Federal Judge Struck Down Vaccine Advisory Panel, RFK Jr. May Revive It on His Terms

The nation's childhood vaccine advisory committee is in legal limbo after a federal judge struck down its reconstituted membership and voided nearly a year of its decisions, but the Department of Health and Human Services has signaled it intends to bring the panel back on terms set by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy issued the injunction on Monday, March 16, 2026, finding that federal officials likely violated established legal procedures in both rewriting vaccine guidance and restructuring a key advisory panel. The judge's ruling stayed the appointment of 13 committee members appointed by Kennedy since June 2025, when the previous members were fired. Murphy also found that the CDC's reconstitution of the ACIP last year failed to abide by the Federal Advisory Committee Act, and that the CDC bypassing ACIP when changing the childhood immunization schedule was both a "technical, procedural failure" and "an abandonment of the technical knowledge and expertise embodied by that committee."

Kennedy fired all 17 members of ACIP and reconstituted the panel with people more aligned with his views, including some without relevant backgrounds. In his ruling, Judge Murphy noted that "even under the most generous reading, only six appear to have any meaningful experience in vaccines — the very focus of ACIP." The Massachusetts judge, nominated to the bench by President Joe Biden, said Kennedy's reconstitution of ACIP likely violated federal law, and ordered the appointments — and all decisions made by the reformed committee — put on hold.

Among the decisions now frozen is a vote to no longer recommend the hepatitis B vaccine for all newborns. Kennedy's CDC had also issued a January 2026 decision memo that demoted seven vaccines from the universally recommended childhood vaccination schedule to a lesser status, covering rotavirus, meningitis, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, influenza, COVID-19, and RSV. Judge Murphy concluded that the challengers are likely to show that Kennedy's wholesale reconstitution of ACIP and that January 2026 revision to the childhood vaccine schedule both violated the Administrative Procedure Act, noting that Kennedy installed the new lineup through a "compressed, ad hoc process that departed from ACIP's charter and Membership Balance Plan."

The ruling cancelled the ACIP meeting that had been scheduled for March 18 and 19, 2026. The case was brought by the American Academy of Pediatrics and several other medical organizations, which had originally filed their lawsuit in July 2025. Plaintiff attorney Richard Hughes said the ruling meant that "all of the votes taken by ACIP since it's been reconstituted — going back to when they were reconstituted last summer — have been stayed."

HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon responded that "HHS looks forward to this judge's decision being overturned just like his other attempts to keep the Trump administration from governing." The department confirmed it intends to appeal. Meanwhile, prominent figures in the Make America Healthy Again movement, as well as some of the ACIP members impacted by the ruling, have been pressing officials to chart a path forward — and a new notice from HHS suggests Kennedy may seek to reconstitute the panel again, this time on terms designed to survive judicial scrutiny. Whether that effort holds up in court, where 15 Democrat-led states have separately sued the Trump administration in a bid to undo the ACIP changes and what they allege to be the "unlawful replacement" of the panel, remains the central legal question heading into the next phase of litigation.