RFK Jr.’s new vaccine panel rules may help sidestep court order, experts say

New rules approved by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could blunt the impact of a federal judge’s order freezing the CDC’s ACIP.

New rules approved by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could blunt the impact of a federal judge’s order freezing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee and putting many of its decisions on hold, experts say.

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The changes were posted online Thursday in a new charter for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP — the document that lays out how the panel is supposed to operate. The CDC is required to review and renew the charter every two years, although it rarely makes significant changes.

The charter was posted nearly a month after a Massachusetts federal judge, in a lawsuit brought by the American Academy of Pediatrics and several other medical organizations, halted Kennedy’s remade ACIP and reversed many of the vaccine policy changes the panel had made over the last year — a move that adds further confusion over vaccine policy in the U.S. The judge said the committee’s members, many of whom are critical of vaccines, appeared to be “distinctly unqualified” to serve on the panel. The Department of Health and Human Services hasn’t yet appealed the ruling, but it has 60 days to do so.