Health organizations sue RFK Jr. over vaccine policy : Shots

At the end of May, the Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. withdrew the vaccines wearing the list of recommendations for healthy children and pregnant women. The prosecution alleges that this decision violated the federal law.

RF / Getty Images Aire / Moment Images

hide

tilting legend

RF / Getty Images Aire / Moment Images

A handful of leading medical organizations pursue the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., on the recent changes in federal recommendations for COVVI -19 vaccine – part of what they characterize as a wider effort to undermine confidence in vaccines among the American public.

The complaints, filed on Monday before the Federal District Court, include the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Physicians and the American Public Health Association.

The trial focuses on Kennedy’s decision to withdraw pregnant women and healthy children from the COVVI-19 vaccine calendar at the end of May. The prosecution alleges that it was “arbitrary” and “capricious” and in violation of the federal law which governs the way in which these decisions are taken.

The complaint asks the court to reverse the changes to the vaccine recommendations and declare them illegal.

“In recent months, experts have been sidelined, the evidence has been undermined and the vaccination infrastructure of our country is now threatened, the Dre Susan Kressly, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, on Monday to journalists,

“The health of each child is at stake,” she said.

In a statement at NPR, Andrew Nixon, spokesperson for the Ministry of Health and Social Services, said: “The secretary holds his CDC reforms.”

The trial was filed in the Massachusetts because many of the complainants who were affected were there, said Richard H. Hughes IV, the main lawyer for the medical groups who are pursuing the federal government.

For example, one of the complainants, identified only as “Jane Doe” in the complaint, is a pregnant doctor who works in a hospital in Massachusetts and says that she is afraid that she cannot get a cocvid vaccine.

The 42 -page complaint catalogs many Kennedy actions on vaccine policy since leadership at HHS, in particular by removing all of the experts from a federal vaccination advisory committee and replacing them with its own choices.

James Hodge is director of the Center for Public Health Law and Policy at Arizona State University and is not involved in the trial. Hodge said that the case ultimately depended on the allegations that Kennedy and other federal health agencies and other championship managers have violated the law on administrative procedure, which stipulates how changes in vaccine recommendations should be made. These changes include a process that implies the advisory committee for vaccination practices, or ACIP, the panel whose original members Kennedy have launched.

“The complaint here makes a plausible case that they have not followed at all of the appropriate procedures, linked to the recommendations of the ACIP,” explains Hodge. “This is where the court must take this case seriously.”