RFK Jr.’s latest move to gut vaccine recommendations hit a snag. Now Trump’s team is begging a judge to let them keep dismantling public health
The anti-vaxxers are worried.
The Trump administration is fighting to keep slashing childhood vaccine recommendations after a federal judge temporarily blocked the move. On April 29, 2026, government lawyers filed an appeal to overturn a March 16 court order that paused Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision to stop broadly recommending vaccines for flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, certain forms of meningitis, and RSV.
The same order also halted a meeting of Kennedy’s new vaccine advisory committee, leaving the administration’s efforts to reshape public health policy in legal limbo. According to ABC News, this latest legal battle is part of a broader lawsuit filed last July by the American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical groups.
The case originally targeted Kennedy’s decision to end COVID-19 vaccine recommendations for most children and pregnant women. But as he continued rolling back vaccine policies, the lawsuit expanded to challenge his overhaul of the childhood vaccination schedule and his restructuring of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).
RFK Jr.’s decisions ‘violated federal law’
U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, who was nominated by a Democratic president, ruled that Kennedy’s decision to fire the entire 17-member ACIP panel and replace it with a group that includes anti-vaccine voices likely violated federal law. His order put all appointments and decisions by the new committee on hold.
The administration’s appeal doesn’t explain why the block should be lifted, and health officials haven’t commented on the delay. It took them six weeks to file the appeal in the first place. Richard Hughes IV, a lawyer representing the pediatricians’ group, called the appeal disappointing but said he expects to win. He framed the legal fight as an effort to stop Kennedy’s “steady destruction of vaccine policy and public health.”
Kennedy’s changes to the childhood vaccine schedule, which took effect in January, immediately removed broad recommendations for six vaccines. Instead of urging all children to get vaccinated against flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, some forms of meningitis, and RSV, the government now only suggests those shots for high-risk groups or when doctors recommend them through “shared decision-making.”
The updated schedule still includes vaccines for measles, whooping cough, polio, tetanus, chickenpox, and HPV, though the number of recommended HPV doses was cut from two or three to just one for most kids. Officials claimed the overhaul wouldn’t limit access to vaccines and that insurance would still cover them. But medical experts warned the move would create confusion for parents and could lead to preventable disease outbreaks.
The decision was made without input from the usual advisory committee
Senior health officials admitted the changes were a “collaborative effort” between federal agencies but wouldn’t say who was actually consulted. Scientists at the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases were asked to present data on vaccine schedules in other countries but were barred from making recommendations and weren’t told about the final decision.
Kennedy defended the changes as a way to “increase public trust” by aligning the U.S. with other developed nations. The administration compared the U.S. to 20 peer countries and concluded it was an “outlier” in the number of vaccines it recommended.
But doctors said that most high-income countries recommend vaccinations against 12 to 15 serious diseases, far more than the 11 now recommended in the U.S. Michael Osterholm of the Vaccine Integrity Project at the University of Minnesota warned that abandoning recommendations for flu, hepatitis, and rotavirus vaccines without a public review of the data would lead to “more hospitalizations and preventable deaths.”
The timing of the flu vaccine rollback drew particular criticism
The change came as the country was entering a severe flu season, following a winter where 280 children died from flu – the highest number since 2009. Dr. Sean O’Leary of the American Academy of Pediatrics called the move “pretty tone deaf,” especially since the flu vaccine has long been recommended for nearly everyone starting at six months old.
Kennedy’s history of vaccine skepticism has shaped his approach since taking office. Before becoming health secretary, he was a prominent anti-vaccine activist. In November, he personally directed the CDC to abandon its long-standing position that vaccines don’t cause autism, despite no new evidence supporting the change.
The legal fight over the vaccine schedule isn’t just about federal recommendations. States set their own vaccination requirements for schoolchildren, but CDC guidance often influences those rules. Some states have already started forming their own alliances to counter the Trump administration’s vaccine policies.
Meanwhile, national vaccination rates have been slipping, and the share of children with exemptions has hit an all-time high. Diseases like measles and whooping cough, which vaccines had nearly eliminated, are now resurging in parts of the country.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has released its own childhood vaccine schedule, which continues to broadly recommend the shots the administration demoted. Dr. Sandra Fryhofer of the AMA criticized the lack of transparency in the decision-making process, saying changes of this magnitude require “careful review, expert and public input, and clear scientific justification.”
(Featured image: Gage Skidmore)
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