Plaintiffs argue federal officials bypassed advisory panel process and warn of potential public health consequences.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
California and 14 other states filed suit on Feb. 24 against federal health agencies and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., challenging recent revisions to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s childhood vaccine schedule.
In a complaint filed in federal court in Northern California, the states allege that federal officials violated federal law by downgrading recommendations for six vaccines in January without first consulting the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel. The plaintiffs outlined their claims in a filing available through DocumentCloud.
The updated CDC schedule “will damage public health by decreasing vaccine uptake and increasing rates of vaccine-preventable diseases, including by creating confusion, spreading misinformation contrary to established scientific evidence, and increasing vaccine hesitancy,” the states wrote in the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs also objected to changes affecting hepatitis B vaccination guidance at birth for children born to women who tested negative for hepatitis B. They are asking the court to enjoin the revised schedule.
The Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC’s parent agency, has declined to comment on the litigation.
The new lawsuit follows a separate legal challenge filed in 2025 by health organizations seeking to block both the revised schedule and Kennedy’s restructuring of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy, who heard arguments in that case in Boston earlier this month, has not yet ruled. He is considering whether to allow Children’s Health Defense—an organization previously founded by Kennedy—to intervene in support of the government.
In court filings in that case, government attorneys argued that the revised vaccine schedule was reasonably updated based on recommendations from senior health officials, including Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, acting director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.
Hoeg stated in a comparison memorandum available via DocumentCloud that a review ordered by President Donald Trump found the United States to be a global outlier among peer nations in routinely recommending vaccines against hepatitis A and certain other diseases.
A separate memorandum signed by then-CDC Acting Director Jim O’Neill, also posted on DocumentCloud, said the update was intended to increase public trust in vaccines.
Federal officials have also defended Kennedy’s replacement of advisory committee members, stating that the changes were lawful and that members represent a range of professional backgrounds offering “complex and nuanced perspectives.”
The attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin—all Democrats—joined the suit, along with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, also a Democrat.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said during an online briefing that the federal changes “harm public health and they strain state resources by sowing doubt and confusion in vaccines and in science.”
He added that without court intervention, “California will be forced to expend resources, to treat once rare diseases, to respond to outbreaks, and to combat misinformation.”
The case now proceeds in federal court as the states seek an injunction to halt implementation of the revised schedule while the legal challenge is pending.
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