from the finally dept
It was mere days ago that we were discussing an interesting lawsuit brought by the American Academy of Pediatrics, among others, challenging RFK Jr. and HHS for violating the Administrative Procedures Act in making changes to the CDC’s ACIP panel and immunization schedules. If you’re not up on what the APA is and does, the text of the law reads:
To the extent necessary to decision and when presented, the reviewing court shall decide all relevant questions of law, interpret constitutional and statutory provisions, and determine the meaning or applicability of the terms of an agency action. The reviewing court shall-
(1) compel agency action unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed; and
(2) hold unlawful and set aside agency action, findings, and conclusions found to be-
(A) arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law;
(B) contrary to constitutional right, power, privilege, or immunity;
(C) in excess of statutory jurisdiction, authority, or limitations, or short of statutory right;
(D) without observance of procedure required by law;
(E) unsupported by substantial evidence in a case subject to sections 556 and 557 of this title or otherwise reviewed on the record of an agency hearing provided by statute; or
(F) unwarranted by the facts to the extent that the facts are subject to trial de novo by the reviewing court.
In other words, the law outlines how actions brought by federal agencies must follow certain established procedures and be based in facts, as well as how upon challenge the courts could review and enforce those requirements on said agencies. Remarkably, in that same case, the DOJ argued to the court that Kennedy’s actions were “unreviewable”. At one point, Judge Murphy asked the DOJ if that meant that Kennedy could advise the public to get a shot to get measles, instead of preventing it, without review or challenge. The DOJ somehow answered that question in the affirmative.
It was all very stupid on the part of this particular government, but stupid appears to be the only thing on the menu these days. But it turns out that the actions of Kennedy and HHS are in fact reviewable, as evidenced by the preliminary injunction the court just issued blocking the recent changes to the vaccination schedule and put a stay on the 13 new members appointed to ACIP by Kennedy last summer.
U.S. District Court Judge Brian Murphy in Boston put a hold on the decisions made by an influential Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine advisory committee, ruling that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had improperly replaced the entire committee.
The ACIP, whose members Kennedy fired and replaced largely with new members who also criticized vaccines, had issued a series of contentious recommendations, including a recommendation that not all babies should get vaccinated against hepatitis B at birth. The judge’s ruling stays the appointment of 13 committee members appointed by Kennedy since June 2025, when the previous members were fired.
Several health NGOs, including the AAP, are celebrating the ruling, understandably. Before we pop any champagne bottles, though, the government has already said it plans to appeal the ruling. This is lining up like one of those classic whipsaw legal situations where one court will rule sanely, the next will rule in favor of executive power, and then it’ll go to the Supreme Court and we’ll all learn if that compromised group of black robes will just hand more destructive power over to Trump in ignoring a law it doesn’t like, in this case the APA.
But in the meantime, this is at least delaying some of the damage Kennedy has attempting to foist on the American people. ACIP was set to meet this very week to talk about how else to make us less safe from preventable diseases, but that meeting has now been postponed. In the ruling itself, Judge Murphy opens with a blistering recitation of how science and process are all supposed to work.
“Science,” like law, “is far from a perfect instrument of knowledge.” Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark 29 (1997). History is littered with once-universal truths that have since come under scrutiny. Nevertheless, science is still “the best we have.”
“Procedure is to law what scientific method is to science.” In re Gault, 387 U.S. 1, 21 (1967) (cleaned up). Although sometimes seemingly tedious, “the procedural rules which have been fashioned from the generality of due process are our best instruments for the distillation and evaluation of essential facts from the conflicting welter of data that life and our adversary methods present.”
For our public health, Congress and the Executive have built—over decades—an apparatus that marries the rigors of science with the execution and force of the United States government…Unfortunately, the Government has disregarded those methods and thereby undermined the integrity of its actions. First, the Government bypassed ACIP to change the immunization schedules, which is both a technical, procedural failure itself and a strong indication of something more fundamentally problematic: an abandonment of the technical knowledge and expertise embodied by that committee. Second, the Government removed all duly appointed members of ACIP and summarily replaced them without undertaking any of the rigorous screening that had been the hallmark of ACIP member selection for decades. Again, this procedural failure highlights the very reasons why procedures exist and raises a substantial likelihood that the newly appointed ACIP fails to comport with governing law.
Chef’s kiss; no notes.
This administration doesn’t care much for law or procedure, of course, hence the appeal of an obviously correct decision. Kennedy all the moreso, either because this is all some flavor of grift anyway, or he’s a true-believing zealot, or both. Either way, this isn’t over.
But finally someone has drawn first legal blood on Kennedy and the chaos he’s created at his post when it comes to vaccinations.
Filed Under: acip, administrative procedure act, brian murphy, cdc, health & human services, rfk jr., vaccines
Companies: aap
Comments on “U.S. District Court Issues Preliminary Injunction Against RFK, HHS For Its Vaccine Schedule Changes”
It will be overturned in a month or so.
Because they ALWAYS are. But you never comment on that part.