A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked federal health officials from cutting the number of vaccines recommended for every child, and said U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. likely violated federal procedures in revamping a key vaccine advisory committee.<\/p>\n
The decision halted an order by Kennedy \u2014 announced in January \u2014 to end broad recommendations for all children to be vaccinated against flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, some forms of meningitis and RSV.<\/p>\n
It also stopped a meeting of a Kennedy-appointed vaccine advisory committee, which was set to convene this week in Atlanta.<\/p>\n
The judge\u2019s order, however, is not the final word. The blocks are temporary, pending either a trial or a decision for summary judgment.<\/p>\n
Federal health officials indicated they planned to appeal.<\/p>\n
\u201cHHS looks forward to this judge\u2019s decision being overturned just like his other attempts to keep the Trump administration from governing,\u201d said Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon.<\/p>\n
The order issued Monday is the latest development in a lawsuit filed last July by the American Academy of Pediatrics and some other medical groups. The lawsuit in federal court in Boston originally focused on Kennedy\u2019s decision to stop recommending COVID-19 vaccinations for most children and pregnant women.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit was updated as Kennedy took more steps that alarmed medical societies, causing the plaintiffs to ask Judge Brian E. Murphy to take steps to address those policy changes too.<\/p>\n
For example, the plaintiffs amended the lawsuit to stop the scaling back of the nation\u2019s childhood vaccination schedule. They also asked the court to look at Kennedy\u2019s actions concerning the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises public health officials on what vaccines to recommend to doctors and patients.<\/p>\n
Kennedy, a leading anti-vaccine activist before becoming the nation\u2019s top health official, fired the entire 17-member panel last year and replaced it with a group that includes several anti-vaccine voices.<\/p>\n
Murphy, who was nominated to the bench by President Joe Biden, said Kennedy\u2019s reconstitution of ACIP likely violated federal law. He ordered the appointments \u2014 and all decisions made by the reformed committee \u2014 put on hold.<\/p>\n
The ACIP was scheduled to meet this week to discuss COVID-19 vaccine safety, among other issues, but that gathering was postponed, officials said.<\/p>\n
\u201cACIP as currently constituted cannot meet,\u201d said Richard Hughes IV, an attorney representing the AAP. \u201cHow can a committee meet without nearly the entirety of its membership?\u201d<\/p>\n
Jason Schwartz, a Yale University vaccine policy expert who has studied the committee, called the halting of an ACIP meeting for legal reasons \u201cunprecedented\u201d in its 62-year existence.<\/p>\n
Hughes called the judge\u2019s order \u201ca momentous step toward restoring science-based vaccine policy,\u201d and he was echoed by leaders of several doctors\u2019 groups and public health organizations.<\/p>\n
When Trump administration officials overhauled the childhood vaccine schedule, they said it wouldn\u2019t result in families losing access to them or cause insurers to stop covering them. But it left many Americans confused, as doctors\u2019 groups, public health organizations and many states continued to recommend licensed vaccines, said Dr. Andrew Racine, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.<\/p>\n
Several doctors\u2019 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.<\/p>\n
The judge\u2019s order should bring clarity, Racine said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf anyone has any questions about what\u2019s the appropriate vaccine schedule for their children, the best thing to do is to talk to their pediatricians,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Schwartz said he expected federal health officials to keep expressing \u201ctheir deep skepticism regarding the importance of vaccination\u201d and to keep embracing \u201cunsupported vaccine safety allegations.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the ruling, one of Kennedy\u2019s appointees to the committee, Dr. Robert Malone, urged the Trump administration to keep pursuing Kennedy\u2019s vaccine policy changes.<\/p>\n
\u201cA district court order is a delay, not a defeat,\u201d he wrote Monday on Substack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked federal health officials from cutting the number of vaccines recommended for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,5112,9,24,63,21559,8573,27254],"class_list":["post-165679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-judge","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-robert-f-kennedy-jr","tag-vaccine","tag-vaccines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}