Statement: Preliminary Ruling on Vaccine Schedule, ACIP Reinforces Science Over Politics

Following today’s announcement that a federal judge from Massachusetts blocked U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. from implementing a series of decisions on vaccines made over the last year, Alliance for Aging Research President & CEO Sue Peschin, MHS, issued the following statement:

Today’s preliminary injunction ruling by U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy is a watershed moment for the health of America’s children and a sharp rebuke of HHS Secretary Kennedy’s efforts to politicize vaccine science and the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).

Judge Murphy found that the plaintiffs are “likely to succeed” in showing that the January 5, 2026, wholesale slashing of the CDC’s child and adolescent vaccine schedule by HHS political appointees violated the federal Administrative Procedure Act. The ruling comes in response to a lawsuit filed by six medical organizations, which argue that Secretary Kennedy and his appointees made arbitrary and capricious changes while bypassing the careful, evidence-based process that has long guided vaccine recommendations.

The court also suspended the decision-making authority of the reconstituted ACIP, finding that HHS sharply departed from established procedure and likely violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act. In June 2025, Secretary Kennedy abruptly dismissed all appointed ACIP members and replaced them with his own selections. The committee had been scheduled to meet March 18–19, but that meeting has now been postponed.

More than 70 organizations support the plaintiffs’ suit, and will continue to do so as the case proceeds. For now, today’s ruling reinforces a fundamental principle: vaccine policy must be guided by science, transparency, and the rule of law—not politics.