Appeals Court Weighs Whether Kennedy’s Vaccine Advisers Can Return to Work

BOSTON, Oct. 6 (TodayViralUSA) — A federal appeals court on Tuesday weighed the Trump administration’s request to lift an order that has kept Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s handpicked vaccine advisers from serving, leaving the government’s main immunization panel unable to meet for months.

Justice Department lawyer Matthew Zorn told a three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that the lower-court ruling had effectively sidelined the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccine policy. “We’re asking the court to vacate the order on the appointments so that the secretary can reconstitute the committee and get it back to work,” Zorn said, according to Reuters. The court did not rule from the bench.

How the dispute began

Kennedy last year removed all 17 independent experts on the committee and replaced them with his own selections. The American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical groups sued, also challenging other changes to vaccine policy under his leadership.

In a March 16 order, U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy found that Kennedy had not complied with the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires such panels to be fairly balanced, and had instead chosen “distinctly unqualified” members. The judge blocked 13 appointees from serving, halted the CDC’s Jan. 5 decision to reduce the number of routinely recommended childhood vaccines and set aside votes taken by the reconstituted panel, including moves to scale back hepatitis B shots for newborns and broad COVID-19 vaccination.

The administration chose not to appeal those other parts of the ruling and is challenging only the block on the appointees. It argues the order has stripped the committee of the quorum it needs to make recommendations on flu shots and other vaccines, because any new members would likely need court approval.

Judges question the order

Some members of the appeals panel raised concerns about how Murphy framed his order. Chief Judge David Barron said it offered no explanation of why blocking the appointees was legally justified. “It’s hard to know precisely what harm this relief was designed to address,” he said.

Andrew Pincus, a lawyer for the medical groups, urged the court to leave the order in place, arguing that keeping the 13 members off the committee provides “important protection for America’s public health.”

The committee has not met since Murphy’s ruling and has already canceled two meetings. A session scheduled for Oct. 21 to 23 is likely to be called off as well if the panel is not reconstituted before then, raising questions about how federal vaccine guidance will be updated heading into the respiratory virus season.