US Advisory Committee on Immunization disruptions
What should organizations do?
On the same day that Judge Brian Murphy of the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts blocked decisions on vaccines from the first year of Robert F. Kennedy’s leadership of the US Department of Health and Human Services (see “Judge Strikes Down Kennedy’s Vaccine Policies” by Apoorba Mandavilli for the New York Times 16 March 2026), medical experts called for action about major medical organizations to counter act some of these actions. In an editorial that appeared in JAMA Pediatrics 16 March 2026, Mark Navin and Lainie Ross described problems with the US Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices that was reconstituted by Robert F. Kennedy, US Secretary of Health and Human Service. Navin and Ross lamented the exclusion of medical organizations and other sources of expertise from participation in the ACIP and is part of the reason that “current ACIP governance is scientifically and ethically unsound.”
Navin and Ross called on professional societies to respond to what they characterized as a crisis by providing guidance to clinicians and advocate for reforms in how ACIP is constituted and run. Here is their statement:
Professional societies should respond on 2 fronts. In the short term, they must step—however reluctantly—into the gap left by the ACIP’s illegitimacy. They should provide vaccine guidance to inform clinical practice, insurance coverage, and state policies. Simultaneously, they must advocate for broader institutional reforms that could restore the ACIP’s independence and expertise.
The authors provided greater detail in the full article. I believe it is available (open access?) at the DOI in the following citation.
Judge’s ruling
Ms. Mandavilli reported that Judge Murphy blocked implementation of decisions about vaccines that came from HHS.
The ruling also reversed, at least for the time being, all decisions made by the panelists that Mr. Kennedy appointed to the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, which makes recommendations on which vaccines Americans should take. The court decision will prevent the committee from meeting later this week, as it was scheduled to do.
The judge’s ruling brought an abrupt halt to the major changes that Mr. Kennedy, who has long been skeptical of vaccines, had set in motion, upending national vaccine policy and making sweeping revisions to the recommendations for what shots are given and when. Those included cutting down the number of diseases covered by routine immunization, and restricting access to Covid vaccines, two pillars of Mr. Kennedy’s vaccine agenda.
In his decision, Judge Brian Murphy, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, noted that the vaccine committee has historically made decisions through careful review of scientific evidence, “a method scientific in nature and codified into law through procedural requirements.” But, he added “unfortunately, the government has disregarded those methods and thereby undermined the integrity of its actions.”
In parts of his holding, Judge Murphy questioned the qualifications of Secretary Kennedy’s appointees to the ACIP. He named individuals whom he said do not have expertise or qualifications to serve in the positions on the ACIP.
Read case No. 1:25-cv-11916-BEM via the Court Listener. Many news sources are covering this story.
Commentary
It is valuable to learn that scientists are recommending specific actions and to learn that organizations—American Academy of Pediatrics; Infectious Diseases Society of America; Massachusetts Public Health Alliance; American Public Health Association; American College of Physicians; Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine—filed the lawsuit and prevailed. I think those outcomes are potentially beneficial to our kids and their families.
I am doubtful that statements and policies created by any special education organizations will be especially influential, but if any readers of Special Education Today are involved with organizations that are concerned about the advice that US HHS gets about vaccines, it does seem to me to be appropriate for the leadership of those organizations to discuss what they—both the societies and the individual leaders—and do to help right the ship of ACIP.
Source
Navin, M. C, & Ross, L. F. (2026). The US Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices dismantled. JAMA Pediatrics. 16 March 2026. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2026.0415