A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from implementing sweeping changes to the federal childhood vaccine schedule, dealing a major setback to the Trump administration’s effort to reshape U.S. immunization policy.
U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, a Biden appointee, issued a preliminary injunction invalidating key elements of Kennedy’s overhaul — including his restructuring of the CDC’s influential vaccine advisory panel.
The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical organizations, which argued that federal health regulators acted unlawfully in reducing the number of vaccines routinely recommended for children and in reconstituting the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).
Murphy sided with the plaintiffs, concluding that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lacked authority to unilaterally alter the childhood immunization schedule in January without proper consultation and lawful composition of ACIP.
In January, the Department of Health and Human Services announced it would reduce the number of universally recommended childhood vaccines from a broader schedule down to 11 “consensus vaccines” — defined as those widely recommended across developed nations.
Under the revised framework, vaccines for measles, mumps, rubella, polio, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, Hib, pneumococcal disease, HPV, and varicella would remain universally recommended.
Other vaccines — including influenza, COVID-19, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, and meningococcal disease — would no longer be recommended for all children. Instead, administration would be based on individual risk factors or consultation between parents and healthcare providers.
The move followed a December directive from President Donald Trump instructing federal health agencies to examine how peer nations structure childhood immunization schedules and whether the United States had diverged from international best practices.
But Murphy ruled that the January changes were procedurally flawed.
For decades, the judge wrote, U.S. vaccine policy had been guided by a structured, science-based process codified in law. Under Kennedy’s leadership, he said, the government “has disregarded those methods and thereby undermined the integrity of its actions.”
Central to the ruling was Kennedy’s decision last year to remove all 17 independent experts who previously served on ACIP and replace them with 13 new appointees.
Murphy found that the committee, as reconstituted, no longer complied with the Federal Advisory Committee Act’s requirement that such panels be “fairly balanced.” Of the 15 current members, he wrote, most appeared “distinctly unqualified,” and only six had meaningful experience in vaccines — despite the panel’s charter requiring expertise in vaccine research and use.
“A committee of non-experts cannot be said to embody ‘fairly balanced… points of view’ within the relevant scientific community,” Murphy wrote.
As a result, he invalidated prior votes by the panel to downgrade recommendations for hepatitis B vaccines for newborns and to narrow COVID-19 vaccine guidance.
The ruling also forced ACIP to postpone a meeting scheduled to begin Wednesday.
Richard Hughes, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, called the decision “a great victory not only for vaccines and public health in the United States, but for science.”
An HHS spokesperson said the department expects the ruling to be overturned on appeal, adding that the administration believes it has broad authority to revise vaccine policy in response to declining public trust following the COVID-19 pandemic.
The White House did not immediately comment.
Groups aligned with Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement criticized the decision as judicial overreach. Robert Malone, one of Kennedy’s ACIP appointees, called Murphy a “rogue judge” and argued the administration has strong grounds for appeal.
Public health experts applauded the ruling.
Dr. Noel Brewer of the University of North Carolina, who had been removed from ACIP by Kennedy, said the panel had “fallen into such disrepair” but still carried legal weight. “This court ruling puts public health back on the right path,” he said.
The case also has significant implications for pharmaceutical companies. Vaccine manufacturers including Pfizer, BioNTech, Moderna, Merck, Sanofi, and GSK have closely watched U.S. policy shifts amid concerns that reduced recommendations could affect coverage and demand.
Shares of Moderna rose modestly following the ruling, while Pfizer, Merck and U.S.-listed shares of GSK closed marginally higher.
Murphy did decline, for now, to block Kennedy’s separate May order directing the CDC to stop recommending COVID-19 vaccines for pregnant women and healthy children.