Seven public health and clinical organizations, led by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), are seeking to remove all the current members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and prohibit the panel from conducting any further meetings.

The current members were not lawfully appointed, said the complaint, filed in US District Court in Massachusetts on January 19. In addition to AAP, the plaintiffs include the American College of Physicians, American Public Health Association, Infectious Diseases Society of America, Massachusetts Public Health Alliance, and Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine.

The Federal Advisory Committee Act requires committees to be “fairly balanced,” and not “inappropriately influenced,” but all were handpicked by US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy to align with and carry out his anti-vaccine views, said the complaint.

The plaintiffs are seeking to immediately stop the next ACIP meeting on February 25-26 and to prevent the panel from holding any future meetings. The meetings “have served as a megaphone for spreading misinformation about immunization and infectious diseases,” which is harming the public and the plaintiffs, said the complaint.

In addition, the organizations are asking the court to invalidate HHS’ January 5 decision to align the US childhood immunization schedule with Denmark’s. The groups also want to toss the panel’s previous votes that:

• Remove the recommendation that all infants receive a birth dose of the hepatitis B vaccine
• Limit the COVID vaccine recommendation to shared clinical decision-making for anyone under age 65
• Require vaccine makers to discontinue the use of thimerosal as a preservative in influenza vaccines

The demands in the January 19 complaint constitute the fourth time the plaintiffs have amended a lawsuit they initially filed in July 2025. That suit alleged that Kennedy had acted arbitrarily and capriciously in making an announcement on X in May that HHS would no longer recommend COVID vaccines for pregnant women and children. The plaintiffs sought to reverse that agency directive.

As the suit has been winding through the legal process, the clinical organizations have been given permission by the court to update their complaint. They have documented numerous changes to the adult and childhood vaccine schedules that they allege are illegal.

An HHS spokeswoman told Medscape Medical News that “AAP’s lawsuit is a baseless attempt to litigate for the interests of the organization’s top corporate donors, which make virtually every vaccine across the CDC immunization schedules.”

The spokeswoman also claimed that “AAP is angry that CDC eliminated corporate influence in vaccine recommendations by reconstituting the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices with leading physicians and public health experts and by accepting recommendations from a comprehensive scientific review of US childhood immunization practices conducted under President Trump’s order to examine international best practices in peer developed countries.”

The federal government has sought to dismiss the case repeatedly.

The US District Court judge has set a hearing for February 13.

Alicia Ault is a Saint Petersburg, Florida-based freelance journalist whose work has appeared in many health and science publications, including Smithsonian.com. You can find her on X @aliciaault and on Bluesky @aliciaault.bsky.social.