Recent "disruptive changes" to vaccine recommendations made by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), "without considering the overwhelming science..." has prompted over a 100 college deans and scholars along with multiple professional organizations to file an amicus brief in a US District Court.1
The brief, filed in February, supports the lawsuit brought in July by the American Academy of Pediatrics and others against Robert F Kennedy Jr, as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. It asserts that changes to the pediatric vaccine schedule, reducing the number of vaccines recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Advisory Committee on Immunization (ACIP) was made without following ACIP's longstanding procedural safeguards.
"Defendants' actions will depress vaccination rates and cause increased vaccine-preventable outbreaks, preventable hospitalizations and unnecessary deaths. Medically underserved communities and the safety-net providers who serve them will disproportionately suffer the consequences," the brief asserts.
In a press release from George Washington University announcing the brief, Anne Markus, chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management and one of the amici, elaborated on the necessity for the filing.2
What You Need to Know
More than 100 academic leaders and professional organizations argue that HHS altered the pediatric vaccine schedule without following ACIP’s established, evidence-based process, undermining the scientific safeguards that have guided US immunization policy for decades.
The brief emphasizes that moving vaccines from the routine schedule to SCDM weakens default preventive care practices, disrupts clear provider-parent communication, and is likely to depress vaccination rates—particularly affecting medically underserved communities.
Amici warn that the changes threaten to reverse major gains in childhood immunization, increasing the risk of vaccine-preventable outbreaks, hospitalizations, and deaths, while also straining providers, pharmacies, and the broader public health infrastructure.
"Recent federal actions weaken the nation's routine vaccine recommendations, which protect people, particularly children, from serious diseases," she stated. "We are asking the court to consider the science backing the vaccine recommendations that were in place in the early months of 2025. Restoring that vaccine schedule would save millions of lives."2
Among the key points and arguments of the brief:
- Changing vaccinations from recommended to SCDM
"The public health difference between placing a vaccine on the routine schedule and SCDM (shared clinical decision-making) is stark. Placing a vaccine on the routine schedule does not create a mandate, but the routine schedule ensures that immunizations will be part of the preventive standard of practice for children and the default approach. SCDM has the opposite effect."
- Changes in routine vaccination ignore substantial scientific evidence
"Defendants have upended the longstanding routine pediatric immunization schedule by forgoing the extensive research on which the schedule rests, abandoning the evidence-based deliberation process that has long guided ACIP's work, and, as a result, disregarding the weight of the evidence concerning the Routine Vaccination Changes."
- Changes in routine vaccination threaten public health
"The lifesaving public health achievements made possible by routine childhood immunizations in the United States risk being undone...There is no evidence that Defendants considered the impact of eliminating routine status for multiple childhood vaccines on any of these critical components of our public health ecosystem."
The affected components of the public health ecosystem described in the brief include providers who must expand consultation time and possibly assume liability to educate on the utility of vaccinations that are no longer recommended; and the pharmacies that no longer have full access to vaccines that have shifted from recommended to SCDM. The brief also includes parents among those affected.
"Parents look to their child's providers for clear vaccine messaging. But HHS's misuse of the SCDM designation sets a dangerous new precedent, forcing provers to abandon the 'presumptive approach' with parents, where a provider informs a parent that shots are due for the child.
"Now, providers may decide not to discuss or recommend the vaccines affected by the Routine Vaccination Changes at all. This is likely to cause confusion among parents," the brief suggests.
References
1. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, American College of Chest Physicians, American Thoracic Society, Network for Public Health Law, & 119 Deans, Chairs, and Public Health and Health Policy Scholars. (2025). Brief of amici curiae in support of plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunction (Amicus brief). American Academy of Pediatrics et al. v. Kennedy et al., No. 1:25‑cv‑11916 (D. Mass.). Accessed February 10, 2026.
