A fresh courtroom clash is brewing over America’s childhood immunization policy. A coalition of Democratic-led states is suing the Trump administration, accusing it of dismantling long-settled vaccine safeguards and exposing children to preventable disease.
The legal challenge targets sweeping revisions issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which recently altered the nation’s recommended immunization schedule. The updated guidance removes universal recommendations for vaccines covering COVID-19, rotavirus, influenza, meningococcal disease, hepatitis A and hepatitis B. Instead, the agency now advises what it describes as “shared clinical decision-making,” urging parents to consult healthcare providers before proceeding.
The overhaul follows months of turbulence at the Department of Health and Human Services under Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has reshaped federal vaccine policy since taking office.
The lawsuit, spearheaded by the attorneys general of California and Arizona, is being filed in federal court in Northern California. Fourteen states, along with Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, have joined the action. Participating states include Connecticut, Michigan, New Jersey and Wisconsin, among others.
At the heart of the dispute is more than just the immunization schedule. The complaint also challenges Kennedy’s reconstitution of the CDC’s influential Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices — the expert panel that guides national vaccine recommendations. The committee is expected to convene in March after a previously scheduled February meeting was abruptly canceled.
State officials argue that the changes risk reversing decades of public health progress. They contend that scaling back universal recommendations could depress vaccination rates, strain state health systems and reignite outbreaks of diseases once considered rare.
“States bear the burden when prevention falters,” one attorney general said during a press briefing, warning that public health departments may be forced to divert funds to outbreak control, treatment efforts and countering vaccine misinformation.
Federal health officials have defended the CDC’s revisions, saying the new framework protects children while aligning U.S. policy more closely with international norms. They declined to comment directly on the pending litigation.
The multistate suit echoes a separate legal challenge already brought by the American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical organizations in Massachusetts federal court. A ruling in that case is still pending.
For now, the battle over the nation’s vaccine playbook moves from advisory rooms in Atlanta to a federal courtroom — where judges, not doctors, will weigh the future of America’s immunization strategy.
