal procedures when he revamped a key vaccine advisory committee which helped secure the reforms. 

The decision handed down Monday temporarily halts Kennedy's order to end broad recommendations for all children to be vaccinated against flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, some forms of meningitis and RSV.

It also stopped a meeting of a Kennedy-appointed vaccine advisory committee, which was set to convene this week in Atlanta.

The judge's order, however, is not the final word. The blocks are temporary, pending either a trial or a decision for summary judgment.

Federal health officials indicated they planned to appeal.

'HHS looks forward to this judge's decision being overturned just like his other attempts to keep the Trump administration from governing,' said Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon.

The order issued Monday is the latest development in a lawsuit filed in July 2025 by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and some other medical groups. 

 

 

The order also stopped a meeting of a Kennedy-appointed vaccine advisory committee, which was set to convene this week in Atlanta. 

 

The lawsuit in federal court in Boston originally focused on Kennedy's decision to stop recommending COVID-19 vaccinations for most children and pregnant women. 

The lawsuit was updated as Kennedy took more steps that alarmed medical societies, causing the plaintiffs to ask Judge Murphy to take steps to address those policy changes too.

They also asked the court to look at Kennedy's actions concerning the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which advises public health officials on what vaccines to recommend to doctors and patients.

Kennedy, a leading anti-vaccine activist before becoming the nation's top health official, fired the entire 17-member panel last year and replaced it with a group that includes several anti-vaccine voices.

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 reconstituted committee to be put on hold.

The ACIP was scheduled to meet this week to discuss COVID-19 vaccine safety, among other issues, but that gathering was postponed, officials said.

'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?'

 

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr. is shown above at the official Make America Healthy Again summit in November last year

The US had been preparing to drop vaccines from the childhood immunization schedule 

 

Jason Schwartz, a Yale University vaccine policy expert who has studied the committee, called the halting of an ACIP meeting for legal reasons 'unprecedented' in its 62-year existence. 

Hughes called the judge's order 'a momentous step toward restoring science-based vaccine policy,' and he was echoed by leaders of several doctors' groups and public health organizations.

When Trump administration officials overhauled the childhood vaccine schedule, they said it wouldn't result in families losing access to them or cause insurers to stop covering them. 

But it left many Americans confused, as doctors' groups, public health organizations and many states continued to recommend licensed vaccines, said Dr. Andrew Racine, president of the AAP.

Several doctors' groups said the changes were not based on good evidence, and advised doctors and patients to follow guidance that was previously in place. Health officials in 30 states have rejected at least some of the new recommendations.

The judge's order should bring clarity, Racine said.

'If anyone has any questions about what's the appropriate vaccine schedule for their children, the best thing to do is to talk to their pediatricians,' he said.

 

In December, an influential panel of US vaccine advisers voted to revoke a longstanding recommendation that all babies receive hepatitis B shots within 24 hours of birth, in a move expected to reverse the country's progress toward eliminating the disease

 

Schwartz said he expected federal health officials to keep expressing 'their deep skepticism regarding the importance of vaccination' and to keep embracing 'unsupported vaccine safety allegations.'

After the ruling, one of Kennedy's appointees to the committee, Dr. Robert Malone, urged the Trump administration to keep pursuing Kennedy's vaccine policy changes.

'A district court order is a delay, not a defeat,' he wrote Monday on Substack.