Six leading medical organizations plan to ask the courts to throw out revisions to the childhood vaccination schedule announced last week by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other federal officials.
Mr. Kennedy and his appointees reduced the number of diseases prevented under routine childhood immunization recommendations to 11 from 17. The new schedule recommends that vaccines against six diseases — including hepatitis A and B, rotavirus and the flu — be given to most children only after consultation with a health care provider.
The medical groups say those changes are not based on scientific evidence and will be harmful to the public.
The medical organizations also intend to ask the courts to block a late February meeting of federal vaccine advisers handpicked by Mr. Kennedy. A federal court in western Massachusetts has set Feb. 13 as the date for an initial hearing on the lawsuit.
“These organizations continue with their attempts to hinder this administration’s work through procedural and legal challenges,” said Andrew Nixon, a spokesman for the Health and Human Services Department.
Mr. Nixon said the vaccine advisory committee “continues to operate lawfully and transparently, and its next meeting is scheduled to proceed in February.”
The plaintiffs include the American Public Health Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, the American College of Physicians, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine and the Massachusetts Public Health Alliance.
The groups plan next week to amend an existing lawsuit over decisions by federal health officials to limit access to Covid vaccines.
In a separate lawsuit against H.H.S., the pediatrics academy also alleged that the department cut millions of dollars in grants because the group criticized the administration’s actions. A district court on Monday blocked the cuts from taking effect while the case proceeds.
The six vaccines dropped last week from the routine vaccination schedule are still available to any child with a health care provider’s approval. And immunization requirements for entry into day care and schools are enforced by states, not the federal government.
Still, federal health officials bypassed the months- or even years-long process that usually underlies decisions about vaccines, said Richard H. Hughes IV, a lawyer who teaches vaccine law at George Washington University and is leading the legal efforts.
“We are doing this because it is such an obvious, egregious and unlawful act that threatens public health that we believe it warrants the court’s intervention to stop it,” Mr. Hughes said.
A federal panel of independent advisers typically reviews scientific data for each new vaccine, and when and how it should be administered to children, before making recommendations. In June, Mr. Kennedy fired all 17 members of that committee and replaced them with several members who share his skepticism of vaccines.
In its three meetings last year, the new advisory panel rescinded recommendations for some flu vaccines containing thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative that has falsely been linked to autism; a birth dose for all newborns for hepatitis B; and a combination vaccine against mumps, measles, rubella and chickenpox for children under 4.
It limited access to Covid vaccines as well, including for adults 65 and older, recommending that they first consult with a health care provider. At a meeting in December, the members signaled that they also would question the use of aluminum salts, which are added to vaccines to enhance immune responses.
Apoorva Mandavilli reports on science and global health for The Times, with a focus on infectious diseases and pandemics and the public health agencies that try to manage them.
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