The appointment of a controversial slate of vaccine advisers by Robert F Kennedy Jr likely violated federal law, and all votes taken by the committee over the past year have been stayed, a federal judge ruled on Monday.
The advisory committee on immunization practices (ACIP) is not able to meet later this week, since its membership has been invalidated, the judge said.
The unprecedented changes to routine US immunization recommendations in January, when health officials unilaterally changed one-third of the schedule, were “arbitrary and capricious”, the court found.
Judge Brian E Murphy ruled on a lawsuit brought by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) against the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
“This is a major victory,” said Richard Hughes IV, one of the lawyers representing the AAP.
When Kennedy fired all 17 members of the ACIP in June and replaced them with his own hand-picked advisers, many of whom have expressed anti-vaccine views, the health secretary likely violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), the judge found.
For that reason, the 13 appointments were stayed by the judge, essentially invalidating their role on the committee.
All votes made by those advisers are also invalidated, including decisions to ban thimerosal (thimerosal) from flu vaccines; ending the recommendation for the combination measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) and chickenpox vaccine; and the end of the universal birth dose recommendation for the hepatitis B vaccine.
The HHS did not respond by press time to the Guardian’s questions about whether ACIP would meet this week and what topics they might take up.
