Medical Groups Ask Judge to Block CDC’s Overhaul of Childhood Vaccine Schedule

The mother slid two printouts across the exam room table: one from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the other from the American Academy of Pediatrics. The vaccine schedules did not match.

“Which one is right?” she asked.

Her pediatrician, who said she plans to keep following the AAP’s guidance, has spent much of January answering that question. Now, the professional societies representing doctors like her are asking a federal judge to intervene.

A sweeping change—and a lawsuit

On Jan. 5, the CDC, acting on a December memorandum from President Donald Trump, announced the most sweeping change to the U.S. childhood immunization schedule in decades. Several vaccines long recommended for every child—including shots against influenza, rotavirus, hepatitis A, respiratory syncytial virus, meningococcal disease and COVID‑19—were shifted out of the “routine” column and into categories reserved for high‑risk children or for what the agency calls “shared clinical decision-making.”

Within days, a coalition of leading medical and public health organizations filed an emergency motion in federal court seeking to block the changes and to halt a late‑February meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, the panel that helps shape U.S. vaccine policy. A hearing on their request for a preliminary injunction is scheduled for Feb. 13 in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts.

The case, American Academy of Pediatrics et al. v. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. et al., pits the nation’s largest pediatric and medical societies against the Department of Health and Human Services and its secretary, Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic now overseeing federal health policy. The outcome could influence not only which vaccines American children receive, but who controls the country’s vaccine playbook and how far politics can reach into scientific advisory processes.

What the new schedule keeps—and what it moves

Under the new schedule, CDC continues to recommend that all children be vaccinated against 11 diseases: measles, mumps, rubella, polio, pertussis, tetanus, diphtheria, Haemophilus influenzae type b, pneumococcal disease, human papillomavirus and varicella (chickenpox). The HPV schedule was reduced from two or three doses to a single dose.

Vaccines targeting influenza, rotavirus, hepatitis A, COVID‑19, some forms of hepatitis B and meningococcal disease were reassigned to categories for certain high‑risk groups or to shared decision‑making, where doctors and families weigh the pros and cons rather than treating vaccination as the standard path for every child. Products to protect infants from RSV, a leading cause of infant hospitalizations, were narrowed to specific high‑risk pathways, though RSV antibodies remain broadly recommended for babies whose mothers were not vaccinated during pregnancy.

HHS officials emphasize that the change does not cut off coverage. In a fact sheet released alongside the new schedule, the department said all immunizations recommended by CDC as of Dec. 31, 2025, will continue to be fully covered under Affordable Care Act plans and by federal programs such as Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program and Vaccines for Children.

“We are aligning the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule with international consensus while maintaining access to all vaccines for families who want them,” Kennedy said in a statement. He described the move as a way to “protect children, respect families and rebuild trust in public health.”

Jim O’Neill, the HHS deputy secretary serving as acting CDC director, said the administration’s scientific review supported “a more focused schedule” that would improve clarity and public confidence in vaccines.

That review was led by National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz, all of whom have criticized aspects of mainstream COVID‑19 policy. They concluded that the United States is a “global outlier” among wealthy nations, recommending more diseases and doses than peers such as Denmark, without achieving higher vaccination rates.

Medical societies say the change lacks evidence—and process

Medical societies challenging the change say the comparison to Europe oversimplifies differences in disease burden, health systems and existing coverage. More fundamentally, they argue, the rollback was not driven by new evidence.

In a January news release announcing their legal action, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American College of Physicians, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine and the Massachusetts Public Health Association said recent federal decisions “abandoned long‑standing, rigorous standards” for evaluating vaccines.

“These changes are unnecessary, unsupported and ill‑advised,” AAP President Dr. Andrew Racine said, arguing that vaccine policy “must be driven by evidence and by a lawful process, not by arbitrary shifts divorced from science.”

APHA Executive Director Dr. Georges Benjamin said Kennedy had “replaced qualified ACIP members with conflicted and less qualified people” and warned that bypassing normal scientific review to fast‑track partisan changes would “lead to increased illness and suffering by children and their families.”

Legal claims focus on administrative law and advisory-panel rules

The lawsuit, first filed in July 2025 over earlier decisions to scale back COVID‑19 vaccine recommendations and overhaul ACIP, alleges that HHS and CDC violated the Administrative Procedure Act by making arbitrary and capricious changes without adequate justification or public process. It also claims violations of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires advisory panels such as ACIP to be “fairly balanced” and not subject to inappropriate influence by the appointing authority.

Plaintiffs say Kennedy dismissed most ACIP members and installed several new ones who had publicly expressed skepticism about vaccines, particularly those against COVID‑19, and that December 2025 ACIP meetings downplayed existing data when voting to weaken recommendations for the hepatitis B birth dose.

On Jan. 6, the federal judge overseeing the case rejected HHS’s motion to dismiss, ruling that the coalition of medical societies and an individual pregnant physician had standing to challenge both the changes to COVID‑19 vaccination guidance and the reconstitution of ACIP. That ruling cleared the way for the plaintiffs to seek the expedited injunction aimed at the broader Jan. 5 overhaul.

Clinics and health departments warn of confusion

The Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society is not a plaintiff but has issued sharp public statements opposing the administration’s vaccine moves. In a Jan. 5 statement, the society said there was “no new evidence” warranting a retreat from universal recommendations for vaccines such as flu and rotavirus, and warned that the changes would create “unprecedented” confusion in pediatric clinics.

Local health officials have voiced similar concerns. In central Michigan, Dr. Catherine Bodnar, medical director for several county health departments, said the decision to move flu shots into shared decision‑making was “disappointing” and confusing for families, especially in the middle of flu season.

She noted that in recent seasons flu vaccines have been estimated to be around 70% to 75% effective in children, and that severe neurologic complications and deaths have disproportionately affected unvaccinated kids. The 2024‑25 flu season recorded around 280 pediatric deaths nationwide, one of the highest tallies outside the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, with the vast majority of those children not fully vaccinated, according to CDC data.

“Changing the message about flu vaccines now, without new data to support it, sends the wrong signal,” Bodnar said.

States diverge; federal officials emphasize choice

Cities and states are already diverging in their responses. The Philadelphia Immunization Program told providers that “there are no changes in vaccine recommendations and availability” locally and that families can still access the full set of shots recommended by the AAP. Several Democratic‑led states have indicated they will maintain pre‑2026 school requirements anchored to the older CDC schedule and professional-society guidance.

At the same time, HHS officials argue that giving families more discretion will not necessarily depress coverage, noting that all vaccines remain covered and available even if they are no longer labeled “routine” for every child. They say shared decision‑making recognizes that risks and benefits can vary among patients and that clinicians, not federal panels, should guide individualized choices.

Public health leaders counter that in practice, the federal schedule is not just advice. It shapes state school entry requirements, electronic medical record prompts and the default expectations in exam rooms. When a vaccine is removed from the routine column, they say, many parents interpret that as a signal of lower necessity or safety, even if coverage on paper remains.

Experts also worry about the long‑term effect on trust. For decades, ACIP’s deliberations were seen as technical and largely insulated from partisan swings. The current dispute centers not only on the content of its recommendations, but on whether the committee itself has been reshaped to align with the secretary’s views.

“This is not how we have made vaccine policy in this country,” one infectious‑disease physician involved with a plaintiff organization said. “We’ve never before seen a large, top‑down contraction of the schedule driven from the political side.”

What happens next

As the Feb. 13 hearing approaches, the judge will be asked to decide whether to freeze the new schedule and upcoming ACIP meeting while the case proceeds—weighing the plaintiffs’ claims of likely success and irreparable harm against the government’s argument that it is merely refining guidance and expanding parental choice.

Whatever the ruling, pediatricians and parents will still be sitting across from each other in exam rooms, navigating conflicting charts. On one side are federal officials who say a leaner, more flexible schedule will better match peer nations and respect families’ rights. On the other are medical groups and local health authorities who view the same shift as a retreat from evidence‑based protections that helped bring once‑common childhood illnesses to heel.

For now, the question that mother in the clinic asked—“Which one is right?”—has become the subject of a national legal and scientific fight whose outcome will determine how the next generation is protected from preventable disease.