| |  | The Lead Brief | A federal judge on Monday temporarily halted some of the Trump administration’s sweeping changes to vaccine policy, including the rollback in recommendations to the childhood vaccination schedule imposed earlier this year. While the ruling is not yet final, it represents an initial blow to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vision of overhauling the federal government’s position on immunizations. Kennedy, who had founded a prominent anti-vaccine group, fired all the members of a federal vaccine advisory panel that discusses and makes recommendations on vaccines, and replaced them with his handpicked selections. A collection of medical and public health organizations led by the American Academy of Pediatrics has sued the administration, accusing Kennedy of “inappropriately” influencing a key vaccine advisory committee by packing it with unqualified experts who hold anti-vaccine views. Kenndy has argued that the panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), had historically been tainted by conflicts of interest, saying it had been a “rubber stamp” for vaccine manufacturers. Attorneys for the government have argued that Kennedy has the authority to appoint and remove members at his discretion. On Monday, Judge Brian E. Murphy of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts wrote that some of the “the newly appointed members appear distinctly unqualified” to handle issues related to the use of vaccines to prevent illness and had not gone through the “rigorous screening that had been the hallmark of ACIP member selection for decades.” Murphy also writes that the federal government’s unilateral sweeping changes to the childhood vaccination schedule announced in January, which reduced the recommended number of shots from 17 to 11 for all children, improperly bypassed the federal vaccine advisory committee. Going around the panel is itself a “technical, procedural failure,” Murphy writes, and a “strong indication of something more fundamentally problematic: an abandonment of the technical knowledge and expertise embodied by that committee.” → Read more from WaPo: My colleagues Lena H. Sun and Rachel Roubein in The Washington Post newsroom have more details about the policies that could be impacted. Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, said the department “looks forward to this judge’s decision being overturned just like his other attempts to keep the Trump administration from governing.” SHIFTING STANDARDS Public health groups and medical organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, have moved forward with their own set of vaccine recommendations in the wake of the government’s shift away from the long-standing immunization schedule. Some states have also broken from the long-standing practice of following federal vaccine guidelines, instead leaning on the recommendations of medical and public health groups. “From the standpoint of the children and the families of this country, they owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Judge Murphy, because he has now injected a degree of clarity into what we should be doing with regard to vaccine recommendations that was a little bit muddy up until now,” Andrew Racine, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, told reporters in a briefing Monday. What it means: ACIP was scheduled to meet this week to discuss vaccine injuries stemming from the covid-19 shot and long covid. That’s now postponed. “This is a significant victory for public health, evidence-based medicine, the rule of law, and the American people,” said Richard H. Hughes IV, an attorney for the plaintiffs at Epstein Becker & Green. What to watch: “Probably within the next month and a half, we're likely to be in front of the judge in Boston at a status conference determining how we’ll proceed,” Hughes told reporters Monday, referring to a meeting that happens before a trial to discuss the contours of the case. If the government does appeal, “I would expect that would come very quickly,” Hughes said, anticipating that it could ultimately reach the Supreme Court. “A lot of this fight will play out between now and June,” he said. | 
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