Will Ruling Against RFK Jr.’s Vaccine Policies Stand? Legal Experts Weigh In

3 hours ago

Originally posted by: Children's Health Defense

Monday’s federal court ruling that blocked changes to vaccine recommendations and other actions taken by U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stands a good chance of being overturned on appeal, legal experts told The Defender.

Monday’s ruling stemmed from a lawsuit against Kennedy and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) filed by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American Medical Association and several other groups.

“We are hopeful that another court reviewing this decision recognizes the flaws in Judge [Brian] Murphy’s decision and sees that the ACIP [Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices] was convened and acted in accordance with federal law,” said Kim Mack Rosenberg, general counsel for Children’s Health Defense (CHD).

Attorney Rick Jaffe, who last week filed a brief in support of Kennedy and HHS, said, “We do not believe this order will stand.” Jaffe represents CHD and others in a racketeering lawsuit against the AAP. He told The Defender:

“The government will seek a stay of Murphy’s order. That will probably move before the district court first, as is usually required, and then the 1st Circuit very quickly.

“We expect this case to reach the Supreme Court, as it raises questions about the legal force of the immunization schedules and the scope of Secretary Kennedy’s authority that are nationally significant.”

In a statement issued Monday immediately after the ruling, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said the agency “looks forward to this judge’s decision being overturned just like his other attempts to keep the Trump administration from governing.”

The AAP sought an injunction to block this week’s ACIP meeting and overturn the appointment of 13 new ACIP members named to the committee between June 2025 and January 2026.

ACIP makes recommendations to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC), which then decides to accept or reject them.

The AAP also sought to invalidate all of ACIP’s votes since June 2025, and reverse the changes Kennedy made in January to the CDC’s recommended childhood immunization schedule.

In a ruling handed down late Monday, U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy stayed the March 18-19 ACIP meeting, the appointment of the committee’s new members, and most of the changes to the childhood schedule.

A stay, which pauses an action, is legally distinct from an injunction, which the AAP had sought.

VERY BAD NEWS.
This granting of a preliminary injunction in the lawsuit by AAP against RFK, Jr. means (1) the revised childhood schedule, reduced down to shots for 11 diseases from 18 is NOT revised as of now; (2) the 13 new ACIP members are not the new ACIP members, and (3)… https://t.co/FJT2WeLAsH

— Vaccine Safety Research Foundation (@VacSafety) March 16, 2026

Judge leaves changes to COVID vaccine advice for kids, pregnant women intact

Murphy’s ruling called changes made by Kennedy “arbitrary and capricious” and suggested that Kennedy and HHS ignored “scientific evidence” and “procedural requirements” that “undermined the integrity” of the new policies.

Government lawyers argued that the states — not HHS or CDC — have ultimate authority to enact vaccine recommendations.

Mack Rosenberg said Monday’s ruling “ignores the harms caused by the AAP’s recommended vaccination schedule.” The AAP last year released its own “evidence-based” vaccine schedule in response to Kennedy’s changes to federal vaccine recommendations.

Murphy’s ruling contained a partial win for Kennedy and HHS, as Murphy “declined at this time to block Kennedy’s May order that the CDC stop recommending COVID-19 vaccines for pregnant women and healthy children,” Reuters reported.

According to legal experts, the AAP’s lawsuit against Kennedy and HHS will eventually move to the discovery phase, where AAP will have to present evidence to support its vaccine safety claims.

Markets were mildly positive about the ruling. Moderna shares closed 1.4% higher on Monday. Shares of Pfizer, Merck and GSK closed slightly higher.

‘Practical consequences of Monday’s ruling are serious’

According to Jaffe, Murphy “decided the case on a one-sided record” and not on the merits, and “gave AAP most of what it asked for.”

The New York Times called the ruling “a severe blow to the Trump administration’s health agenda.”

In a pair of Substack posts, ACIP member Dr. Robert Malone wrote that the “practical consequences of Monday’s ruling are serious” and that the “functional effect” of the ruling is “indistinguishable from a nationwide injunction.”

“The administration is once again forced to litigate basic questions of executive authority before a single district court judge in Boston who has demonstrated, more than once, that he is willing to push past the limits of his authority to achieve policy outcomes he prefers,” Malone wrote.

Some suggested that partisan interests motivated Murphy’s ruling.

“Judge Murphy’s decision suggests a partisan bent to bar this Administration from enacting the policies citizens voted for,” said CHD CEO Mary Holland. “CHD expects this ill-considered decision to be overturned on appeal, just as the Supreme Court recently overruled Murphy’s recent immigration decision 7-2.”

The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) last year overturned Murphy’s preliminary injunctions blocking the Trump administration from deporting illegal immigrants to third countries.

Murphy ignored the first of the two rulings, continuing to block the deportations until the SCOTUS overturned his decision for a second time, by a 7-2 margin.

“Murphy’s record speaks for itself,” Malone wrote on Substack. “Now the same judge has turned his sights on public health policy, an area squarely within the executive’s discretionary authority.”

“HHS has signaled it will appeal promptly, and it should,” Malone wrote. “Given the Supreme Court’s prior willingness to intervene swiftly in Murphy’s rulings, an emergency application for a stay is entirely appropriate.”

Terrible Judicial overreach. The fact that the Pharma captured AAP has launched this lawsuit reminds us that for them this has nothing to do with children’s health and also reminds of their continued refusal to recommend proper informed consent as it relates to childhood… https://t.co/EKGSF8xdPe

— Irene Mavrakakis, M.D. (@IreneMavrakakis) March 16, 2026

Ruling may galvanize health and medical freedom advocates

In a separate Substack post, Malone cited another SCOTUS ruling, Trump v. CASA, in which the justices voted 6-3 that lower federal courts lack the authority to issue universal injunctions to block the enforcement of federal policies nationwide.

“The ruling was hailed as a landmark victory for executive authority — and it was,” Malone wrote, adding that Monday’s ruling “reveals the limits of that victory.”

Researcher Leonard Murphy said on Substack the ruling may galvanize health and medical freedom advocates, especially in the run-up to this year’s midterm U.S. congressional elections.

“This isn’t a defeat; it’s likely part of a broader strategy by the Trump administration to solidify executive authority, rally the base, and turn judicial overreach into a midterm rallying cry,” Leonard Murphy wrote.

He projected that HHS will file an “immediate appeal” and this may ultimately lead to a “SCOTUS showdown.”

According to Jaffe, “the appeal is only half the story,” as the government “has not yet filed an answer to AAP’s complaint.”

“When it does, it will have to decide whether to keep playing the procedural defense that just failed or whether to put AAP’s claims on trial, or take a more aggressive path,” Jaffe said.

In a statement, AAP President Andrew Racine called the decision “a historic and welcome outcome for children, communities, and pediatricians everywhere.”

Richard Hughes IV, an attorney for AAP and member of the board of Vaccinate Your Family, told The Guardian the ruling was “a major victory.”

The AAP receives funding from several vaccine manufacturers, including Pfizer, Moderna, Merck and Sanofi.

After the AAP sued Kennedy, the CDC booted the groups from ACIP workgroups on vaccine policy. Last year, the AAP called for an end to religious and philosophical vaccine exemptions for children.

This article was funded by critical thinkers like you.

The Defender is 100% reader-supported. No corporate sponsors. No paywalls. Our writers and editors rely on you to fund stories like this that mainstream media won’t write.

Please Donate Today

Briefs detailed deaths of children after doctors followed AAP guidelines

Last week, Jaffe and CHD filed separate amicus briefs in support of HHS and Kennedy. Both briefs asked the court not to grant a preliminary injunction to the AAP.

An amicus curiae — or “friend of the court” — brief can be filed by a person or group who is not a party to a legal matter but has a strong interest in its outcome.

CHD filed its amicus brief along with two physicians and two parents of vaccine-injured children. They, along with CHD, are co-plaintiffs in an ongoing lawsuit accusing the AAP of operating a racketeering scheme to defraud the American public by concealing the risks of the childhood vaccination schedule.

Mack Rosenberg said the lawsuit against AAP “details decades of malfeasance harming innumerable children and families.”

“The AAP callously argued in this case that their members are harmed by having to take the time to discuss vaccines with their patients and purportedly lose money because they cannot run vaccine shops in which children just cycle through without true informed consent. This should give every parent pause,” Mack Rosenberg said.

Jaffe’s amicus brief referenced many of the arguments made by the plaintiffs in CHD’s lawsuit against the AAP — including that the AAP sought to conceal the results of two Institute of Medicine (IOM) studies questioning the safety of the childhood vaccination schedule.

The studies by IOM — now known as the National Academy of Medicine — were published in 2002 and 2013. They called for more research after finding that no studies had been conducted that compared the health outcomes of vaccinated and unvaccinated children.

Jaffe said Murphy’s ruling ignored these facts, which included the vaccine-related deaths of three children whose parents joined CHD’s amicus brief. Those children died shortly after receiving routine vaccinations.

In both instances, doctors ignored signs about potential adverse events to vaccinate the children in accordance with AAP recommendations.

“The public interest analysis is one paragraph,” Jaffe said of Murphy’s ruling. “The families harmed by the schedule AAP wants restored are invisible in this opinion. The merits record tells a very different story than the one in today’s order.”

“As attorney Rick Jaffe points out, Murphy’s decision tragically ignores the real parties in interest here — the children subjected to both the HHS and AAP vaccine recommendations,” Holland said.

“The plaintiffs in CHD’s racketeering lawsuit against AAP — Andrea Shaw and Shanticia Nelson — experienced the deaths of their beautiful young children by following the AAP’s reckless, unscientific and fraudulent vaccine recommendations,” Holland said.

Last month, CHD and the four physicians and parents filed an emergency motion to intervene in the AAP’s lawsuit against Kennedy and HHS, arguing that the court must also hear from people injured by previous U.S. vaccine policy.

Earlier this month, Murphy denied the motion. Legal experts suggested that CHD is likely to challenge this denial.

Related articles in The Defender