- Fifteen states argue in a lawsuit that vaccine changes threaten public health are unscientific.
- The changes reduced recommended childhood vaccines from 17 illnesses to 11.
- The lawsuit also challenges firing of vaccine advisory panel members in January.
Fifteen states are suing the Trump administration over recent changes to which vaccinations are recommended for U.S. children. The Democrat-led states call the changes a threat to public health and accuse the administration of politicizing children’s health.
At issue is the decision to reduce the number of diseases for which childhood vaccines are required from 17 to 11, which the lawsuit characterizes as going against standard medical advice and bypassing federal laws.
The change in recommendations moved vaccines for influenza, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B in some infants and meningococcal disease to “shared clinical decision-making” or suggested for high-risk groups, as the Utah Public Health Association’s Immunization Advocacy Coalition noted in a Deseret News perspective piece opposing the revisions.
The lawsuit also challenges what it calls the “unlawful replacement” of members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. In January, all 17 members were fired and a new advisory committee composed of hand-picked appointees of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was empaneled. Some of the appointees have been criticized as vaccine skeptics, tasked with making recommendations about vaccines for children, as Deseret News previously reported.
Named in the lawsuit are the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Kennedy, as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the acting director.
The lawsuit was filed by the attorneys general in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island and Wisconsin, as well as the governor of Pennsylvania.
The lawsuit closely resembles one filed over the summer by the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American College of Physicians, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine and the Massachusetts Public Health Alliance. The New York Times reported that that lawsuit has drawn more than 100 amicus briefs supporting it from public health experts and groups. A ruling is expected soon in that case.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta told the media during a briefing Tuesday that “HHS Secretary R.F.K. Jr. and his CDC are flouting decades of scientific research, ignoring credible medical experts, and threatening to strain state resources and make America’s children sicker. The fact is, vaccines save lives and save our states money.”
What changed and the pushback
Among criticisms, the lawsuit maintains the changes are based on comparisons with countries that are very different from the U.S., rather than on scientific evidence. Nor did the recommendations even reflect the advisory committee’s suggestions.
The decision on vaccines is actually made at the state level, but have typically closely followed the recommendations from the CDC. This year, a number of states have banded together to make their own recommendations, rather than accepting the federal version.
The federal recommendations matter as well because insurance companies must cover vaccines the CDC panel recommends.
The new recommendations for children leave out flu, hepatitis A and B, certain meningitis forms and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), except for those deemed at high risk.
Kennedy in January defended the revised recommendations. “This decision protects children, respects families and rebuilds trust in public health,” he said in a news release.
The administration said the new schedule represents international consensus and was based on a review of what 20 other countries do in terms of vaccination mandates. Critics, however, have said the countries in the comparison were picked for what they recommend, rather than because of their similarity to the U.S. The Times noted that the “new schedule most closely resembles the recommendations made in Denmark, a country with nationalized health care and a population that is a fraction of that of the United States.”
According to critics, the timing for the revisions is especially bad because the incidence of many diseases that are vaccine-preventable, including measles and whooping cough, is rising nationwide.
“This decision was made circumventing federal laws and without solid scientific supporting evidence and will certainly result in more kids contracting preventable diseases,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a press release announcing the lawsuit. “These changes ignore decades of medical evidence and will lead to outbreaks of diseases we’ve already beaten. We will not stand by while politics overrides science and endangers our children.”