Kennedy’s vaccine agenda takes a major blow 

A court ruling on Monday dealt a heavy blow to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s efforts to transform America’s vaccine policy, just as the White House is reportedly losing interest in the project.

U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy granted a preliminary injunction on the reduced childhood immunization schedule Kennedy issued at the start of this year, as well as his appointment of more than a dozen new members to the vaccine advisory panel for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

In one fell swoop, the ruling effectively nullified all the recommendations the panel had voted on since being stacked with vaccine skeptics, canceled any upcoming meetings and undid Kennedy’s sweeping vaccine policy changes over the past year.

“From our perspective, this was one of the most consequential cases around public health in a very long time,” Alison Barkoff, director of the Hirsh Health Law and Policy Program at George Washington University, told The Hill.

Barkoff was a signatory on an amicus brief filed by public health policy scholars and deans in support of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the plaintiffs in the case against Kennedy’s vaccine policies.

The brief argued that changing the immunization schedule and altering long-held recommendations like the birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine both went against prevailing scientific evidence.

When discussing the immunization change in his ruling, Murphy concluded that the update also went against the Administrative Procedures Act when it was enacted without input from the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). When explaining the schedule, the HHS argued it brought the U.S. in line with peer nations like Denmark, though the two countries have different populations and health care systems.

“What the Administrative Procedures Act is really about … in a big picture is that when government makes decisions, they have to explain why. They have to justify it and show their thinking. And that is exactly what did not happen here,” Barkoff said.

Barkoff said if the HHS appeals the ruling, as agency spokesperson Andrew Nixon indicated it would, Murphy’s ruling would likely hold up in circuit court, but she noted “if the Supreme Court took it, it is much harder to predict.”

Amid these setbacks for Kennedy are growing reports that the White House is growing increasingly disinterested and even frustrated with the secretary’s goals of rehauling vaccine guidance.

President Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, recently commented on the relationship between the president and Kennedy at an event hosted by the Courier Newsroom and 314 Action, a political action committee dedicated to getting Democrats in STEM elected to office.

“It’s really important to remember every single relationship Donald has is transactional,” Mary Trump said. “His primary and perhaps only belief is that he is the greatest, the best … he knows more than the generals, he knows more than the doctors — and people like Robert Kennedy have figured out that the easiest way to get what they want is to make Donald believe they can do something for him.”

For President Trump, his link to Kennedy may not be offering strong returns, especially ahead of a midterm election cycle where Democrats stand to reclaim control of Congress.

According to two White House officials who spoke with Stat in a report published last week, the White House is “just kind of done with the vaccine issue.”

The Wall Street Journal similarly reported recently that the White House is taking more of an active role in the HHS as administration officials grow frustrated with unpopular decisions from the department.

Despite his stated aim of restoring public confidence in institutions like the CDC, surveys from this year found that Kennedy has fallen short of achieving this during his first year in office.

Polling from the Annenberg Public Policy Center found that 38 percent of respondents expressed confidence in Kennedy providing public health information, with only 9 percent of those saying they were “very confident.” By comparison, 54 percent said they were confident in former White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci, with 25 percent saying they were very confident in him.

When asked to comment on these reports and the recent ruling by Murphy, the White House did not mention vaccines.

“Just as the Administration did last year, this year the Administration continues to focus on food, nutrition, and other lifestyle issues that are driving America’s chronic disease epidemic,” a White House official said in a statement to The Hill when reached for comment.

The Hill has reached out to the HHS for comment.

Peter Pitts, co-founder of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest and former associate commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration under the second Bush presidency, said the ruling Monday was more limited than some of the reactions from Kennedy’s critics suggest.

“The judge ruled, I think appropriately, that the Secretary Kennedy did not follow the proper procedures relative to public health policy, not that that public health policy was wrong, but that the way that he got there was inappropriate,” Pitts told The Hill.

“I don’t think that it is as complete a victory for sanity and public health that people think it is,” he added.

Additionally, Pitts said even if Murphy’s ruling held true throughout the appeals process and the CDC was compelled to reappoint the ACIP once again to the satisfaction of legal authorities, it still wouldn’t be enough to course correct Kennedy’s actions.

“The secretary can do a number of things. For example, he could go back and reinstate every member of every CDC committee who are more or less very pro-vaccine and still do what he wants to do,” Pitts said, noting that while the panel endorses recommendations, the director of the CDC and Kennedy are under no obligation to adopt them.

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