- Federal judges blocked two key Robert F. Kennedy Jr. health agenda proposals.
- Opposing states argue that the federal government is trying to mandate medical standards.
- A gender-affirming care ban for minors and childhood vaccine changes are now on hold.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was handed setbacks in the courts as judges blocked key parts of his health agenda, including restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors and childhood vaccine recommendations.
The U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services has been intent on “transforming” health care as part of his pledge to “Make America Healthy Again.” But he’s hitting some roadblocks.
Thursday, a federal judge in Oregon ruled Kennedy “overstepped his legal authority when he declared last December that providers of gender-transition medical treatments for minors ‘do not meet professionally recognized standards,’” as the New York Times reported.
Kennedy and the HHS department, which includes the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, had suggested hospitals, clinics and providers who continue to offer gender-affirming care to minors would be investigated and possibly barred from receiving any Medicaid and Medicare funds.
U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai provided temporary relief after 21 Democrat-led states sued over Kennedy’s 12-page declaration. They maintain that states get to regulate how medicine is practiced within their borders, while Kennedy claimed the right to make a “superseding” declaration.
Kasubhai said Kennedy had not followed the proper procedure before making a declaration on the issue. And, according to the Times, he said that “the case spoke to broader tactics that threatened to undermine democracy.”
“The notion that ‘I will go forward and issue a declaration and see if we can get away with it’ is not a principle of governance that adheres to the overarching commitment to a democratic republic that requires the rule of law to be regarded and respected and honored as sacred,” Kasubhai said.
For now, health care services for transgender minors remain legal. The judge’s written ruling is still pending.
Geographic and ideological differences
As the Times explained, “The states asserted that the federal government had attempted to unilaterally establish a national medical standard, violating the Administrative Procedure Act, which requires federal agencies to act within the bounds of authority delegated to them by Congress.”
Lawyers for the federal government argued in court papers that those 12 pages were a “non-binding policy position,” similar to publishing an opinion piece and asserted that Kennedy has a right to express his opinion.
The country is divided on the issue of gender transition treatment along party lines. Republican-led states — 27 in all — have banned the treatments. They are legal in the states that teamed up for the lawsuit. And some of those states lean toward thinking that refusal to provide the treatments could be discrimination.
Politico reported that “blue states have taken the Trump administration to court several times over the administration’s attempts to stop hospitals from providing gender-affirming care to minors. In January, several states filed a lawsuit over an administration policy to cut health and education grants from institutions that promote “gender ideology.” In February 2025, a judge blocked enforcement of President Donald Trump’s executive order threatening federal funding from hospitals that provide gender-affirming care to teenagers."
Thirteen academic medical institutions have reportedly been referred to the HHS inspector general’s office due to Kennedy’s declaration, which was broadly seen as a shortcut around the public comment period that accompanies proposed new rules, which were also issued in December.
KFF, a nonprofit health policy organization, said Medicare and Medicaid make up not quite half of spending on hospital care. Removing federal funds for noncompliance with the ban would basically shut down hospitals that lost that funding.
What about vaccines?
On Monday, a federal judge in Boston temporarily rejected some of the vaccine policy changes Kennedy and his department put forth. As the Los Angeles Times reported, “The judge ruled Kennedy likely violated federal procedures in revamping a key vaccine advisory committee and slimming down the childhood vaccine schedule without the committee’s input. Federal officials have indicated they plan to appeal that ruling.”
U.S. District Court Judge Brian E. Murphy said the overhaul probably violated rules guiding how public policy changes are made. The same, he said, is true of Kennedy’s decision to fire the entire advisory panel that recommends vaccines and replace them with his own hand-picked group.
According to the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, “The ruling means that, at least for now, the federal government must restore vaccination recommendations in place when Kennedy took office, and that the advisory panel — the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practice (ACIP) — cannot take any legal action."
The center reported that the U.S. Supreme Court could have two chances over the next year to weigh in on legal issues surrounding the U.S. childhood immunization schedule.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association and other medical groups had sued, claiming the Administrative Procedures Act specifically bans public policy changes that are “arbitrary and capricious.”
As for the vaccine committee, Murphy wrote that 13 of the new appointees “appear distinctly unqualified.” The center said that “in response to the ruling, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention canceled the ACIP meetings scheduled for March.
But there was also some serious pushback from the panel. Dr. Robert W. Malone, vice chairman of the immunization policy committee, called Murphy a “rogue judge” who should be impeached and accused the judge of defaming him.
As Deseret News has reported, Kennedy’s department had reduced the number of recommended vaccines, including ending recommendations that all children receive flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, certain vaccines for meningitis and also for respiratory syncytial virus.
The judge’s order at least for now halts that reduced vaccine recommendation.
As Oregonlive reported, “The judge’s order, however, is not the final word. The blocks are temporary, pending either a trial or a decision for summary judgment.”