Maryland this week joined a multistate lawsuit against the Trump administration over the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) decision to overhaul the national childhood immunization schedule.
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Maryland this week joined a multistate lawsuit against the Trump administration over the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) decision to overhaul the national childhood immunization schedule.
The suit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for Northern Calfornia, is led by Democratic attorneys general from Arizona and California. They’re joined by Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown (D) and Democratic attorneys general from 11 other states, as well as by Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D).
It names the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and their respective leaders, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and CDC director Jay Bhattacharya.
Last year, Kennedy, a longtime and outspoken vaccine skeptic, removed and replaced all 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Then in January, the CDC issued a new childhood immunization schedule that rescinded the universal recommendations for vaccination against hepatitis A, influenza, meningococcal disease, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and rotavirus. That move followed the CDC dropping universal recommendations for childhood COVID-19 and hepatitis B vaccinations.
Vaccines the CDC previously recommended for all children are now recommended for children with underlying conditions, or as options parents can discuss with doctors.
The lawsuit alleges the CDC’s vaccine panel was unlawfully replaced, and that the new recommendations were illegal, unscientific, and “posed an immediate threat to public health.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical organizations filed a lawsuit last month seeking to block the new recommendations last month.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services called the states’ filing “a publicity stunt dressed up as a lawsuit.”
“By law, the health secretary has clear authority to make determinations on the CDC immunization schedule and the composition of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices,” the spokesperson said. “The CDC immunization schedule reforms reflect common-sense public health policy shared by peer, developed countries.”
Most of the 20 identified peer countries recommend fewer than the 18 childhood immunizations previously advocated for by the CDC. Under the new protocols, the U.S. now recommends fewer vaccines than all but Denmark, which is itself an outlier.
But Brown said Monday that the Trump administration’s “reckless changes to the child vaccine schedule will confuse parents about which shots their children need to stay safe and healthy.”
“As fewer children get vaccinated, preventable and deadly diseases will spread throughout our daycares and schools, sickening families and threatening children’s wellbeing,” Brown said in a prepared statement. “We’re taking the administration to court because our kids’ lives are too important to leave to junk science and conspiracy theories.”
While it’s common for Democratic attorneys general to be more litigious against Republican presidential administrations — and vice versa — Brown has been particularly active. His office had a hand in — leading, co-leading or joining — more than 100 legal actions in the year after President Donald Trump took office, including 51 lawsuits and briefs filed in support of others’ suits.
“I told Marylanders that I believe that chaos was coming from Washington, and it was putting Marylanders and Americans at risk. Well, chaos came,” Brown said in a January interview.
Shapiro, too, has been active in his role as governor, signing on to multiple lawsuits led by Democratic attorneys general. Prior to his election as governor, he served as Pennsylvania’s Attorney General.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday, a Republican, has largely remained quiet on the matters. When asked about the CDC lawsuit by the Capital-Star, a spokesperson for Sunday’s office said, “Generally speaking, the governor’s office has the ability to represent their executive agencies under the Commonwealth Attorneys Act.”