Medical Societies and Patient Sue HHS & RFK

Medical Societies and Patient Sue HHS, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for Unlawful, Unilateral Changes to Vaccine Recommendations

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), American College of Physicians (ACP), American Public Health Association (APHA), Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), Massachusetts Public Health Alliance (MPHA), Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM), and a pregnant physician, filed suit in American Academy of Pediatrics v. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts to defend vaccine policy.

Plaintiffs in the case are suing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Secretary Kennedy for acting arbitrarily and capriciously by unilaterally changing Covid-19 vaccine recommendations for children and pregnant patients.  The lawsuit asks for preliminary and permanent injunctions to enjoin Secretary Kennedy’s rescissions of Covid vaccine recommendations and a declaratory judgment pronouncing the change in recommendations as unlawful.

ACP President Jason Goldman stated, “As physicians, we require reliable, science-based guidance that is based on the best available evidence, developed through an evidence-based and transparent process, to ensure the safety, welfare, and lives of our patients.”

“This administration is an existential threat to vaccination in America, and those in charge are only just getting started. If left unchecked, Secretary Kennedy will accomplish his goal of ridding the United States of vaccines, which would unleash a wave of preventable harm on our nation’s children,” said Richard H. Hughes IV, partner at Epstein Becker Green and lead counsel for the plaintiffs. “The professional associations for pediatricians, internal medicine physicians, infectious disease physicians, high-risk pregnancy physicians, and public health professionals will not stand idly by as our system of prevention is dismantled. This ends now,” he added.

The lawsuit charges that a coordinated set of actions by HHS and Secretary Kennedy were designed to mislead, confuse, and gradually desensitize the public to anti-vaccine and anti-science rhetoric, and that Secretary Kennedy has routinely ignored federal procedural rules.

The anonymous individual plaintiff in the lawsuit is a pregnant woman who has been denied the Covid-19 vaccine booster since the HHS-issued directive, despite being at high risk for exposure to infectious diseases.