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vaccines
Judge Blocks RFK Jr. From Implementing 'Arbitrary and Capricious' Vaccine Overhaul
One physician and public health expert called the ruling "a much-needed victory for a sane approach to federal vaccine policy that relies on science, not misinformation and conspiracy theories."
Mar 16, 2026
In what advocates called a major victory for public health, a federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from implementing a series of moves that critics have warned would weaken childhood immunization efforts and increase the likelihood of serious disease outbreaks.
US District Judge Brian E. Murphy of Massachusetts, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, invalidated Kennedy's reorganized Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) panel, which was set to meet later this week.
Kennedy—who was confirmed by the Senate last year over the objections of tens of thousands experts and despite being a purveyor of vaccine misinformation—replaced ACIP members with several people with ties to the anti-vaccine movement.
Murphy also blocked the committee's unprecedented changes to US immunization recommendations, writing that the "arbitrary and capricious" move stands in stark contrast with the long established decision-making process he called "a method scientific in nature and codified into law through procedural requirements."
“Unfortunately, the government has disregarded those methods and thereby undermined the integrity of its actions," the judge said.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under Kennedy revised the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) childhood immunization schedule so that fewer vaccines are now universally recommended for all children. The agency also reclassified vaccines that were previously endorsed for all children into categories in which vaccination depends on designated risk groups and consultations with medical professionals, among other changes.
Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have announced that they would not follow the new CDC immunization recommendations.
Lookie Here! As of now, 29 states + DC, have announced that they are no longer going to follow CDC's recommendations for some or all childhood vaccines.Kennedy is not restoring public trust in science as he said he would. 🧪 www.kff.org/other-health...
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— Princess Vimentin PhD | Cancer Biologist (@princess-vimentin.bsky.social) March 12, 2026 at 11:47 AM
Plaintiffs' attorney Richard Huges IV said in a statement that "this ruling is a momentous step toward restoring science-based vaccine policymaking."
"The judge recognized that the actions of Secretary Kennedy and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices are not grounded in science and that they are destructive," he added. "We are thrilled that the court has discarded the baseless vaccine schedule changes made by Secretary Kennedy and is blocking the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices from doing further damage to vaccine policy."
Dr. Robert Steinbrook, Health Research Group director at Public Citizen, said in response to the ruling that "Judge Murphy’s decision is a much-needed victory for a sane approach to federal vaccine policy that relies on science, not misinformation and conspiracy theories."
"Kennedy’s hand-picked ACIP has been a national embarrassment, thoroughly lacking in the ability to make careful fact-based decisions," he added. "The judge’s ruling offers a responsible path forward for public health and evidence-based federal vaccine policy.”
RFK Jr. fired all of the legitimate scientific experts on the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices and replaced them with unqualified political appointees.A judge just ruled that the new members were not appropriately appointed, so ACIP cannot meet this week to spread more misinformation.
— Elizabeth Jacobs, PhD (@elizabethjacobs.bsky.social) March 16, 2026 at 1:38 PM
Anthony Wright, executive director of the advocacy group Families USA, said in a statement: "When politics override science, our children pay the price. Today’s decision helps ensure that medical evidence—not ideology—guides how we protect kids from preventable diseases."
Wright continued:
Secretary Kennedy’s attempt to remove universal recommendations for routine vaccinations only increased confusion among medical providers and families. The routine vaccines being questioned by HHS are the product of centuries of rigorous science and medicine and are why children today don’t die from measles or suffer the lifelong consequences of diseases we long ago learned to prevent. For a country as large, diverse, and mobile as ours, universal vaccine recommendations are the safest and most effective way to stop outbreaks before they start.
Amid several recent outbreaks, public health officials warned late last year that the United States is close to following Canada in losing its measles elimination status, a deadly and preventable setback many experts attribute to HHS' vaccine-averse policies and practices under Kennedy.
"We commend the court for this ruling, but families should not have to depend on litigation to ensure their child can receive a routine vaccine," Wright said. "Evidence-based medicine keeps children alive and in school. Preventing disease should be the foundation of any healthcare system serious about confronting the next disease outbreak or finding the next cure."
The group Protect Our Care called the decision "a major step in the right direction for children’s health after many setbacks under this administration."
“Most Americans, most states, and now a federal court have rejected the [President Donald] Trump-RFK Jr. scheme to make preventable disease great again among American children while exploding health costs across the country," Protect Our Care president Brad Woodhouse said. "While this ruling is a reprieve from harmful anti-vaccine policy based on nothing but junk science and discredited conspiracies, it’s clear the Trump administration is determined to resuscitate their agenda in a higher court because they care more about their anti-science agenda than keeping kids healthy.”
Indeed, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said the agency "looks forward to this judge’s decision being overturned just like his other attempts to keep the Trump administration from governing.”
Public health advocates noted the limitations of judicial rulings.
"The courts can only do so much without Congress, which must fulfill its oversight responsibility and rein in an executive branch that is taking an axe to core public health protections," Wright said. "Transparency and scientific integrity are not optional, especially when children’s lives are at stake. Families deserve vaccine policy grounded in evidence and expert guidance—not ideology or personal bias—with the goal of making sure every child in America can grow up healthy.”
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'One Year of Failure': The Lancet Warns RFK Jr.'s Assault on Science May 'Take Generations to Repair'
Kennedy has "made a habit of throwing good money after bad" by promoting "junk science and fringe beliefs."
Feb 27, 2026
A scathing editorial published Friday in one of the world's most prestigious medical journals took US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to task for what it described as "one year of failure."
In its editorial, the Lancet began by listing off several of the broken promises Kennedy made during his first speech after being confirmed to lead the US Health and Human Services Department (HHS), such as his vow to have "open and honest engagement with everyone willing to work towards making the USA healthy again" and usher in "a new era of unbiased science without hidden conflicts of interest, secrecy, or profiteering."
In fact, the Lancet found that it took Kennedy less than two weeks to break a key promise.
"Ten days after his speech about trust and openness," the journal noted, "HHS rescinded a 54-year-old policy of soliciting public comments for new rules and regulations, silencing the voices of many of the stakeholders he pledged to serve."
Things have only gotten worse since then, the editorial continued, as Kennedy has shelved research into mRNA vaccines and "made a habit of throwing good money after bad" by promoting "junk science and fringe beliefs."
The editorial concluded by warning "the destruction that Kennedy has wrought in one year might take generations to repair, and there is little hope for US health and science while he remains at the helm." The journal urged the US Congress to "hold Kennedy accountable for his record, or else accept responsibility for endorsing President Trump's decision to let him 'run wild on health.'"
The Lancet editorial drew a range of reactions from medical experts and academics.
Scott Forbes, an ecologist at the University of Winnipeg, explained the significance of a journal such as the Lancet publishing such an overtly political editorial.
"For context, the Lancet is one of the two most important medical journals on the planet," he wrote in a social media post. "When they put this on their front cover, it is only because there is something seriously wrong. That something is RFK Jr. He is a notorious crank and charlatan. But that's par for the course in the Trump regime."
Forbes' point was echoed by Krutika Kuppalli, associate professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center's Department of Internal Medicine.
"When a leading medical journal uses language like this, it’s not rhetoric," she wrote. "It’s a warning the world should take seriously."
Pediatrician Vincent Iannelli took the Lancet to task for publishing a since-retracted study in 1998 that falsely linked vaccination with the development of autism, which subsequently helped the anti-vaccination movement gain currency.
"Let's not forget that Wakefield's fraudulent paper that was published in the Lancet helped get us on this road," Iannelli said. "RFK Jr. was influenced by mothers who blamed vaccines for their child's autism."
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Trump's Surgeon General Nominee Dodges Senators' Questions on Vaccines, Conflicts of Interest
"Means is another example of President Trump nominating someone with financial conflicts instead of qualifications," said one consumer advocate.
Feb 25, 2026
The US Senate's confirmation hearing for Casey Means, President Donald Trump's nominee to be the next US surgeon general, showcased "just how profoundly unqualified" the wellness influencer is to serve as the nation's top doctor, said one consumer advocate after Means dodged questions about her potential conflicts of interest, refused to affirm that anti-vaccine conspiracy theories have been debunked, and spread misinformation about contraception.
Means was nominated to the role on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s recommendation, and her lack of a current medical license would make her an outlier among past surgeons general. Her license lapsed in 2024, and she did not finish her medical residency at Oregon Health and Science University, leaving in 2018 just months before she was set to complete it because, as PBS NewsHour reported last year, "she came to view the healthcare system as exploitative."
Means then became a self-described "metabolic health evangelist" and a social media wellness influencer, sharing a newsletter with her hundreds of thousands of followers to whom she marketed health products and supplements and earning tens of thousands of dollars in income doing so.
She is also the co-founder of a company called Levels, which offers a subscription for wearable glucose monitors—and which could benefit from Kennedy's endorsement of wearable medical devices.
Means signed a government ethics agreement last September stating she would resign from her advisory position at Levels and stop promoting wellness products for income, but Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, including Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), had questions about Means' recent potential conflicts of interest.
Murphy noted that Means failed to disclose her financial interests numerous times when promoting her lab testing platform, Function Health; Genova Diagnostics, another testing company that she sponsored; and Zenbasil seeds, a supplement that she recommended in her newsletter and whose maker she had a financial partnership with.
"This seems systemic," said Murphy. "It seems that in a majority of instances in which you were, as a medical professional, recommending a product, you were hiding the fact that you had a financial partnership."
Means responded by accusing Murphy's staff of "intentionally" mischaracterizing the data about her disclosures.
damn, Trump's surgeon general nominee Casey Means is a transparent bullshitter even by the standards of the regime. Watch how she's tries to blame Chris Murphy's staffers for the fact he has her dead to rights on being dishonest and corrupt.
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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) February 25, 2026 at 11:28 AM
"Means is another example of President Trump nominating someone with financial conflicts instead of qualifications—elevated precisely because of her opposition to the best science and fundamental public health principles," said Robert Weissman, co-president of government watchdog Public Citizen. "We need a surgeon general who understands that public health is, fundamentally, about taking care of each other, not leaving each of us to go it alone."
Considering Means' background, he added, "it is clear that Means will not push back on Trump and RFK Jr. as they put profits ahead of patients and anti-science views ahead of sound public health information. The already broken US healthcare system has been made much worse by Trump and his allies, who have gutted important health agencies and made dangerous cuts to health programs to fund tax cuts for billionaires."
“Casey Means has no place as US surgeon general, and every senator should reject her absurd nomination," said Weissman.
As in Kennedy's confirmation hearing last year, a number of questions from senators were related to Means' views on vaccination. Like the HHS secretary, during her career Means has expressed skepticism about immunization despite scientific studies and decades of evidence that have shown vaccines against diseases like polio and measles have prevented millions of deaths and amounted to some of the most successful public health interventions in history.
On Joe Rogan's podcast in 2024, Means allowed that "one vaccine probably isn’t causing autism" but asked, "What about the 20 that they’re getting before 18 months?”
There is no evidence that the childhood vaccine schedule in the US leads to autism. The increased number of vaccinations children receive today compared to the 1980s and '90s is frequently cited as a concern among vaccine skeptics, but the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's Vaccine Education Center notes that the "immunological components in vaccines has dramatically decreased" due to "scientific advances in protein chemistry and protein purification that have allowed for purer, safer vaccines."
Means said Wednesday that "anti-vaccine rhetoric has never been a part of my message," but refused to answer several direct questions about immunization.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a physician, asked Means whether she would encourage Americans to be vaccinated against the flu.
Means replied that patients should "have informed consent with their doctor before getting any medication" and said that "vaccines save lives," but did not confirm whether she would endorse the flu vaccine.
CASSIDY: Would you encourage Americans to take the flu vaccine?
CASEY MEANS: I do think it's important as a physician and to rebuild trust in public health to make sure patients are encouraged to have informed consent with their doctors before getting any medication pic.twitter.com/b5JhGUMs5R
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 25, 2026
She also would not say whether she would recommend the measles vaccine as surgeon general. Nearly 1,000 children have been sickened with the highly contagious, preventable illness in South Carolina, and two children died of measles in West Texas last year, with the outbreaks spreading among the unvaccinated population in the affected areas.
"Would you encourage mothers to vaccinate their children with the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, seeing how we've had children die?" asked Cassidy.
Means again said only that she is "supportive" of the vaccine but continued to focus her reply on the idea that parents should have "a conversation" with their doctor about immunization against deadly diseases.
Dr. Casey Means, Trump's nominee for surgeon general, won't unambiguously say that mothers should have their kids vaccinated against measles: "I do believe that each mother needs to have a conversation with their pediatrician about any medication they're putting in their… pic.twitter.com/tiqYv7eeAD
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 25, 2026
Angela Rasmussen, a virologist and Defend Public Health member, said Means' "only apparent qualification for the job of surgeon general is her willingness to promote RFK Jr.’s disinformation and quackery.”
Epidemiologist Elizabeth Jacobs, a member of the group's coordinating committee, added that "the leading US government voice on public health issues... must be someone Americans can trust to give credible advice based on solid science and real data, not a charlatan who specializes in selling expensive, unproven tests and treatments."
"It's time for the Senate to grow a backbone and say, 'Enough!'" said Jacobs, "starting with Casey Means."
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