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The American Public Health Association (APHA), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), American College of Physicians (ACP), Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), Massachusetts Public Health Alliance (MPHA), Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) and an anonymous pregnant physician are suing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Kennedy for “acting arbitrarily and capriciously when he unilaterally changed COVID-19 vaccine recommendations for children and pregnant people,” according to a press release from the APHA.
The plaintiffs include an anonymous pregnant physician, who is at risk of being unable to get a COVID vaccine booster due to these recommendations. She is routinely exposed to diseases like COVID due to her vocation and is at heightened risk due to her pregnancy.
Removal of vaccine recommendations endangers the public, plaintiffs claim
Kennedy announced that the COVID vaccine would no longer be recommended for pregnant women and healthy children via a post on X on May 27.
The suit calls for injunctions to prohibit Kennedy’s new vaccine recommendations and for the court to pronounce them unlawful. “This administration is an existential threat to vaccination in America,” said Richard H. Hughes IV, a lawyer who teaches vaccine law at George Washington University and is the lead counsel for the plaintiffs.
An HHS spokesperson told ABC News that “the Secretary stands by his CDC reforms” when asked for comments responding to the suit.
“Decades of strategic vaccination campaigns virtually eliminated diseases previously common in the U.S., and recent COVID-19 vaccinations are estimated to have saved nearly 20 million lives globally. Secretary Kennedy’s actions are not only dangerous for pregnant women and children, but they also represent a retreat from 60+ years of evidence-based health policy,” said Carlene Pavlos, executive director of the MPHA.
The suit charges that a “coordinated set of actions” by HHS and Kennedy were undertaken to “mislead, confuse, and gradually desensitize the public to anti-vaccine and anti-science rhetoric,” according to the APHA press release. The actions referred to include blocking CDC communications, canceling vaccine panel meetings, announcing studies to investigate the link between vaccines and autism and replacing the ACIP with individuals “biased against sound vaccine facts”.
“Unless the Secretary’s baseless and uninformed policy decision is vacated, pregnant women, their unborn children, and, in fact, all children remain at grave and immediate risk of contracting a preventable disease. This decision immediately exposes these vulnerable populations to a serious illness with potentially irreversible long-term effects and, in some cases, death,” the suit states.
The origins of the vaccine controversy
The suit contains a brief history of vaccines, including a short overview of a retracted study by Andrew Wakefield, which linked autism to the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. The study was based on anecdotal reports from the parents of 12 children. Wakefield had also been paid by lawyers representing parents suing vaccine manufacturers, which he did not disclose. This study fueled an anti-vaccine movement in the U.S.
At the same time this study was published, concerns about the dangers of mercury led to thimerosal, which breaks down into ethylmercury, being falsely conflated with harmful forms of mercury. In 1999, U.S. health officials recommended removing thimerosal from vaccines, though the ingredient had not been shown to be dangerous. This furthered the misinterpretation of thimerosal as unsafe.
In 2005, Kennedy published an article linking thimerosal to autism. The article was later retracted due to numerous errors. Kennedy also served as the chair of the Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine advocacy group, from 2015 to 2023. Despite this, Kennedy promised to “commit to decision-making based on credible, peer-reviewed research, and acknowledge the danger of promoting unfounded theories” in his confirmation hearing. The lawsuit states that “his actions as Secretary belie” this promise.
Filed Under: Infectious Disease
