I’m outraged by a Massachusetts court’s decision indicating that it was somehow illegitimate for HHS Secretary Kennedy to appoint Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) members, and therefore declare as illegitimate this committee’s recommendations since 2025. ACIP is the committee that advises the CDC on vaccine schedules.

The ACIP Charter states in no uncertain terms: “[ACIP] Members, including the Chair and Vice Chair, shall be selected by the Secretary….” How can a federal judge halt duly appointed experts? There is no authority for anyone but HHS Secretary Kennedy to appoint ACIP officials.

This judge is trying to reverse course on the Make America Healthy Again gains. I also suspect that the 2025 and 2026 vaccine schedule changes may have opened manufacturers up to liability for five of the six vaccines, due to their recommendation status being changed. Some cutesy judging may have been needed to shore up this loophole.

Three Halts

In American Academy of Pediatrics v. Kennedy, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy issued a preliminary injunction on March 16, 2026, containing a total of three stays (halts.) Judge Murphy put a stay on the appointment of the ACIP officials, a stay on their recommendations — such as not recommending the Hepatitis B dose at birth, and blocked a further reduction in CDC-recommended vaccines per the December 2025 Trump Directive/January 2026 HHS Decision Memorandum. His decision even cancelled this week’s ACIP meetings.

Per the ruling, the CDC recommended vaccine schedule for children is back to more than 70 doses of 16 vaccines, with COVID shots remaining in a lower category called Shared Clinical Decision-Making (SCDM).

ACIP Recommends, HHS and CDC Make Decisions

I believe the judge got it wrong, and conflated ACIP’s advisory role with CDC’s and HHS’s decision-making role. Judge Murphy also said that the federal government bypassed ACIP when making vaccine schedule changes in 2026, but ACIP does not perform a scientific gate-keeping role. Here is the exact language from the ACIP Charter:

The ACIP shall provide advice and guidance to the Director of the CDC regarding use of vaccines and related agents for effective control of vaccine-preventable diseases in the civilian population of the United States. Recommendations made by the ACIP are reviewed by the CDC Director, and if adopted, are published as official CDC/HHS recommendations in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).

Whether the vaccine schedule changes came from ACIP meeting recommendations in 2025, or from the 2026 HHS Decision Memo, putting a stay on ACIP should have no bearing on the CDC’s Recommended Childhood Vaccination Schedule, since it was the CDC Director who adopted changes from two sources.

In 2025, ACIP recommended moving two vaccines down from CDC-Recommended to SCDM.

In January 2026, the Deputy Director of HHS– in response to a memo from Trump– issued a Decision Memo which moved four more vaccines down to SCDM.

The law is silent on what other influences the CDC Director or Secretary of HHS can use to make public health decisions. It definitely does not say that ACIP is the exclusive advisor to either.

Malone, Levi, Kulldorff and Are Unqualified to Serve?

The stay on the ACIP members appointed by Kennedy is particularly egregious, as it was issued based on a mind-boggling pretense– a strawman argument– that the appointees are somehow unqualified to serve on ACIP, and that Kennedy by-passed rigorous screening and decided too quickly.

If heavy-hitters like Dr. Robert Malone (Vaccinologist, Scientist, Biochemist and Contributor to mRNA Vaccine Technology), Dr. Retsef Levi (MIT Sloan School of Management and Leading expert in Healthcare Analytics), and Dr. Martin Kulldorff (Biostatistician, Epidemiologist and former Harvard University Professor of Medicine) are unqualified, who would be qualified?

Did Judge Murphy Re-Shield Manufacturers from Liability?

What’s clear is that the pre-2025 ACIP has been operating with impunity as a political committee that feeds pharmaceutical companies’ lust to get liability protection for their vaccines. As an avid ACIP follower, I note that prior to 2025, ACIP had recommended that every vaccine on its agenda find a place on the CDC Recommended Schedule. Once there, that vaccine has product liability immunity.

Vaccines may lose that liability shield when they get moved down from CDC-Recommended to SCDM. Attorney Aaron Siri has stated repeatedly that when the five vaccines — Hep B, rotavirus, MenACWY, Hep A, flu– were moved down in late 2025 and early 2026, they lost their liability shield so the manufacturer could be sued in civil court for injuries or death. Others argue that the liability shield may be attached to any vaccine listed on the Injury Table, regardless of recommendation status. I don’t think it’s clear just yet, but this Mickey Mouse decision by Judge Murphy makes me think manufacturers got scared of being sued.

Manufacturers of COVID shots are still protected from liability by the PREP Act until the end of 2029. Perhaps tellingly, Judge Murphy’s decision left COVID shots in the lower SCDM category.

Where Should ACIP and CDC Obtain Input for Life-or-Death Vaccine Decisions?

Until this action by Judge Murphy, a total of six vaccines had been moved to SCDM.

Now the vaccine schedule is temporarily back to where it was in January 2025.

A childhood vaccine schedule that swings wildly every four years depending on who is President, is anything but scientific. Such practices, if undertaken by every President in the future, would undermine scientific credibility and erode public confidence. On the other hand, there is no U.S. Code stating that a President or HHS itself cannot direct these decisions, so Judge Murphy’s decision to reverse the 2026 changes holds no water in my opinion.

An ideal ACIP makes scientific recommendations. It should make recommendations based on the precautionary principle and based on the weight of the scientific evidence. It is set up to be the primary, but not the only advisor to CDC.

Is this Court the Right Venue to Decide Who and What Agencies Should Provide CDC Vaccine Input and Guidance?

Judge Murphy’s stays do bring up an important question that has gone unanswered. ACIP serves in an advisory capacity to the CDC Director, and U.S. code does not require every recommendation to come exclusively from ACIP. The law is silent on other sources of input, which leaves a significant gap in the framework. A judge does not have the right credentials to make these decisions. This is something that should be carefully considered by a well-informed and well-balanced committee.

I’m unsure if a proposal should be made to the HHS Secretary for adoption, or if a Bill should be introduced in Congress to clarify and codify the matter.

ACIP Should Formally Include More Broad Input

I strongly favor a fairly selected, balanced ACIP committee providing evidence-based guidance to CDC, while ensuring meaningful, structured input from additional sources, especially the public, which has been intentionally shut out from having significant influence:

• Thoroughly reformed public vaccine safety databases to capture accurate, real-world data
• Perspectives from elected officials who represent community concerns
• Regular, representative public surveys (building on tools like CDC’s existing HealthStyles Survey) to document experiences with vaccine injury and views on mandates
• AI-assisted summaries of public comments from medical professionals and patients to make thousands of voices digestible for committee review

These additions could answer pressing questions: What percentage of Americans support vaccine mandates? How many report injuries or adverse events? Including such data would make ACIP deliberations far more responsive to the people most impacted—parents and families bearing the consequences.

This ambiguity of who and which groups may provide official input to ACIP demands urgent attention from Congress and public health leaders to close the gaps and restore trust.

This Decision Will be Appealed & I’m Optimistic

I remain optimistic.

The Secretary’s authority to appoint ACIP members is plainly lawful, and appellate courts should recognize that. I expect the final ruling to uphold those appointments and, by extension, affirm the committee’s recommendations to move certain vaccines from routine CDC-recommended status to shared clinical decision-making— technically empowering parents who know to ask questions when visiting the pediatrician. The final ruling will also affirm the ability of ACIP to make any and all evidence-based recommendations that may change the CDC’s Recommended Children’s Vaccination Schedule. I would also think that a judge will be unable to find any U.S. Code prohibiting input from the Executive Branch to the CDC or HHS.

This is a temporary setback, not defeat. And I think it’s past time we defined ACIP’s influence – what inputs must be allowed, from whom, and if ACIP’s recommendations to the Director of the CDC are actually recommendations. Should they or do they carry more weight?

Separately, in California news, we do have an abundance of signs that our case to end California’s hard school mandates, filed by board member Dr. Richard Fox last week in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, is moving faster than anticipated, and in an increasingly positive direction. Stay tuned!