1. A federal judge blocks Sec. Kennedy’s changes to the immunization schedule
On Mar. 16, 2026, in a case brought against the administration by the American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical and public health groups, a federal judge found that Sec. Kennedy likely violated the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act when he issued a new childhood immunization schedule on Jan. 5, 2026. The judge enjoined HHS from enforcing the new schedule.
The judge also found that Sec. Kennedy likely violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) when he replaced all the members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) members in June 2025. In particular, the judge opined that many of the new members lacked the requisite expertise to serve on the ACIP.
This decision invalidates all of the votes that the new ACIP has taken, including the December 2025 vote to move away from recommending a universal birth dose of Hepatitis B vaccine and the September 2025 vote to no longer recommend universal Covid vaccination, and also means that the vaccine schedule that was in place in January 2025 is once again the operative vaccination schedule. Additionally, ACIP cannot meet again until the administration complies with the requirements of FACA. HHS has until mid-May to appeal this ruling.
Editor’s Note: This ruling is a strong repudiation of the processes that Sec. Kennedy has adopted to reform vaccine policies in line with his own views. The judge concluded that HHS likely violated the laws that guarantee that vaccine recommendations are made by experts in key fields and are not subject to the whims of political appointees.
2. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) publishes a new charter for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)
On Apr. 9, 2026, the CDC issued a new charter for ACIP. This new charter broadens the membership criteria to include expertise in toxicology and pediatric neurodevelopment, and knowledge of “recovery from serious vaccine injuries,” and generally shifts the focus of the committee from immunization as a strategy to prevent serious illness to safety issues that may be associated with immunization. It also adds four new liaison member groups–the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, the Independent Medical Alliance, the Medical Academy of Pediatrics and Special Needs, and Physicians for Informed Consent–that have expressed unfounded concerns about vaccines and infectious diseases.
The new charter appears to draw from a petition from Aaron Siri, a trial lawyer who worked with Sec. Kennedy before he became Secretary and has sued vaccine manufacturers.
Editor’s Note: A fair approach to rethinking ACIP would have been to take public comment and ask leading medical organizations for input. Instead, this decision appears to be an attempt to stack the deck of the committee with vaccine skeptics.
3. National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharaya holds up publication of a new analysis on Covid vaccine effectiveness
Dr. Jay Bhattacharaya, the Director of the NIH and Acting Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the absence of a permanent director, has delayed the publication of a study in the CDC’s flagship journal, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). According to the Washington Post, this study showed that the Covid-19 vaccine reduced the likelihood of emergency room visits and hospitalizations in healthy adults by about 50% last winter. The report cleared CDC’s scientific review process, but has been held up by Dr. Bhattacharaya over concerns about the study’s methodology, which utilized a standard approach for assessing vaccine effectiveness that had been used to assess flu vaccine effectiveness in a recent issue.
Editor’s Note: The administration’s stated goal of "radical transparency" is hard to square with suppressing publication of a scientific report. A more transparent way of addressing disagreements over methodology would be for Dr. Bhattacharaya to publish his concerns. In the past, it would have been exceedingly unlikely that a CDC Director would have weighed in in this manner.
