First Circuit urged to unblock RJK Jr MAHA vaccine policy makeover

A Massachusetts judge ruled in March in favor of medical organizations on their challenge against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over the implementation of several of his changes to federal vaccine policy.(CN) — The Trump administration on Tuesday morning asked the First Circuit to reverse an injunction that halted Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s overhaul of federal childhood vaccine policy.In March, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy’s temporarily blocked the administration from implementing key changes to the childhood immunization schedule and stayed all decisions made by panelists Kennedy appointed to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices made between June 2025 and January 2026. Murphy also stayed the appointments of the committee members.In his 45-page order, the Joe Biden appointee ruled the government had disregarded long-held methods and damaged the integrity of key departments meant to provide expert guidance on the clinical use of vaccines and other matters of public health.Under Kennedy’s leadership, these relevant measures involve stripping broad recommendations from the childhood vaccination schedule, limiting access to Covid-19 immunizations and a comprehensive overhaul of the ACIP — the committee typically tasked with any changes to vaccine policy.In the initial lawsuit in July 2025, the American Academy of Pediatrics and other public health groups said Kennedy’s vaccine rollback endangers the lives of children and pregnant women, arguing these demographics are at an increased risk of serious infections from Covid-19 and other viruses — and that denying access is “ethically indefensible.”On appeal before the Boston-based First Circuit federal appeals court, the U.S. government claims public health groups, led by the American Academy of Pediatrics, lacked standing to prevail on their challenges because their claims do not center on a reviewable final agency action by the CDC.“It has to be in service of the agency action, and there is none,” Department of Justice attorney Matthew Charles Zorn told the panel, asking them vacate the stay and remand.“At minimum, I think this court would need to remand for the court to explain what it is it was doing with this order. It’s clear functionally what it was trying to do is trying to enjoin the ACIP for meeting, but there’s no there’s no way to thread what it was doing under the statute because under Section 705 there was no object, there was no agency action here, and it could preserve the rights and status quo.”The public health group plaintiffs, meanwhile, urged the panel to uphold Murphy’s preliminary injunction.“The government depicts its appeal as narrow, and says that a ruling in its favor here will not will leave open plaintiffs’ challenges to the CDC vaccine determinations,” attorney Andrew Pincus said. “But really, I think what this case is about is trying to get some legal building blocks that will later be used to challenge those recommendations, and we think the district court carefully and properly evaluated the issues that are relevant here, and that its order should be affirmed.”U.S. Circuit Judge David Barron asked Pincus to explain the lower court’s authority to grant the stay and the rationale supporting it.Pincus said the ruling could be characterized as a preliminary stay. “What the district court said is we’re going to put the agency actions, which are the appointments, on hold, but allow the agency to try again,” he said. “I think the district court was very careful in saying it didn’t want to itself make the decision about striking particular members’ appointments.”U.S. Circuit Judge Joshua Dunlap, a Donald Trump appointee, asked Pincus to identify a final agency order that could be challenged under the Administrative Procedure Act.Pincus pointed to a June 2025 op-ed by Kennedy in the Wall Street Journal, which he said included his policy “to dramatically change ACIP.”The plaintiffs claim Kennedy made a host of false accusations against 17 ACIP sitting members, including that they had “been plagued with persistent conflicts of interest,” had “become little more than a rubber stamp for any vaccine,” and, by innuendo and implication, accused them of being corrupt and in the pockets of the vaccine industry.Pincus alternatively offered another final agency action to be “the institution of the committee at the time of the challenge.”U.S. Circuit Judge William Kayatta, a Barack Obama appointee, rounded out the panel, which did not indicate when or how they would rule.This past December, the CDC dropped the recommendation for a universal hepatitis B birth dose — a vaccine that is up to 90% effective in preventing perinatal infection when administered within 24 hours of birth.Then the CDC demoted from the recommended childhood schedule vaccines that protect against rotavirus, meningococcal disease, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, influenza, Covid-19 and RSV. The vaccines will instead be given to high-risk patients and in “shared clinical decisionmaking” situations.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads